Fuji S100FS

Testing the camera for the first time.

Bateman print

Kitchen flooring and walls

The purple walls in the kitchen were soon replaced with another color. I wasn't sure what would coordinate with the countertops, which were going to stay. They are a taupey color, speckled with pink, purple,and grey. I painted them a cappucino color, for now. We will have to see what that looks like with the new flooring, once it's installed.

The "vintage" dishwasher which came with the house had to go, too. It probably wasted a lot of water, but the biggest problem was that it broke glasses and splattered food particles around so that they were evenly distributed on all the dishes, instead of cleaning them. We got a new one from Home Depot. I hope it lasts a long tim, because it was quite a hassle to switch it out.
Yesterday I started ripping out the purpley-pink and blue industrial carpeting from the kitchen area. Avinash helped me get out most of the rest of it day. Here's the delightful lime and bile colored carpeting which was revealed underneath. Next, we rip this out, and then the black rubber underlayment. I can already tell that some of the subflooring underneath is rotten and will need to be replaced, as well. It's a good thing we are replacing everything.

The English Pub-style bar

The basement bar and rec room area is one of the most startling areas of the home. It has red-orange linoleum floor tiles, a padded lime-green bar, with dark wood accents and an orange laminate countertop, and the rustic dark wood paneling and beams so popular in the 1970s. The ceiling is popcorn (with sparkles!), the walls textured plaster, and the lighting, um, most peculiar. Colleen and I counted light fixtures in the basement when she came to visit. I stopped at 40, although I think I missed a few.

Avinash and I painted the dark wood in the bar area with Kilz primer and then a taupe paint. It looks much less cave-like, now. "After" photos to follow, when I get the area tidied up enough to photograph.

The Harvest gold room

I next tackled the harvest gold half-bath. It had a stringy-textured kind of wallpaper, which was frayed to the point of dangling strings over the lavatory sink and across from the toilet. Again, the fixtures should be replaced at some point, but it's not a priority right now. I pulled off the stringy brown, green, and gold paper. I tried to find a wall color to complement the rather sickly-greenish harvest-gold toliet and sink. I settled on a delft blue, but I'm not sure that I'm going to stick with it. The blue is a bit startling. Perhaps a blue and white border would help. It does certainly distract you from the yellow, though.

Future projects include replacement of the vinyl floor tiles (blue and yellow), the tulip shades and tarnished faucet, and possibly the gold and yellow speckled tile sink top. Also, the cabinet door handles, which are the same as in the other bathroom.

The Avocado Room

Here's the changes we have tackled so far, on the full bath. We shall call it "The Avocado Room", after the grand manor house tradition.

1. Ripped out lavender, seafoam, and pink wallpaper. This was my second act of beautification in the new home, my first one being ripping down the dreadful family room curtains which covered nothing except wall. I painted the bathroom walls off-white, and installed a sage and yellow shower curtain and a fern and natural toned wall hanging. Finding items to accessorize with avocado can be difficult. I don't know who thought seafoam and lavender would be a nice combination with avocado.
2. Straightened out the over-the-toilet cabinet, which was 1.5" cockeyed from the top to the bottom. This is the sort of thing you notice when you are lying in a bathtub directly across from it. I removed the wood trim around it, also (The previous owner had compensated for the crookedness by installing wood molding (also at the same cock-eyed angle) over the large gap in the wallboard). The trim was not so much to accentuate or beautify the cabinet as it was to cover the large hole left by the uneven placement of the cabinet. We spackled and painted the large gap in the wallboard once the cabinet was straightened up.
3. Replaced shower curtain rod with an arc shower rod. This was just to give us some more room. The standard tension rod and curtain went to our Reedsburg house.
4. Still to come - in the short term, replacement of the tarnished brass faucet (the current one is dull and ugly), tulip light fixture (ditto), avocado towel bars, and antiqued brass round towel loop. Perhaps we will put new innards in the toilet tank, which doesn't flush unless you hold down the handle. Also, I intend to replace the handles on the sink cabinet, which are medieval-style hammered black metal. Not only is it not appropriate for the decor, they are uncomfortable to pull on.
5. In the long term, replacement of the avocado fixtures. Meanwhile, we are living with the toilet (which uses a lot of water, but doesn't flush worth a darn, anyway).
6. The bathtub is rather wide, but curiously shallow, so baths are very unsatisfying. Due to the cost and difficulty of replacement - there is no plumbing access panel to the tub and shower, and the cast-iron avocado-enameled tub will be a real turkey to fix - we may learn to live with the tub.
7. The avocado lavatory sink will also go at some point. The countertop and tub surround are done in an amateurish avocado-speckled white tile. I may take a tiling class at Home Depot and redo those at some point with some clean white tile.
8. Lastly, the ugly vinyl floor tiles may be replaced at some point.

Colleen in Sari

The other day, Pam and family came to see our new house (photos to follow soon). Colleen wanted to do only one thing, which was to try on my clothes. Here she is, transfixed by her reflection, staring at herself in a sari I had folded down to size.

She also wanted to try on a long sheath dress (I had to pin it up like a kimono to make it fit) and picked out a red salwar-kameez for me to wear.

Our bookworm

Ned, Resting
Originally uploaded by avinashbhat

Ned sat like this for about half an hour yesterday. He seemed to find this position most comfortable. Ani says that sometimes, Ned will sit in the opposite position, with the head on the table and the hindquarters on a pile of books. I'll have to get a photo of that, sometime.

Hoarfrost icing

Scenes from south of Baraboo this morning.

New member of the family

Welcome to Michael Sylvester!

Fine vintage Christmas Tree earrings

This is another fun holiday clip-back earring set. They feature a Christmas tree design in multicolored rhinestones, topped with a white stone as the star. The trunk and branches are lightly scored to appear like bark and needles. This piece's workmanship is very fine. These may by made by Pakula or Hollycraft, although they are not signed.