Dreams

Often times, I wake up and find I have had some really strange dreams. When I relay them to Mark, he always gives me this look of "wow, that's batshit insane, woman." Granted, he's right, 'cause as I spew out the details, as I'm imagining and recalling what went on, I think that it makes absolutely no sense. But I try to analyze what's really going on in them... Usually unsuccessfully, but perhaps by writing them down, I (and the lucky lot of you reading this!) could gain more insight into my brain.

I've decided to log these dreams for posterity's sake, and will from now on write a post when I remember a dream.

Here's one I had last week, while we were on the Big Island of Hawaii on vacation.

I and a couple random folks were in a city - it seemed like Seattle, but looked nothing like it. It reminded me of a computer generated city with tall buildings but instead of streets, they were gray lines in-between the large rectangular semi-building looking things. We were preparing for an earthquake.

"Just dodge the buildings as they fall," I said to the others. As if it's a game of frogger. I wasn't scared, as if this happened all the time. I was just hoping my house was OK at the end of it, and that's the direction we were running.

On the way, I found myself in the basement of a building, with a very large swimming pool - basically the whole of the basement with only a walkway all the way around. There were a number of people in swim gear telling me that they're safer just waiting it out at the pool. They can just swim underwater if something bad happened. I swam across to the other side, and thought, "yeah, ok, this will work for them. I can move on." I miraculously came out of the water completely dry. The folks there continued their swim practice as if nothing was happening.

Ok then! Got to my house (which wasn't my house) but was only outside by the fence. I was looking at where the grass and fence meet: there were spiderwebs attached to the fence and a small cloth sail that popped up from the ground. In the highest web, there was this humongoid spider. Like the size of my fist. It was brownish-black and reminded me of Shelob from LOTR.

In the lower of the spiderwebs, there was this teensy-tiny sea turtle caught. I, of course, had to free this little turtle, so I ran inside to get something to put it in to transport it to the ocean. I found a glass milk jar.

As I went back outside, I saw something in the grass moving slowly towards the spiderweb and entangled turtle. I bend down to look at it - it looks like an oval piece of wood, but slinks along like one of those clocks in a Dali painting. It has silvery writing moving along its surface. I somehow know that this is a text message for the turtle, so I scoop it up in the jar.

I get to the turtle, and start to scoop him into the glass - he oozes into it and lengthens, wrapping around the text message. I cap the bottle and begin my journey to the ocean.

Then I wake up. But now I want to know what happened to the turtle! Did I make it in time? What did the text message say? Only the deeps of my brain knows for sure....

Done! Well, mostly.

Friday afternoon the floor guys came back to finish up the stairs (the nosing FINALLY came in!) - they look amazing!!

There couldn't be nosing on one of the steps leading to the laundry room, otherwise the door wouldn't close. Adonais figured out this lovely solution of making a small slant instead of a sharp corner. Looks super. :)

On Friday, we also had the electrician come by and replace the last of the knob-and-tube wiring. Apparently the guy who reno'd the house before decided to replace all the wiring except to 2 places, the hallway and the guest room. I don't know why... Maybe because it wasn't an easy fix, but whatever - it was our problem. In order to rewire, though, Zach (of Exact Electric) had to cut a bunch of holes in the ceiling to get from the light to the switch. In the hallway, that meant 10 holes (so he'd be able to see where he's drilling to run the new line; sadly it had to go through the cross beams, not with them, hence all the holes). Only 1 hole in the guest room, though.

We scheduled this to overlap because we'd need the drywall guy out here to patch the stairs, and figured he could just do the whole thing while he's at it.

Here is Dale, of DC Drywall, probably the most awesome contractor ever, patching the holes, and giving us his signature cheese smile. He charged us less than half his regular price, just 'cause he likes us and he probably spent about 3 hours extra just chatting. And he does amazing work with both drywall and lathe & plaster. He did our upstairs, and was a pleasure to work with then, too. Anyway, after filling the holes, he textured the area, and finished up the stairs and ran caulk along the wall edges to clean it up.

Now I have to paint again... Oh how I love this part. Not really.

This is the rest of the bedroom after the base trim was put on and caulked. Then I went through and painted it and the walls again (to cover the caulk smears). It's a helluva workout, I'll tell you what!

Closets are in, and they are AWESOME

One of the big items of this renovation was installation of closet built-ins, in the adjacent room and a small linen closet by the bathroom (which had, up until now, been my closet).

We went with a company called Organized Spaces, and the results are awesome. Chris, our contractor, said we are now spoiled. :) Yes, yes we are!

Here are the pics of the master closet:

There is a pullout mirror and ironing board, so I might actually iron something at some point!! Probably not.

See the shelving? This is for all my shoes. :)

The safe will fit snugly in this little space.














And the linen closet:

Almost done!

Some pics of the trim getting put in - so close to done!

Where'd we put our stuff?

The majority of our stuff from the basement is now covering our living room...

The couple furniture pieces (dressers, end tables, loveseat, chair) have all been sold or donated. The walk-in closet will take care of the need for the dressers, and we're getting new end tables (currently the front runner is this one from Restoration Hardware: Zinc Open Nightstand), and will put a chaise or bench in place of the loveseat (so it's smaller).

Let's see if we can play a little game I like to call "find the cat." Can you find them both? :)

Here they are:

More flooring

Here are some pics of the finished flooring.
They still need to finish up the stairs, but it's looking amazing!

 

Look at the corners of the stairs! It looks better than I even imagined! These guys definitely know their flooring (European Hardwood Floors)!

The flooring should have been complete yesterday (Monday), but apparently the floor manufacturer only gave us 2 of the 8 boxes ordered of the stair nosing; the rest was out of stock (and they never mentioned this to us when they delivered, nor told Daniel)! Daniel was hoping he'd get it today or tomorrow so they can finish the stairs. But they did what they could and will be back once Bamboo Hardwoods gets the nosing back in...

We spent all weekend painting the whole place... Totally changes the whole look! The base trim started to go in yesterday, so I will post pics of that later.

Flooring is going in...

And looks pretty darn good!