More Hanging Baskets

Having taken a picture of our hanging baskets outside the Hillsdale apartment I thought I would have one of them hanging off the patio roof at our new place in Milwaukie - continuity you see.

Probably won't keep them there as David will bang his head on them.....

Day 3 - floors laid

3 days - that's all it took to lay luxury vinyl tiles (ha! - whoever heard of luxury vinyl, vinyl is vinyl) throughout the house. All except the bathrooms which will be ceramic tiles - a long way down the road.

The above is David's office - he chose the right hand back bedroom. That way he can look out onto the street and watch what's going on. Probably not much as it's a VERY quiet neighbourhood.

This is my studio floor done. Finally all the threads and beads which bounce onto the floor can be rescued instead of disappearing forever into the carpet and then into the guts of Robbie the Roomba.

Next up - painting the trim......

Shadow Hills in Autumn

I was sitting on my daybed in the living room of our apartment and suddenly realised there is such a beautiful fall view outside our patio. This year my hanging baskets worked a treat (might have something to do with paying attention to how much light there is???).

Behind the baskets is "our tree" which the children love to climb and swing on. It's gone into full autumn mode with orange and yellow leaves. On the ground is a carpet of colourful fallen leaves and in the background the carefully mowed green lawns.

A good memory to take with us when we move to our new home.

Day 2 of the floor installation

Not the best light to see the colours of the floor tiles but you get the idea. It's something called Tuscan Slate and has a mixture of greys, creams and browns. Very neutral. And tough.

The installer got the living room, hallway and big sections of the 3 bedrooms done. Fast worker. I think there will only be one more day and he'll be finished.

We love it. It makes the whole house open up.

Plus, now all the floors have been disinfected and sealed the horrible cat odour is gone. All we can smell now is fresh paint.

Next - painting all the door, closet and window frames. David is so excited - not!

The laying of the flooring tiles

Pantry, utility room, and kitchen already done. There was an odd section which didn't look right to me which I had redone. The boxes of tiles come in packs of 7 random colours and somehow several dark sections had lined up with light sections. The contrast was too stark so our nice floor installer redid the layout. After that it looked just fine.

You can see the contrast here with the darker section of the floor to the left of the picture. But it's all good now.

Our installer is very methodical - he's done this a few times! Each room had all the boxes of tiles laid out neatly in rows, ready to be clicked together.

Flooring Arrived

This week our new flooring is going in. I think the floor color will be a good offset to the bright white ceiling and walls. Our neighbor has almost the same flooring and it looks great.

Walls now White

Finally the Magnolia color is going. I hate Magnolia paint, just looks dirty to me.
Anyway, the ceiling and walls are now Bright White. We'll have artwork on the walls for color.

KILZ on the floors

To seal the floors and kill the smell I am painting all the sub-floors with KILZ. This will also help any water spills in the future from rotting out the sub-flooring. The new laminate flooring will be installed next.

Painting the ceilings

Finally - David starts on painting the ceilings. This is just another phase in the long haul updating.

You can see how dark the original paint had become. The white makes it look sooooooo much better.

Another ceiling being painted.

Flowers

Autumn crocus popping up in the front garden. It will take a full year before we know what we have lurking.....

Roses and japonese anenomes, picked from the garden and making use of a plastic Phillies cup!

The tree you can see through the kitchen window is some kind of magnolia - I think. It has magenta flowers which doesn't seem like a magnolia to me but the leaves and shape of the tree say it is. More research needed. And definitely a pruning.

Washing walls with TSP

Cleaning the bathroom with TSP. Gets the grime off the walls and creates a good surface for painting.

Studio ceiling getting a good dose of TSP. After all this work David needs some TLC.

Sanding trim

Sanding the living room window trim.

Sanding the trim around the walking wardrobe. Always be walking, not walk in - an previous landlord had advertised his rental as having a WALKING wardrobe and ever since then we've had special clothes closets.

More trim sanding - note the rolling eyeballs.

Grouting

Getting out the shower grouting - readying for washing the walls and painting.

Taking out the parquet

David has already taken a picture of the hall floor without the parquet - this is an earlier picture.

Our carpet measuring man was horrified we were taking out the original wood.

This all went out with the smelly carpet, several falling apart shelving units, a huge mirror with missing silvering and the wooden raised bed forms which were leaching nasty stuff into the soil. A good day's haul.

Studio puddle

This is the puddle in the studio which we think was probably caused by an overwatered plant. David took out the particle board to find the stain had gone down to the boards. So, a good dose of drying out, a coat of Kilz and....

......in goes the new particle board.

Good Garbage

Removing the old carpet and junk from the house.
Either 1 trip with the junk guy's truck, or 4,902 trips in the Smart Car.

I didn't envy those guys having to load up the old cat piss carpet. We got rid of that, the old garden rotten raised bed wood, picnic table, shelving, old mirrors, and flooring. Not a bad deal.

Parquet Flooring Up

Got the parquet flooring up in the entry way. Man, that stuff was really glued down! Had to hammer and chisel it all up. The new flooring will cover this area; and I want to put in a little stool for taking our shoes off when coming in the house.

Containers

The first of the plant containers to come over to the new house. Herbs and geraniums. They will probably immediately do much better here as there is plenty of sun. The poor things were struggling in the front of our apartment with only 1 hour of direct sunshine.

More scraping

Thinks - "What next?"

More nasty wet bits being vacuumed up.

Vacuuming....

Hey - guess what? Another really bad spot.

Actually there were 3 really bad spots. Two where animals had peed over and over (there were 1, possibly 2 dogs living here originally), and the really deep spot in the master bedroom.

Note the cool headband/towel arrangement David came up with to stop the sweat dripping into his eyes. Ever resourceful. Also note the grim expression........

Scraping

 Disinfected puddles in the hallway.

No idea what this was originally. Doesn't smell so we think - by the shape of the puddle - it was a plant which was overwatered. Needs cutting out and replacing.

Scraping the swollen surface off the sub-floor, preparing for disinfectant.

More scraping plus a view of the kitchen and front entry, (and David's bottom)!