Finally, new flooring.



Took me about three years to settle on a product but only two days for installers to rip out the old carpeting and get it in. I will paint base boards the same Ben Moore Classic Gray as the wainscoting this summer and Daryl will install when it makes more sense to have doors open and running in and out.

 

Transition from dining room to kitchen, makes the Marmoleum look like a bad idea. 

 

 From the front door, planks are laid in same horizontal direction as front porch boards and back deck boards.

 Hallway going to bathroom which is vinyl and spare room which is carpeted. Need to fix that!

 Still sleeping on the floor, will take three of us to get the platform attached, waiting for Daryl to return home. Notice the excellent installation Rusty did of aligning bedroom planks with living room planks. Genius man!

 Most of the floor surface in the bedroom is covered with wool area rug.

 Don't normally have a table in the kitchen but the laundry room is dismantled for new washer/dryer installation today. Picture is just showing Marmoleum loses it's appeal next to Mannington Restoration Collection Black Forest Oak Antiqued.

 Quarter sawn oak with espresso wash cabinets in kitchen will not look good with any dark wood flooring, and would be too dark and overwhelming with nearly any wood or laminate flooring choice. And I just don't like the maples, cherry, light oak finishes for floors. So, next plan is to get the gray wash laminate installed in the kitchen.

 Hall bath with marble top vanity, white wainscoting and vinyl flooring, which, when I close my eyes I can envision is penny tile and looks great!

 Master bath from laundry room: cherry cabinet with vinyl flooring, would look better with this same new laminate, which the laundry room will eventually be. Just can't find any sales person or installer who says it's a good idea...

Everything I Want

Everything I thought I wanted

is right here,

particularly when the sun
is making such a comeback,

and the lilac engorged
with purple has recovered
from its severe pruning,
and you will be back soon

to dispel whatever it is
that overtakes me like leaf blight,
even on a day like this. I can still
hear remnants of the rain

in the swollen stream
behind the house, in the faint
dripping under the eaves,
persistent as memory.

And all the things I didn't think
I wanted, cut like the lilac back
to the root, push up again
from underground.    

After a Month of Rain, Linda Pastan

My Driveway is the End of the Rainbow!

Woke up this morning with

a terrific urge to lie in bed all day
and read. Fought against it for a minute.

Then looked out the window at the rain.
And gave over. Put myself entirely
in the keep of this rainy morning.

Would I live my life over again?
Make the same unforgiveable mistakes?
Yes, given half a chance. Yes.   Rain, Raymond Carver



Shades of Purple

Rain-glaze on snow. Mud and ice and snow.
Coyotes feed themselves on gaunt dreams of spring. Then
what comes slowly suddenly he sees.

Light hovers longer in the southern sky.
Brooks uncover themselves. Alders redden.
Grosbeaks' beaks turn green. Chickadee finds the song
he lost last November, and blue jay abandons
argument and gluttony. He cranes his neck,
bobs his mitered head; he bounces on a naked branch
crying: Spring!

But, like all winter's keepers
he speaks his dream before
he sees the fact.
Did you hear a phoebe?
And he out again and walking on the earth,
in the air, in the sun, ankle deep in mud.

March, David Budbill