domicile

Curtains!

  curtain rod 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

And so, primarily because I am most deeply uncomfortable with leaving a photo of a dead mouse at the top of this website for very long at all, an update on the curtain rods! I know you've all (all dozen or so of you) have been waiting with baited breath to know just how the curtain situation turned out after my stubborn instance that it would be resolved come hell or high water many weeks ago now. At last, it is true: we have livingroom curtains. Which really honestly is deeply satisfying in a somewhat unsettling way. (Unsettling in that I don't really see myself as the kind of gal for whom curtains are counted on my list of recent satisfying accomplishments).

But these puppies took a few labourious steps before they could be counted as completed: sanding the livingroom trim, painting the trim, finding rods, finding curtains, hanging rods (which involved Martin having to cut strips of pipe for the rods, something which I've yet to get brave enough to do), fashioning some kind of fixture to take the rods around the corner in the big window, hemming curtains, ironing curtains and then finally hanging them. There was clapping, there was glee. And now, though they are drawn back to afford a stunning view of the North Shore Mountains lightly dusted with snow in the distance, they bring me almost daily satisfaction as we have a way to keep our lives on a corner lot somewhat private.

And I have to say, it has also been quite great that Martin (who was not nearly as motivated to get the curtains up) continues to remark on how great they look. Things are starting to come together.

Wow. Curtains. I think I need to expand my world a little bit here.

Belated Birthday Gift?

An unfortunate fate
Originally uploaded by emira.

While I was in Victoria last weekend celebrating my birthday and my sister's, Pluto graced us with that most covetted feline offering: a dead mouse. The mouse, as you can see, was discovered by Martin on Saturday night upon returning home from work, on the exact spot in the livingroom rug where Pluto's own photo was taken only days before. That is to say, that in true cat-like fashion it was smack in the middle of everything where one could not hope to miss it. Now because he is my cat, and it has just been my birthday and because my thirtieth birthday also marks 10 years of devoted affection for Pluto and I, I would like to think that somehow, somewhere in his very feline way this offering was something of a gift intended for me. Maybe.

Maybe he has forgotten my less than enthusiastic reception to his last gift -- a half-dead bird brought in via the kitchen window sometime circa 97ish while my then roommate Liisa and I ate dinner (both of us vegetarians) -- and thought it was time to express his love again. And if this is the case, then bonus points for doing it when I wasn't actually around, because I really truly hate finding dead rodents in my house, and get generallly squeamish at the sight of any kind of harm or destruction levied against all creatures great and small, even if they are nefarious mice that may very well be living in our basement.

Which is the other thing that one considers only moments after dealing with the reality of a dead mouse on the rug (or the tale of a dead mouse on the rug in my case, as Martin had already disposed of the gift by the time he was telling me this on the phone). Where did it come from? The basement? Quite possible. Given the state of the house when we moved in, there was certainly some "evidence" (wherein evidence is a euphemism for mouse shit) of some prior rodent habitation. And while we haven't really had conclusive evidence of ongoing mouse dwelling, with the turn to cold weather we have been speculating as to whether or not we would soon have house guests for Pluto to play with. There was no sign of a struggle, which may indicate that the mousey was brought in through the garden, the cat door and then all the way up the stairs to the livingroom as a prized trophy by Mr.Wonderkitty following a thorough kill out of doors. Hard to say.

At this point, we're keeping an eye out for other mouse evidence in the house and praising Pluto for his valour, while trying to make sure he understands just how much we would *not* like a trophy to find its way into say our bed, particularly near the pillows.

An Oldy But a Goodie

  Pink wall and stove 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

We love our stove, and not just for how cool it looks against our hot pink kitchen wall. There is a bit of a game of telephone between Martin and I about just who loves the stove the most. You see when we first looked at the house, it stood out as one of the more redeeming "extra" features for me. Not only was it a gas stove, it was a cute and stylish gas stove of 'yore. Martin however, misheard instructions by (or was simply misled by) our house inspector which caused him to believe that the stove was going to be nothing but a pain in the behind. Fortunately, he was misled and our little (big iron) stove is nothing but a avid cook's dream come true.

However, inspite of our deep adoration of our stove (and no we don't really spend all that much time thinking or talking about it I promise) I have had a bit of a nagging fear that we should really have it looked at, before extensive use. Given that it is easily 50 years old and likely not have not been serviced in at least a decade or so. One has only to spend a few week in Europe (where gas stoves are the norm) in my experience before you start hearing stories of exploding apartment buildings from bad stove/gas line experiences. And this baby had a few nervous ticks in terms of how it lit, how the flames behaved on certain burners etc. So this Monday, while I worked from home, I had a gas guy come by to look at it.

It took me a while to actually find someone who would come and do this, and for the record the guys at Universal Heating  were great. I had started by phoning Terasen the gas company to see if they could recommend someone and they actually laughed at me and said that they just supply gas, they don't do anything like that. The friendly/useless phone agent then said in a very serious tone: "But ma'am, if you smell gas, you should evacuate the building and call 911." I then phoned around to appliance repair people who all told me that they didn't "work on gas stoves" without telling me who might. Fortunately my sister recently acquired a similar stove in her new apartment, and she had used a plumbing company to service hers. As it turns out -- and I had no idea about this -- plumbers sometimes have their gas ticket. So I called around in the phone book, compared rates and called Universal Heating.

They came in about an hour and the guy who did the work was really friendly (and vacuumed behind the stove while he had it pulled out!). As I suspected everything was fine on the stove, it just needed a really good (and as it turned out slightly expensive) cleaning. It was expensive only because it took over 2 hours to do, but once he was done he showed me all the parts that I can take apart myself and clean, and how everything works. The more and more I get exposed to these kinds of household reno/repair things the more fascinated I become. And things like taking apart my stove to clean it kind of turn my crank frankly. Who knew that there were all these little tubes and bits and that I could just whip'em out, give'em a rinse and then my burner would give a more even flame? Cool!

Anyway, as I marvelled with the guy over all the bits and pieces he began to wax poetic about just how lucky we were to have a stove like this and how well it would serve us if we just kept it all running nice and clean. I guess the "newfangled" stoves, even the gas ones involve so much in the way of electronic parts and specialty bits that replacing parts can become impossible/expensive, where as this old lady is basically composed of quite straightforward pipes and tubes and anyone with a metal shop could fashion replacement bits. As he left he turned to me and said: "Yes, ma'am. That's an oldy but a goodie you got there. Hang onto it."

As an aside, since buying this house I seemed to get called ma'am a lot more. By the washer delivery guys, the stove cleaning guy, insurance people, it's weird and I'm not sure I like it.

Pluto, King of the New Rug

  Pluto, King of the New Rug 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

So my "come-hell-or-high-water" approach to getting the curtains up this weekend did get us halfway, but they're not yet done. Martin did his bit to get the rods up. which involved devising something so they would go around a corner, and then cutting up some long pieces of metal pipe to make the rods. I then pre-washed the curtains themselves so that they can now be hemmed, but they're a hem and serious ironing away from being completed, which feels like a good start, and has calmed my stubborn drive for now.

The household task that was completed this weekend was the "installation" of our new free rug (free!). While we do love, love, love our hardwood floors we wanted to put some kind of area rug in the livingroom. Neither of us had really decided what we wanted, though we had talked about possibly getting a fairly neutral carpet cut and bound from a rollend place or something. And while the coming winter did motivate us to make the house a bit more cosey, we weren't in a big hurry. To be perfectly honest, I  kind of figured that through Martin a carpet would find us someday soon. For you see, among Martin's many varied talents when it comes to  home renovations is his skill at acquiring things for cheap/free. He comes by this quality honestly (and somewhat genetically) being a naturally resourceful guy, and having a day a week to troll the thrift stores out in the valley after he drops his daughter off at school. And while I can fetishize and delight in shiney new things as much as the next girl, I generally am so very appreciative of his natural scavenger luck.

And, as it turns out, I was right. Sort of. Last week, as I was coming up in the elevator at work, I noticed a sign saying "free rug: fourth floor." I hummed and hawed in the elevator, arms laden with errand bags, coffee and an umbrella. My first instinct was to assume it was a manky nasty rug that no one wanted, but thought to myself: "Self, what would Martin do in this situation." So I quickly pressed the fourth floor elevator button before we sped past it, and hopped out to take a look. Low and behold, an absolutely perfect sized (8 x 10') woven jute rug was piled up in the hallway. Assessing that my hands were far too full to bring it up myself, I found Lauren and Chris and engaged their helping hands. One trip down in the van on Saturday afternoon later and we have a new livingroom rug.

It's note the world's swellest rug, and it isn't exactly soft and squishy, but it looks pretty fine, and it will certainly do for now. While we're pleased with our new low-cost acquisition, our joy is nothing compared to the sheer delight of one Mr. Pluto the Wonderkitty, who sits on it (and surely scratches it when we're not home) like the king he is, proud as a cat to have a new surface to sleep on.

My Kingdom for Curtains!

  Bad bad window treatments of olde 
  Originally uploaded by emira.

If I do one thing this weekend, it will be to get curtains up in the livingroom (and maybe the bedroom too!). One of the first things we did one of the very first days that we had our house was pull down these very nasty window valance/curtain dealies that plagued each and every window in the house. That was easy and hugely satisfying as you can imagine just how much better each room looked once these carefully crafted handmade monstrosities was removed.

Putting up new curtains shouldn't be too tricky, except that in the land of home renovations everything is just a little bit more complicated than you might originally think. And like much of the obstacles that face the fearless couple who purchased a bit of a fixer'upper this particular task involves a mine field of undo/redo type activities before it can be efficiently ticked off the list. Those include:

• Taking off the brackets holding on those wood valance boxes, of which there were many, and which was each fused to the window casing with a series of flat-head screws and no less than 7 old coats of paint. Check!
• Sanding and filling the holes left behind. Check!
• Painting the window casings (and the rest of the trim while you're at it). Check!
• Deciding on new curtain rod/curtain options. Ya, but these have yet to be actually put up, and may not be approved by the domicile housing committee of two somewhat picky design types.
• Hang fixtures. Not yet.
• Hem curtains. Nope.
• Realize that curatins were not evenly hemmed/hung and have minor/major meltdown. Likely.

And so, come hell or highwater, this weekend I intend to get through what remains of that list. Because while living on a corner is great for the views it affords us, I'm a little bit tired of feeling like we're in a fish bowl all the time, and with darkness falling earlier these days that is pretty much all the time that we're at home.

Watch for either successful after photos, or total blind rage on Monday.