Another Disruptive Weekend

Last weekend was not fun. When we got back into the house after the fumigation, I discovered I had forgotten to remove the plant from the office (the one houseplant we have, since both cats love to chew on anything green). Boy, is it dead. It's amazing there's any chlorophyll remaining at all.

It took Monday and most of Tuesday just to come down from the disruption of the weekend move-out for the bug killers, and on Wednesday I found myself sitting down and making extensive lists in preparation for this weekend and next week: the installation of the slate and bamboo flooring on the main floor of the house (I've only been harping about this for months).

The biggest chore was a thorough cleaning of the patio, which had turned into an ecosystem of its own over the winter, spring and summer (yes, it's been that long since it had a really good cleaning).

Luckily, the plants had already been removed to the walkway outside, so we were one step ahead. I moved everything else to one half of the patio and gave the other half a good sweeping. Then I gave it another good sweeping. After a third meager pass, it became clear that Mother Earth had become one with the concrete. If I was to provide an acceptable surface to receive adhesion of slate tile, I would have to take the hose to it in a big way.

With the "flat" setting nothing much happened except the dust got muddy; no movement, no removal. On the "jet" setting, I got quite good results, but it only cleaned about two square inches at a time. So I started at the back of the patio, making tiny circles, blasting the muddy water toward the edge of the slab. It was quite easy to tell how effective it was being, because the concrete changed colors once it was truly clean.

For a 10-foot-by-12-foot area, this technique took about four hours. After this, disassembling the fountain and cleaning the gook out of it was a relatively simple, though repulsive task (especially digging the rocks out of the algae-sludge). But now the patio is all prepped for the tile guy, who shows up at 9 a.m. tomorrow (Saturday).

And, today, the bamboo flooring was delivered. It seems that the material has to sit around for three days where it's going to be installed, so as to adapt to the temperature and humidity of the room before becoming one with its environment. As you can see, we now have 18 boxes of planks (23.8 linear feet per box), stair noses, quarter-rounds to trim out around the kitchen cabinets, and transitions for the few doors involved.

So, where last week we were bagging foodstuffs, this week we are clearing areas, finding room elsewhere in the house for things that will need to disappear for the flooring magic to happen. Luckily, the slate will be finished by the time the bamboo starts to go in, so we can take advantage of outdoor space for the less particular items in the living room.

So, slate on Saturday-Sunday-Monday, and bamboo on Tuesday (and I'm assuming Wednesday and Thursday, at least). But, by God, by this time next week, we will have slick new surfaces underfoot.

Last night, while I was going over the to-do list with Steve, he stopped me and put his hand on my forearm: "After this, let's take a rest for a while," he said with pleading eyes.

Oh, yes; I totally agree. I think we'll take at least a couple weeks off before we start thinking about ripping up the kitchen counters, opening the walls for rewiring electrical upgrades, installing a backsplash and such. And I haven't even mentioned pulling the counter and mirror out of the downstairs bath and replacing the sink and flooring in there.

You can tell I'm really into this fluffing the nest stuff: I took "before" pictures today, just so I could remind Steve what an improvement this will have been (and so I can show it off here in another blog entry in the very near future).

May your floors never squeak and your water features run clear.