My tile came today! yippee! There it is, in four small boxes. Wow. It's so beautiful!!! Unfortunately it's late at night and dark and the flash and the 60w bulbs don't do it justice. I'll try to see if I can get better color tomorrow during the day. Needless to say the color is a lot less avocado and a lot more fluorescent - as in - my favorite color green! And the blogger image isn't as good as the photoshop image anyway.
It was a very long and somewhat productive day, finishing up at Home Depot (doin' my part for the economy, as usual) and Trader Joe's. At Home Depot I picked up a lot of paint swatches because I really need to decide what color to make the bathroom - although, I'm leaning towards plain white to set off the tiles and the wood.
Then again, doesn't that aubergine look beautiful with the green tile? (sigh) I just think that's a bit much with the blue wall and the orange hallway… oo - maybe I could make the ceiling that color?! Wow that would be something…
So, yes, I went to Home Depot today to see what I could see. I wanted:
foam for the basement(I'll explain shortly)
staples for the staple gun
molding for the second floor door
and I wanted to inform myself about fridges and washers and dryers.
Okay fine. Picked up foam and staples and went to check out the appliances. I found the fridge I want, upside down, white, with a funny freezer on the bottom. (There's a door that opens instead of a drawer.) It's smaller, only 20cu.ft. but I think that's okay - I'm actually surprised at how often my fridge is empty. I think this is a good thing - it means I'm not being to wasteful with food and I eat what I purchase. Good. While I was looking for the fridge, I found almost the same model my grandmother had! Upside down (freezer on the bottom). It's too bad it's only 10cu.ft., which works well in Germany for retired people who can go to the market everyday to pick up fresh food, but I don't think would work well for me after a while. It's still as cute as ever, and the freezer is a bit more convenient with three drawers rather than one drawer and a tray. Hmm.
I also asked about washer/dryers - and the turquoise one's I want are good. :) I might just get them. If I open a Home Depot charge card I can save 10%. This would be very good.
Now, if good things come in small packages, do bad things come in big packages?
I had someone come out and do an environmental audit of my house. After my $783.- heating bill last month - something had to be done. Lee the fabulous electrician recommended Joe - the fabulous sustainable environmentalist, who audits people's houses for a living and gives recommendations on what to do to fix things. He's also the first person who has really explained what "tightening" up a house means! I get it now. But it also makes me want to curl up on the floor and cry my eyes out. It means so much work. :(
Basically what we want is less air
flow in the house. Now I know what a drafty "West Philly" house means because I have one! The house will be more efficient when I block off all the leaks of cold air into the house - which basically equals the warm air out of the house. So in addition to putting the fiberglass in the basement, I now have to use that horrible spray foam. The foam needs to go between the edge of the floor and the wall of the house. Because there is a gap in the walls that allows (even at 1") enough cold air in the basement to flow through the walls that they are cold. Thus, all of the spray foam at Home Depot. So maybe I'll get to that this weekend. But the other things that need to be done (so far) are to spray fibercell into the walls, once the spray foam is done. This can be done by poking a small hole in the wall and spraying the stuff in. Good. I also have to spray insulation into the attic crawl space. So far that's all I know. Joe has to come back next Friday to do the rest of the audit. This involves putting up a big fan and measuring the volume of the house and the difference in air flow in and out of the house. Sounds like complicated math to me. At any rate - the bottom line seams to be - I have a ton of work ahead of me to get this house tightened up so that that ridiculous heating bill comes down.
On that note. I think Jacques is cold.
Poor baby. He's been very very cuddly lately, and tonight especially, sitting on my shins just didn't seem to be doing it. He decided a better spot was between me and the chair. I'm fine with this arrangement too - he's very warm.
With Jacques help (and Leah's too) I managed to move back into the second floor. Leah helped with the furniture and Jacques helped with the decision of the rug and warming up the chairs.
I bought Jacques a toy at IKEA today but he's not really excited about it. It's a pink tube that makes too much noise for comfort. I've put catnip and some other comfort spray in it, so maybe in the next few days we'll be excited about it. 
It is so exciting to have things so close to how you want them. :)
Here they are, complete with new dusty footprints and everything. Don't worry the floor was completely dry before either of us walked on it.
Isn't it lovely? That Henry Sanding Floor - he does an amazing job. Showed up at my house at 5:45 last night to finish up.
There is still a ton of work to be done (what a surprise) - so stay tuned.
Well, we're about to do the floors. And boy do they need it. 
I called Jeff after the tile came. He was thrilled, but can't come until the first week of March. 
PS: I had a dream about the aubergine ceiling in the bathroom. Somehow, I was being served tea by the lady who runs the store that sells the paper marbling stuff in Seattle. I've never met her, but in my dream she is a nice old lady with steel gray curly hair in a calico dress and white apron. As she poured me a cup of tea she told me I should paint the ceiling aubergine and then throw gold dust on the wet paint. :)
I've been threatening to do this blog post for a while now:
I can't really tell if this is better color or not.
My tile came today! yippee! There it is, in four small boxes. Wow. It's so beautiful!!! Unfortunately it's late at night and dark and the flash and the 60w bulbs don't do it justice. I'll try to see if I can get better color tomorrow during the day. Needless to say the color is a lot less avocado and a lot more fluorescent - as in - my favorite color green! And the blogger image isn't as good as the photoshop image anyway.
Then again, doesn't that aubergine look beautiful with the green tile? (sigh) I just think that's a bit much with the blue wall and the orange hallway… oo - maybe I could make the ceiling that color?! Wow that would be something…
Poor baby. He's been very very cuddly lately, and tonight especially, sitting on my shins just didn't seem to be doing it. He decided a better spot was between me and the chair. I'm fine with this arrangement too - he's very warm.
After:
I remember when we used to have two holidays in February - Lincoln's Birthday and Washington's Birthday. Sure do miss those days.
Well, just in case you are wondering, I did my Michelin Man impersonation down in the basement for many hours this weekend. A full Tyvek suit, goggles, dust mask gloves - the whole nine yards, kept me mostly safe from the dirt and fiberglass. I'm three quarters of the way done, but out of staples. It was a good time to break anyway because I've finally figured out the absolute best abdominal work out: Keep your arms straight up in the air and pull fiberglass insulation over pipes, wires, joists, struts, beams and heating ducts- and then keep them up a bit longer to use a staple gun to staple the insulation to the joists. Whew - I am feeling it!
I finished my new hat yesterday evening before going to Mary's party. Sorry about the weird picture. I just couldn't crop or adjust this one in photoshop. The color is very yellow and I should have cropped it, but it was so artsy - I decided to leave it as it was. I've been sitting at my computer for about three hours now, I don't know why I wasn't wearing my hat!? It's so much warmer with it on! 
I cannot get it together today. I have been procrastinating on insulating that basement pretty seriously. Couldn't get down there yesterday for one reason or another, and today it's already 11:40 and I'm still putzing on the second floor!
I couldn't' wait. As you can see in this image the floor still needs to be done, but I couldn't wait to put some of my things back and have my kitchen back in order. Imagine beautiful hardwood floors and you get the idea. I'll have to move everything again when the floors are being sanded, but in the meantime I get to have a happy kitchen.
We started stuffing insulation between the joists from the back of the house. This is underneath the first floor kitchen that I've had to shut off because it is so cold. I put plastic on the windows, hung a heavy drape over the back door, shut the heating vent and put another heavy drape over the doorway. (There's no door at this moment or it would be shut.) That room has been a little icebox from the beginning and since I don't use it that much, I thought shutting it off would help my heating bill. Nope. 
There it is, my blue wall - finally! It only took three gallons of paint to get it right. The first one the guy mixed the wrong color, the second gallon was simply not as cool as on the swatch, and the third one is just right. This photo has the flash on, so it's not quite right in the picture. The color of the wall is that beautiful ceramic cobalt blue. (Like the toilet I wanted) I still need to put one more layer of paint on, but after all the hiccups from this morning I think I'm going to sit down and watch a movie! I'm pooped. 
I've been looking everywhere for the right color. Cobalt blue does not seem to be in style at the moment. I thought I'd gotten the right color, and the swatch is really nice, but the color is so different when you get the whole wall painted. In the picture above you can see the old color with the new color swatch painted on top of it. Look how dusty the old color looks. The new color is so much more vibrant. Matches the fan better too! I thought I had finished the wall last night, and in night-time-light the wall looked fine. But in morning-sunshine-light it looked awful.
All the walls are primed! I was going to be super woman and keep painting - then I remembered that I need to lug a 5 gallon container of paint up here and I caved. I painted pretty much all day so I think I did quite well. There were a few more things that needed spackling - those will be dry on Friday, and I'm not really sure how to proceed with the painting anyway. I think the best plan in to paint everything else white - and then paint the blue wall. But I need to mull that one over in my mind. I was told by several people to add color to the primer for the blue wall, thus the lavender wall at the moment. It's not bad - not great, but not bad. 
While I was working on getting the grate to fit, I peered down the heating duct.
They grew over the day because the sun melted the snow which dripped, but it was cold enough for the water to re-freeze. There was also a soft wind and it would blow the powdery snow from the roof making it look as though someone had thrown a handful of silver glitter into the air. Every snowflake shimmered and sparkled in the sunlight.
But look how beautiful it is.
I love the seasons of my back yard. The snow is thick and powdery. Mr. El and his helper had already shoveled in front of my house so I didn't have to do that. I need to pick up some more salt this weekend though. . .
One thing I've wanted to see from the moment I moved in is snow on the tree. I love snow on evergreens. The cedar trees by the museum last night were heavy with snow, just gorgeous.
He followed me to the shed to see what I was up to - telling me all the while how much he didn't like the snow on his paws and making the dogs absolutely nuts.
Aren't they cute? That's Girlie in the middle with her cute ears. 
It was supposed to snow all night last night and we should have been snowed in by this morning. This would have meant a snow day for me. But alas, upon waking up, there was barely a dusting on the ground. So off to work I went
Dare I hope for a snow day tomorrow?
For one thing - winterizing needed to be done. I spent most of today putting plastic up on the windows of the first floor. I'd also bought upholstery fabric (a really great green) from JoMar for about $4/yard, and I put heavy drapes up to help insulate the first floor. This is where the thermometer is - and I'm hoping to drop that insane heating bill! I think I still need to do the bathroom but it's not as drafty as the front rooms.
Too bad I didn't have time to work on this more. I'll do some more tomorrow - come hell or high water. I did prime behind the sink and stove area - but that's about it.
Don't miss little Jacques' inspection on the bottom shelf. How cute is that?