fully restore my century house

On an unseasonably hot spring day, a cool limestone floor makes a comfortable bed.

It was a choice:
Send some W-9s or tear up the 40-year-old wall-to-wall in the bathroom. The carpet looks like a mechanic’s rag and has accumulated some mighty bad juju.
It’s good to surround oneself with positive things. There is nothing worse than heading full bore into autumn and winter yoked with negativity. (I’d say the same about spring, too, and summer while we’re at it. Out, damned spot!)

A three-foot chunk came up, and the fused glue is being scraped away very slowly but surely. If I think of unkindnesses past or present, I scrape more fervently, dog at her bone.

I was aiming for a six-inch square to be done today, but I have an irregular patch maybe 2 feet across. I’ll finish the patch then tackle something cerebral. Ooga!

Casualties:
blistered thumb, 1
chipped fingernail, 1

“You wanted Arts and Crafts,How’s this for Arts and Crafts?Wuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh – that’s right!”

I have tried to clean layers of black gummed carpet underpadding from the oak stairs and second-floor landing. It has taken months. I’d intended to preserve and restore each piece of wood original to the house.
I finally decided it’s hopeless to make the landing perfect. It wants/needs carpet, and the stair-case wants/needs a runner. I got carpet in an Arts and Crafts colour, and had it installed before the holidays. I am an authentic poseur.

gives me a look-in on the lives and surroundings of others. I do not always share their tastes. Yet I am always happy to see century-old staircases carefully preserved or restored, fine wavy-glass windows, and whatever personality each house has offered though the decades respected if not embraced.
I went home and CLEANED UP.

Boxing Day sales enticed; we now have a lovely big hurricane that will house a pillar candle. This, atop a simple runner, will be one of the few decorations for the large, spare, arts and crafts dining-room table.
I am not fond of those “dripless candles” that are really just table lamps.

I finished painting the porch posts and rails, only hours before “the gales of November came early”. We’ve had heavy rain, then snow, and now sleet. But the painting is done for the year.