Fallen

Look, Autumn – I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but I concede that you’re aesthetically pleasing.  It doesn’t mean I like winter, though – got it?

Winterey

I had to wear gloves and a balaclava on my ride to work this morning, and now there’s snow falling outside.  It seems appropriate, then, that we’re mailing in our application for federal weatherization funding tomorrow.  Thanks for the blown-in wall insulation, President Obama!

To Shane (in the comments): You’re right, although technically I owe more thanks to (1) China, for extending us more credit, and  (2) my daughter, for taking on the investment.

Streetscape

We live very near a business district.  “Very near,” as in, I can see the stoplight from the porch without leaning over the railing.  There’s  potential for hipness – independent cafes!  used bookstores!  ethnic restaurants!  cool people walking around! – but at the moment, it’s all potential.

At our neighborhood meeting last week, a representative from the city told us about the results of a community survey, and I think I like what I hear.  The plan over the next few years is to re-zone the 10-12 blocks of business district into two ends of concentrated business with a new residential area in between.  Preferably row houses or small condos over rental apartments, although the city wouldn’t have a lot of say in what a developer would plan to build.  We’d still be able to see the stoplight from our porch, but instead of an insurance agency, a possibly-out-of-business dentist’s office, and lots of storefronts for rent, we’d see homes.

And check this out.  The street will be undergoing some major resurfacing in the next two years (i.e., those empty storefronts aren’t going to be filled anytime soon), and the city is re-doing the sidewalks and lightpoles at the same time.  We’ll be getting new signage as well, including notes that drivers and pedestrians are entering an historic district.

There are things I don’t like about our neighborhood now, but I’m reminded often that there’s a lot I wouldn’t trade.  That, plus a lot of potential hipness, makes me happy we bought where we did.

Zoo

There’s a squirrel chirping inside our wall.  Chirping happily away, inside our first-floor wall.  Ugh.

Update: No wait.  There are two, and they’re talking.

Paul David Plumbing

Christopher over at Shaker Heights Restoration had a terrible experience with Paul David of Paul David’s Plumbing.  I’m linking to it because (1) I’m an empathetic guy and I commiserate, and (2) more links will put his review higher in the Google results.  I think that’s the way Google works anyway – but I don’t really understand the internet.

Up, up and away

The first two weeks of the fall semester always kills me dead, and this term is no exception.  I’ve cut a handful of strips for the basement stairwell wall, but that’s the sum total of the progress I’ve made.  I’ve let the larger houseblogging community down, and I’ll clear the breakfast table at our  next committee meeting as penance.

Missy and I found time to do this last night though.  Ripping up carpet tacking strips always assauges my guilt.

I found a few fibers of Seafoam Green carpet tucked under the baseboard.  Shudder.

We still need some artwork for that back wall, and Missy wants to sew a more substantial (and less beige) curtain, but it’s an improvement, eh?  (I think Josie’s having a little time-out for screaming “NO!” at her mama.  Or for climbing onto the desk.  Definitely a little time-out for something though.)

Dots and dots

I’m not sure why my daughter isn’t wearing pants in this picture (a power struggle I missed out on?  Lost a bet?), but the rug looks good, eh?  Those curtains, on the other hand -

Band-aid

Gah – I just want to rip the office carpet off, fast, so it doesn’t sting so badly.

But first I promised to finish the new basement stairwell – and it’s creeping along.  I don’t have very much time per day to spend on it, and it shows.  Ugh.

The garbage/recycling closet is almost totally enclosed now, so that feels like something.

Also, I framed up the new landing and short wall.  I’m going to use sheetrock down here, rather than 3″ strips of plywood, so finishing it will be cheaper and faster.  Knock on wood.

But just for Jane, here’s what we started with -

Craigslist: beautiful mess?

Long article, from Wired:

Newmark’s claim of almost total disinterest in wealth dovetails with the way craigslist does business. Besides offering nearly all of its features for free, it scorns advertising, refuses investment, ignores design, and does not innovate. Ordinarily, a company that showed such complete disdain for the normal rules of business would be vulnerable to competition, but craigslist has no serious rivals. The glory of the site is its size and its price. But seen from another angle, craigslist is one of the strangest monopolies in history, where customers are locked in by fees set at zero and where the ambiance of neglect is not a way to extract more profit but the expression of a worldview.

I think I like Craigslist more now.  You?

Chain of events

We had a moderately-successful garage sale last weekend.  I don’t even remember what we sold, which is a pretty good indication that we had boxes full of things we didn’t really need.  Wait, someone bought a blue rocking chair, for sure, but I don’t know what else.  In any case, Missy and I prodded ourselves to do all the tedious garage sale prep-work by planning to spend the money on something fun for the house.

We decided to get a rug.  We’d let fate decide for what room.

And fate brought us an 8×10 yellow-and-white polka-dotted rug from Pottery Barn for the family room (fate also saw fit to make it 75% off, which was the only way we could afford an 8×10 Pottery Barn rug with the proceeds from a moderately-successful garage sale).

But, oh heavens! The family room is already rugged – with a pretty great rug from Morocco (via ReStore)!   Here’s where the chain of events really gets rolling:

• We’re going to put the new rug in the family room, which necessitates
• Moving the Moroccan rug to the office, which necessitates
• Pulling up the beige carpet in the office, which necessitates
• Finishing the basement stairwell walls (because: One Project At A Time), which necessitates
• Uh, really, just finding the time to do that.  But now I have an awesome polka-dotted incentive staring at me.

If there’s one rule about stairwells to century-old basements, it’s this: Aesthetics Over Function.  Everyone knows that rule, right?  It’s like an American maxim.  Well, maybe I was just raised differently than you.

So instead of plain-ol’ drywall, I’m covering the stairwell wall with 1/2″ plywood strips ripped to random widths (in the 2.5-4″ range), spaced with #8 nails, and painted white.  It’s slow-going, but it’ll be like a seaside cottage in there by the end of the week.

Also, DIY cat-door!