House Made

creepy turnips


pumpkin and turnips

Last year I read some little story about the history of Halloween and learned that the original Jack ‘o Lanterns were made out of turnips. As turnips are disgusting, I felt really good about the idea of disfiguring them and jamming little candles in their heads. Turns out when you carve them out and light them up, you can see all this grainy detail on their skins. I love it and will definitely be butchering them again next year. Perhaps I’ll do a total cannibal/shrunken head theme.

To compliment the heads, Beth carved a pumpkin into a snake-like thing complete with forky tounge. Snake AND shrunken heads? Maybe we could have a “Horrors of the Fictional Amazon” theme next year. Lots of bones, pith helmets, and cauldrons.

steampunk computer



steampunk keyboard

Ok so what’s “steampunk” you ask. Very basically, it’s an aesthetic derrived from a literary genre: Victorian SciFi/Fantasy. Think HG Wells and Jules Verne (or for you comic geeks Girl Genius). It fantasizes what technology would look like if developed by adventurist-scientists in the late 1800s and its icons feature brass, wood, knobs, and, of course, steam.

It being Halloween, a lot of steampunk costume ideas are popping up in the stuff (blogs) I read. (I love the mechanical style of it and in my fantasy where Orange County Choppers builds me a bike, it’s steampunk.) That got me thinking about Steampunk Workshop (featured in Wired this year) and Greg at Petch House. I think these 2 entities might be a match made in heaven and this modified monitor and keyboard totally looks like a piece of awesomeness Greg would build.

So while this is in no way meant to pressure Big G, or any other of you Victorian restorers, I just want to say that it’ll rain or snow soon; or just get too cold to work on your siding; or your house projects will end altogether. When that happens, steampunk!!

before



after-ish

I know you think I’ve been slacking. Really, though, I’ve just been blog slacking. Blacking. Sbloking. Sum’in like that.  Because really we’ve been…ok so you know the giant house list? (Ours is in Excel because, well, you just have to know Beth.) Anyway, so we’ve been making our way through it ticking off as many items as possible. This, my friends, does not make for interesting blogging. It makes for entries like “Today I painted the back door. Not suprisingly the black dog’s tail is now white.” or “Beth tightened the door knob in the bedroom. She is master of the…um…screwdriver.” Not exactly thrilling stuff.

But, I have also been working on carrying the saltillo tile we laid on the lower steps and landing up the second set of steps to the patio. It’s this close to finished! My game has been rain-delayed for a few days so now I’m just waiting for a stretch of sun so I can seal and then slip-guard the tile. Then I can officially retitle “Porch Phase I Complete” with an exciting new Roman numeral: II.

Beth here.

As a general rule, I’m proud of the work that Merideth and I have done on the house.  We’ve accomplished things that are pretty awesome for two people who didn’t have a clue going in, and we continue to work well at solving complex problems when working on the house. 

Which is why it’s so annoying when I completely jack up an easy-peasy project.

A year ago, Merideth and I had our bathtub refinished for not cheap.  At that time, we got a stern lecture from the Miracle Method people about how, with our refinished tub, we were not to use bleach, as it would ruin the finish.  Fine.  We informed the housekeeper and moved on.  Sadly, though, with the lack of bleach in our fairly humid climate, some mold set in along the caulk line where tub meets wall.  Gross.

So I decided this weekend to re-do the caulk line.  First, I put on the caulk softener and waited the two hours before I could scrape it off.  I have done this before on the bathtub pre-finish, so thought nothing of it until the two hours had passed and I went in to notice that I HAD RUINED THE BATHTUB’S FINISH.  So now, all along the caulk line, there is brown bathtub peeking through brilliant white finish.  Let me assure you that it does NOT look better than a little mold.  Oh, and the caulk was not softened or easily removed.  So I had to take it all out with a razor blade.  Good times.  Oh, and lest I feel the least bit smart after all this, the caulk softener instructions clearly state that it should not be used on refinished bathtubs, which of course I read AFTER all of this.  Stupid clear directions that I can’t even blame.

With no other recourse, I re-caulked with the worst caulk job you’ve ever seen as I was trying to extend the caulk line to cover the damaged areas (didn’t work), and occasionally beating my head against the shower wall because I was so annoyed with myself.  Seriously.  I won’t even show pictures of the damage because I don’t want anyone to see what I did with the caulk.

I haven’t called the Miracle Method people yet to see if there’s any fixing it, mainly because I don’t want to have the conversation where I admit how dumb I am and find out how much my stupidity is going to cost.  In the meantime, I am keeping the shower curtain closed, and everyone in my household is pretending that they see no issues.

At least there’s no mold now, right?