Thursday, November 30, 2006

Bamboozled

If you've been reading here for, oh, any length of time, you know that I have Certain Issues with our house. (See: home sweet home? area of my links) Yes, our lovely, charming, cutely detailed house with the orginal floors and built-in cabinets and window that go up and down on actual ropes....or, in some cases, go up and than SLAM! down at random, putting one at a rather high risk for hand breakage. We leave these ones closed. Since my dear old dad has been in the fine home-building business since before I was born, I have a rather unfortunate habit of cocking my head to the side and saying things like, "You know, if we were to rip up the ______ and replace it with _____ , it would look EXcellent....and while we're at it, we might as well re-____ , and replace the _____ . And you know, it would save us a lot of trouble if we just went ahead and got a/n _____."

Sadly, the above could easily be a ten, fifteen or twenty thousand dollar sentence, which means I am going to have to do a lot more weddings. Additionally, I can fill in those blanks three different times with words that go with the bathroom, kitchen and living room areas. Siiigh. Darn you, father, you and your creative homebuilding magazines and piles of scrap wood and tools just waiting to be put to good use, out there in Colorado! Although to be perfectly honest, we had a broken screen door for about ten years when I was growing up, and I think my mom fixed it, or more likely, just ripped it off the track and set it aside once and for all.

Yesterday I was walking down to the post office (before the chilly Starbucks' reception) and came across a sight that was beee-youuu-ti-ful to behold: A stack of bricks about four feet high, perfectly weathered, aged, and .....drumroll....FREE. Free for the taking. Cost: Whatever it takes to haul them away. I swear I heard the "ahhh-AAAaaahh aaAAAAaaa" chorus and saw the heavens part with a single ray of sunshine. You see, I've been looking for these. exact. bricks for my garden walkway, for months. I regularly troll craigslist, bother construction workers, and beg to go to home supply places - and guess what? My neuroses have finally paid off in a postive way! Now I just need that to happen a few more times, and my walkway can take shape!

http://www.bigstockphoto.com/thumbs/9/7/5/medium/579058.jpg

So along these lines (the whole 'home improvement' bit) I thought...well, what the heck, 'tis the season to make wishlists, why not go for it? I think I'll start a new tag, maybe call it "wishing"? Here are a few of my wishes for the future:

Floors:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/teragen-bamboo-floor.jpg This would be for the floors throughout the house: Bamboo - however, I'd like mine laid on the diagonal to de-emphasize the boxy-ness of our rooms. It comes in a bunch of different colors and options, including this neat dark tone - I'm sure that would be great to clean cat hair off, right?

http://www.designbiz.com/BizLibrary/Images/products/exotic-hardwood-flooring.jpg

Bathroom: Recycled glass tiles (much larger than these, but this is a nice sampling of color), or even the recycled terrazzo-style tiles. More to follow, your suggestions welcome - especially eco-friendly ones.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Duuuuuude!! That's freakin' awesome!!! SCORE!!!!!!!!!!! Don't ya just love freebies? Especially aged.weathered.bricks. Free bricks. Good for you! I can totally picture a windy path of bricks in your yard - perfecto!

Maya said...

Exactly. Ideally they'll be winding around some larger dramatic flagstones and have some smaller ones on the outer edges. You know...because I like to make things complicated.

Eris said...

Is this post why your template is now hardwood floors?

congrats on the sweet score of bricks. Awesome.

Maya said...

Exactly. That and I couldn't find any fabric swatches I liked. Hey, you're not supposed to be typing! (But I'm flattered you stopped by and commented.) Now get back to having that sassy lad do all your work for you.