Dry Ice, Asbestos and a DIY-Crazed Lunatic

What can go wrong, right?

Remember this pic from a couple posts ago? Well, this is what the floors look like when the asbestos tiles come off easily. What they look like when the tiles won't come off at all, well that's a whole different deal. For whatever reason, the tiles in the foyer have made it very clear that they have no intention of parting ways with our beautiful 100 year-old hardwood floors. The solution? Dry ice. Mike is on his way to pick 100 lbs. of it as I type.

Will post on the progress when there is some.

God Bless America

Please thank a serviceman or woman today. Old, young, active, retired - it doesn't matter. Chances are they don't hear it very often.

Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. -Adlai Stevenson

The Boy in the Bubble

Well, we're all sealed up. Cullen came down with a cold, so we decided to quarantine him until Finn's first day of school had passed.

I'm just kidding.

Mike has been (very) hard at work scraping 50 year-old asbestos tiles off the better part of our entire first floor. His hands are covered in blisters. Hasn't been an easy task. He sealed up the areas he was working in so the dust from the tiles wouldn't get to the rest of the house. I talked to a contractor once who told me that for the asbestos to be harmful we'd have to grind it up and eat the dust for breakfast. Ha. Even if that's true, I think we'll err on the side of caution with this one.

Our floor guys are coming today to give us the estimate for refinishing the floors. This is what they (and we) are up against:

Kinda makes you want to cry, doesn't it? Why? WHY would ANYONE do this to hardwood floors!?! Of course, fifty years from now the house's new owner will probably be cursing us over our faux tin ceiling. So it's all relative, I guess.

Project of the Moment - Update

I finally decided on a paint color for the craigslist bureau. After testing many, many different shades of what a normal person would call off-white, I settled on Benjamin Moore's Monterey White...

Obviously I had a little "help" with the paint testing :) Big mistake. For DAYS now Cullen has been walking around saying "I pain," "I pain."

I'm also going to try painting the casters before deciding whether or not to replace them. So, we'll see how that goes this weekend. Unfortunately, the pulls I picked out are on back-order for two weeks...

I really like them and it was very difficult to find the right style in a size bigger than 2", so they're worth waiting for. Will (hopefully) post the finished product in another week or two.

All Doom and Gloom

That's what this blog feels like lately! Okay, no more talk of death and dying. This blog is starting to feel like Season 4 of Party of Five.

Well, how's THIS for something un-gloomy? (keep in mind I didn't say it was pretty, I said it was un-gloomy):

This is the wallpaper that was ALL OVER the house when we bought it (yes, we still bought it). Some said the lead paint should've changed our minds, others said the asbestos-tile floors...most said the wallpaper.

Luckily, almost all signs of the Sunflowers from Hell are gone. The kitchen wallpaper is long gone and Mike started scraping the mudroom walls last week. So, the reign of the evil sunflowers is just about over! Oh happy day!

I'm thinking of framing a little piece of this wallpaper for old times' sake. You know, like Uncle Jesse did with the pink bunnies on Full House? I'm also thinking that I heart sitcoms of the 80's and 90's.

Slow Going

Well, things haven't exactly been moving right along as of late. We spent most of last weekend cleaning out the cellar. Very fun in a 111 year-old house full of 111 year-old dirt. Luckily, my cleaning-machine mother-in-law was there to give us the kick in the butt we always seem to need on "clean-up days." The cellar had to be emptied so that the formal living room/dining room and foyer could be emptied. Those rooms had to be emptied so we can finally, FINALLY get the floors done! Til then, this is what these rooms look like:

Almost pretty.

And, to top off our dirt-filled weekend, my grandfather passed away on Sunday night after a very long, very brave battle with cancer. This grandfather was instrumental in allowing for me and Mike to have the opportunity to purchase the Big Yellow House. While I know he was very happy for us and knew how much we appreciated his help, I really regret not having been able to show him the "finished product" before he left us. Rest in peace, finally.

Inspiration - It Really CAN Come from Anywhere

Meet my grandmother...

Well, my grandmother as she looked 40-something years ago. She would probably kill me if she knew I posted a picture of her in her bathing suit on the Internet. But sadly, she passed away a couple years ago and anyway, she was HOT!

This picture has been sitting on my desk at work since the day after she passed away. I look at it constantly (for many different reasons). One thing I've recently noticed about this pic are the colors...they're beautiful! The black and white bathing suit, together with the coral blanket make for a really nice color combination.

I've been trying to come up with a good spot in my house to try using these colors. So, for inspiration I did some googling...

and then I realized, I really like coral. It brightens EVERYTHING. Now, this room could benefit from a little coral, eh?

Not that it's not beautiful - it is. But it just seems less "happy" than the other pics. I think I'll start with small doses and see how it goes...