Just another brick in the wall

Remember way back when when I was all excited about the cache of bricks I found around the corner from our house? With all my la-la-la happiness and fairy-bugs and recycled materials? Yeah....that didn't last long - to wit: Apparently despite my repeated conversations with the 'patron' of the job about "estes para free? .... yo quiero el brickos" and asking if I could take them "Si, si, si!", the answer should have been, "No, senora." When my helper-guy finally came to actually load them up, they were mostly gone (I think he may have been rendered temporarily blind/deaf/paralyzed by Britney's crotchal-region-flashing). He did manage to get a couple of small loads and drop them off at my house - only about a quarter of the amount I'll eventually need, but I can hardly complain, right? Since they were free and all, I figured I'd better start making use of them straightaway.

I tugged on my gloves, grabbed my few tools and started laying a curving set of lovely, old crumbly bricks loosely on the ground from our front walk to the side of the house. The look I'm going for is curving, whimsical garden walk, punctuated with big peices of sandstone and grasses weaving their way in and out to create a sort of 'dry riverbed' look. Like I told Scott, you'll have to trust me on this one, it's GOING TO LOOK COOL WHEN I'M DONE. PROMISE!

In other good salvaged/recycled materials news: I'm getting a bunch of huge wood beams from a friends' jobsite (and yes, I am SURE these are available). They'll be the perfect thing for my teahouse. Wait till you hear about that.... right now I've got to go - we're off to pick up some pavers.

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!



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:

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?

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.