Dining Room Update

Houseblogs.net, the community for those obsessed with home improvement, is running feature stories this month on four topics, one of which is the dining room. We loved the dining room when we first saw the house, it was large, lofty and had a great beamed ceiling but it was beige - beige ceiling, beige walls, beige carpet and beige vertical blinds. I could have lived with the beige while we tackled more urgent projects but when the previous owner removed her furniture she left behind those bright blue patches on the walls. A tad unsightly, no?



The off-white walls had grey grime where they met the ceiling. For a long time I worried that this was where the roof leaked but it proved to be just where dust from the heating system settled. There was a matching line around the edges of the carpet.



Not attractive, but at least it wasn't a major structural problem. Apart from this the room was dark because the rhododendrons and pine trees outside the windows totally blocked out the light,



and the dusty, vinyl vertical blinds had to go.



We hung framed museum prints we had from our last house over the blue rectangles and had the electrician rewire and hang our 1970s Tre Ci Luce Cesare Lacca "Alien" pendant lamp that we had lugged from Belgium. It had spent the last four years in a box because we didn't have a space in the last place for it but it goes perfectly here.



For three months we couldn't see out of the window



But eventually we chopped back the shrubbery elevating the light levels a gazillion times.

Originally I wanted a sand color on the walls and we pinned up lines of swatches from Benjamin Moore but nothing spoke to us. We progressed to buying try-out pots of paint in golds and shades of café au lait but they all seemed to make the room dingy. I'd been avoiding the greys because I didn't want the dining room to be cold or sad but when I came across Titanium I knew we had a winner. Titanium is such a bright modern-sounding word, isn't it? When we slapped the Titanium over 1968 beach blue it just looked right.



The Guy gave that wall two coats, I touched it up, and touched up the Navajo white on the adjoining walls as far as I could reach. We couldn't paint the rest of the room without buying a long ladder, and we didn't trust ourselves to paint the ceiling without dripping on the beams. We ended up living with this odd colour combination for over a year.



Meanwhile I had a "Eureka!" moment when we took out the built-ins from the boys' bedrooms.



I cannibalized the desk parts to make a new cabinet for the dining room.



Then I went to the local stone fabricator and had tops cut to fit in Carrara marble.



This worked so well we got over-confident and ordered a second top for the cabinet in the den. Unfortunately we failed to measure this accurately so we had a 4' piece of marble hanging around doing nothing. A few weeks of searching and we found this wrought iron wine table in Crate and Barrel that fitted perfectly. It's taller than the console so it's not too matchy-matchy.



The room was coming together but we knew that we had to replace the windows before long so we held off doing more.



In 2005 we put in new windows and I spent a couple of weekends getting the stain right on the frames. The first go at getting window coverings for the room was a bust. We ordered red dupioni silk roman shades from Smith & Noble but they came in with white splodges on the crimson.



We now had curtain rods but nothing to hang on them. While we searched we had the room professionally painted using the Titanium on the walls and BM Cloud White on the ceiling and baseboard. So much better than buying a ladder or scaffolding and they did a great job. In the end the wall with the prints on got a total of five coats of Titanium (two by Steven, one by me because I wasn't happy with his brushmanship, and two by the painters) and the other walls just got two coats.



In the end I found an even better solution than the roman shades, drapery panels in red silk, darker with an almost invisible pattern that gave a depth to the drapes. Even better, these were on sale at Pottery Barn.com and cost less for 6 panels than one of the wrought iron rods we had had to pay full price for at the Pottery Barn store.



Last year I found a great painting on ebay and had it framed at a local store. After some discussion we hung it in the dining room because we loved the way the colours in the painting complemented the grey, white and red of the room.



Three years after we started we consider this room "done". Well almost. Home improvement is never really finished, is it? At some point we want to change the carpet but that will have to wait until we are certain about the plans for the den and the kitchen floors.



Right now we have a dining room that we love, great colours, great light and warm enough to eat in even in winter.

USA and Canada not compatible

At least regarding Benjamin Moore paint. For reasons best known to themselves but I think it's to ensure I go stark, raving mad trying to pick out colo(u)rs for the kitchen, BM Canada has different names and a different numbering system for its paints. Why? Why would they do this? It's just cruel. Canadian paints have CC before the number as in the examples above. I did not know this. Armed with the numbers I wanted to get paint chips of I went to Aboffs, my local BM store. They had a paint fan with Classic Colours on it. CC- Classic Colors. Wouldn't you have assumed that was what the CC stood for? They even had a CC-700. It was called Enchanted Forest in American and is a dark greeny grey hue. Nothing like the Smoky Green that I was going for.
Likewise Lemon Grass CC-648 in Canada or 339 here.



Really, isn't there enough to divide us already without this?

Schmapped again

I've been Schmapped again, this time for the Brussels edition. It's great that my considerable ahem photographic skills are once again recognized, though I can't think why they didnit choose this one entitled "Man with Cell Phone and Strange Blue Dot"



or even this piece of art, "Girl with Cell Phone and Shopping Bag"



at least this one is in focus (almost)



Surreal Spring time on the Place St Catherine/Sint-Katelijneplaats, Brussels, May 2007.

A modern house makeover

A bout of fluey colds forced us to forgo our usual Friday evening cocktail and dinner and instead stay in to watch mindless TV. We didn't hold out much hope for entertainment but sometimes there are gems out there in Friday night TV land. Clinton Kelly the host of the US version of "What Not To Wear" was making over his house in the Connecticut hills.
A makeover show, decorating a house, critiquing someone else's taste - what's not to like? But wait it gets better - it's a modern house, better still a 1969 house with odd shaped rooms, wood ceilings and distinctive windows. It's like my house (although nowhere near as gorgeous of course).
The really great thing for me was that he used the elements that I've been toying with for the master bath: wood paneling around the tub; 24x17" tiles on the walls (that look remarkably like the Porcelanosa Ferroker tiles we used on the boys' bath floor) and mosaic on the shower floor, giving me an idea of the final look for our space without spending any money.
And we got to see someone else gagging in disbelief at the price of home renovation. Priceless. Watch the repaeat if you can, otherwise the Hartford Courant has photos and a Q&A session with Clinton.

Lighthouses: not just for keeping ships off rocks

Honestly how cute is this? These replicas of Huntington Lighthouse sit atop the street signs in the incorporated village. We were living here for about a year before I first noticed them, which gives you an idea of how aware of my surroundings I am. My excuse is that they are fairly high up and I know the roads so I don't need to look at the signs, but still...
They slightly bug me because they aren't functional in any way. I think they should have little doors at the back so birds can nest in them, but they are purely decorative. Not much use as foghorns either, rather like the original which is still silent since it's latest malfunction.

Manako Floor Lamp

For quite a while now we've been looking for a lamp to go in the corner of Steven's office. He is always complaining he never has enough light in there but he hasn't liked any of the obvious solutions, like better task lighting.
Then I got an email from Room & Board this morning that featured this beautiful Manako floor lamp made of mango wood. It seemed to be just what we were looking for. But a click on the "room views" made me think that the proportions would be wrong for the space. This thing is huge. It's also $699 + $79 delivery so it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, but I still think it's a gorgeous piece.

Not quite peak

We seem to be a lot later than usual getting to the real autumn leaves display. This year the season has been the warmest on record and despite the frost last night only some dogwoods and the oaks are changing color. The maple by the bridge is still vibrant green. Normally it would look like this:

.

I'm really interested to see how long we will go until we get to the peak, I don't really believe it's autumn until then. Of course a week later when all the trees are bare I think it's winter.

Auguste Heckscher's Winter Cottage Sold

Just gone "Under Contract" after months and months on the market, industrialist and real estate magnet Auguste Heckscher's winter cottage in Huntington Bay is a gem.
For all lovers of old houses here's a chance to peek at the original detail work. Check out the bridal staircase in the front entry of this piece of Huntington Bay history before it disappears from the listings.
A little extra family history is available courtesy of the NY TImes February 7, 1907.

A change from the usual autumn colours

White hydrangea bouquet in the foyer.



The fall color on the trees is just about at its peak here, so I got these gorgeous white hydrangeas that have just a hint of green in them. That way the cut flowers won't compete with the red, orange and gold in the yard. Pretty.

Schmap

You'll have to excuse my ignorance but I'd never heard of Schmap until this morning when I received an email letting me know that one of my Flickr photos had made it to the shortlist for the fourth edition of the Vancouver guide. Even if the photo doesn't make the final cut it's cool to know someone liked it.
We were in Vancouver, Canada in August 2006 for what proved to be the final trip out of the USA to renew our visas. The US Department of Immigration Services requires legal immigrants leave the country to get their visas renewed. Some people go back to their home countries, but we hadn't applied from our country of citizenship when we originally came here and that complicated things. The US Government has a pragmatic solution for people like us: a quick trip to Canada or Mexico.
We had only a few weeks to renew the visas and we intended to go to Montreal or Toronto or Quebec City to get the passports stamped but the wait time for an appointment at the US consulates there was 8-10 weeks. So we looked to see if there was an earlier slot anywhere else in Canada or Mexico. We were really lucky to get a 8AM slot the following Monday morning in Vancouver. We flew out at the weekend, made the appointment and eventually got the stamp. And we had one of the most enjoyable vacations in a great city to boot. I would move to Vancouver in a heartbeat, the scenery is unbelievable, the food is wonderful and Canadian people? It's a cliché but they are so nice.
Here's a link to my Vancouver slideshow. I won't spoil the possible surprise by singling out the submitted photo. But you can guess if you want to. Here's a hint: it's not this one



Enjoy.

Window Replacement: what I know now

The trauma that the owner of casacaudill (a fellow houseblogger) is going through with her windows reminds me of the months of anguish we went through three years ago when we were replacing our windows: sleepless nights, contractor bids, disbelief at the price, more sleepless nights.
Before we bought the house we knew that we would have to replace the failed double paned windows that were so fogged you couldn't tell if it was rainy or sunny outside and the huge single pane, single hung windows in the dining room, den, study and master bedroom if we were to keep warm in the winter.
We tried to get rough estimates before we bought the house but it proved impossible. My best guess, as everything had to be custom, was $40,000 for all the windows, triangular, square and rectangular. As soon as we moved in I had contractors come and quote. It turned out that no one likes to install windows - not enough profit. Most contractors walked in, looked around and disappeared, no quotes there. One only wanted to install vinyl, and I couldn't do that to this house. One told us we needed to get Marvin windows, but he would only install Andersen or Pella. One wanted to remove all the siding to install. I was seriously freaked out they would reduce my house to a pile of redwood planks.
Then there were the design problems. Marvin could do the custom sizes we needed cheaper than the other two big window manufacturers and their product seemed better but Town Code meant we couldn't put single hung windows in so we spent a lot of time coming up with a solution that would be the same on the exterior but would fit code. Having everything architecturally correct was very important to us.
In the end we did get a quote for everything and it was almost exactly my guestimate figure. But a few months in the house had opened our eyes to what else had to be done and the thought of spending that huge amount of money just on windows was making me sick. We decided that we would replace only those windows that absolutely needed it: 2 8"x3" fogged double paned windows over the garage, 2 4'x 3" in Steven's study that let water cascade in when it rained, a cracked 4'x4'window that a bird flew into the day we moved in and 8 6'x4' single pane, single hung windows.
We decided we would replace the other windows as and when we needed to. This year we put in a new tempered glass window in the boys' bath as we remodeled that space.


This seemed like a great solution at the time but three years on, I'm not so sure. We are still having window issues, a few of the old windows have started to fail: there are signs of moisture in the basement windows (above) and in the master bedroom; a couple of others had rot that was treated but they're now draughty and they don't operate well; we are still having trouble with design of the 6'x8' replacement window in the den (below). The cost of Marvin windows has gone up, as has the cost of labor. The fallback in real estate prices makes me nervous about return on investment so I'm reluctant to do more than I have to.



The price that originally made me feel sick now seems more like money well spent. Our heating and airco bills have been lower since we had the large windows replaced and I appreciate the quality of these windows. From the outside it's almost impossible to tell which are original windows and which are the replacements. Any issues we had with the windows were to do with the installation and not the windows themselves, so we will be even more careful about choosing a contractor in the future.
We will have to replace eight windows probably next year or the year after and I wish I had done them all at one go so I don't have to worry about them now. Hindsight, it's a wonderful thing.

$50 solution*

*Plus NY state tax
OK, Hands up. How many of you thought we'd spring for ceramic tile in the powder room? And hardwood flooring? Anyone for bamboo? Anyone?
Yep, you don't know us at all.
The problem is dependency. I would have loved to have spent $300 on slate-look porcelain tiles but that would have led to the whole "but the powder room and kitchen floor have different height/ different colour" discussion/argument.
Let me walk you through it: Eventually - schedule 2008, now possibly 2009, more realistically 2010, we will remodel the kitchen. The kitchen floor has a sub-floor of marine ply-wood that makes it higher than the the dining part of the kitchen and the powder room. If we replace the nasty carpet we have to ensure the two heights are the same when we remodel the kitchen, otherwise someone will not be happy. Plus, if we lay ceramic tile today, will the same tile be available in 2009 or 2010? Unlikely. Doing one project properly depends on another project.
So to avoid a costly "That looks like s**t mistake", we are making the best of it and going with a temporary or "band aid"* solution. That would be the cheapest fix we could find. And the winner is? Carpet. A remnant at $49. Who would have thought I would contemplate carpet in a bathroom?
I hate it, but I am going to have to live with it - hopefully only in the short term.

*The carpet remnant is beige and it looks like elastoplast/bandaid, too.

Rats

'Tis fall, and 'tis the season for wildlife. Some people hunt them, me I just try to keep out of their way. This autumn though I've had close encounters with raccoons, chipmunks and field mice but today topped all that. Waiting for me when I came into the drive with the dogs after our walk was a dead rat. A very large flat, dead rat. I tried to convince myself it was a squirrel but no, the tail was very unfluffy.
I knew we had had rats in the garage when we bought this house, there was a big hole in the wall and the smell of rat urine was overpowering, but I could see no droppings or other physical evidence that they were still there, certainly not an actual rat - alive or dead.
This corpse was about 75' from the house and had obviously been run over by a truck or possibly a steam roller. I didn't bother to take a photo but if you want to see one I can recommend this site where they invite you to CLICK ANY DEAD PHOTO BELOW FOR A LARGER IMAGE. Dead photos. Nice.
The kitties are doing their work to keep the local rodent population down but this rat was at least 8" long, plus tail and that's about the size of Maya. I hope they are up to the job because I don't want to meet any live rats around here. And I'd prefer not to see any more dead ones either.

Do months have colours?

They do in my twisted mind. November has always seemed like a grey month and in that spirit I decided to paint the downstairs powder room a steely grey. The problem is that there are so many shades out there, even if I confine it to Benjamin Moore colors. Another Shade of Grey even has links to gray paints on her website. I was wary of making it too dark because it's a tiny space, I don't like greys with lavender undertones and I thought the blue-toned greys might not go with the faux marble vanity top (I can't wait to replace that baby with the real thing). So in the end I used Benjamin Moore Titanium, a grey with a greenish hue. It's the same paint I put on the dining room walls. And when I say same paint, I mean the half gallon we had left over from that project. I know it says to use the paint within six months but it won't be the first time I've let paint sit for a couple of years before throwing it on the walls, and we have already established I am a cheap lady. It isn't really steely but it looks stylish enough.
The best thing about painting this house is the surprise I always get when I take off the heating grills. The original Las Vegas on Acid 1968 wallpaper will be revealed in a tantalising 8"x6" strip. The half-bath did not disappoint: grey foil wallpaper with black squiggles and beige blotches. Groovy.



And it's a good thing I didn't start this project in October - because that screams pumpkin orange.

Edited to add: I went back into the powder room after the walls dried and the are a great colour. Unfortunately the clean walls clashed with the filthy beige carpet. So I ripped it out. The plan is to redo that floor when we do the kitchen floor, which is looking further and further away and I am definitely not living with a disgusting carpet or with carpet tacks for the next year or two. Sooooo a solution will have to be found pronto.
At least it's Friday and we have all weekend to think of something.

Dwell's Kitchen Blog

For those of a modern persuasion who are contemplating a new kitchen there's a new resource on the internets. Dwell magazine has launched a kitchen blog. Posts in the past week include Porsche kitchens for guys (although I've never thought of a Porsche as a particularly manly car) and a list of showrooms where you can test drive appliances before you buy them. Now that's a good idea. Ideally, though I'd like to borrow them for a month to really see if they work. I have the feeling I will be spending way too much time on this site getting plenty of ideas for spending way to much money on our kitchen remodel.
Making it all about me, there's also a tech blog that features my new duvet cover from CB2.

Candy stash

What's the first thing you do on the morning of Hallowe'en? Throw out last year's candy rejects, that's what.
I found a stash of Necco wafers and nasty fake chocolate bars lurking behind a case of espresso pods in the pantry. Who eats Necco wafers anyway? The trick or treaters picked them up, shuddered and put them back saying "Not these, they're disgsuting". Maybe a little impolite, but I tried one and I had to agree. Yuk. Perhaps it's an acquired taste. I must have thrown the rejected candy into the drawer and just forgotten about it. Rather than risk mure disdain from the neighborhood kids I pitched the whole lot into the garbage. Man, I hate waste.
I wonder if there's anything interesting behind the case of coffee beans. Like money.

How $$$$$ much?

Here's a little segment I'll be calling "You have to be freakin' kidding me", subtitled "Denial: How some sellers are bucking the downturn in the housing market".
This pretty gatehouse went on the market this week. It's an "exclusive" which I've learnt means "Anyone else would be embarrassed to ask this much for this house, so let's keep it our little secret". People who really want to sell list their houses on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) of Long Island so they can reach as many potential buyers as possible.
So anyway, it's gorgeous, but is it $3,000,000 gorgeous? $3,000,000 is a staggering amount for a house that is on a busy road. Right on the road- you can see it in the photo. It is technically a waterfront property but you have to dodge the traffic on that road to get to the water. And there's a lot of inventory in the Village right now. Although it isn't the most expensive or even the most ridiculously priced, the square footage per dollar ratio is pretty high. Zillow has it valued at $1,053,332, although their values don't necessarily sync with the real estate prices here. I mustn't forget either that the real estate market is local and the value of any house is what the buyer pays for it. So maybe while other sellers are dropping the asking price, this one is correctly positioned to attract buyers. Good Luck to them. I'll let you know if it sells.
And I have to give them props for going for the straight $3 million. None of that messing people around with a faux-bargain $2,999,000. Kudos.

My sofa on ebay: update

The live auction ended yesterday on the modular Harvey Probber sofa, the one that is just like mine, only orange not pink and vinyl not fabric. It sold for a whopping $7,500. That's more than twice the auction estimate. A few years ago you couldn't give 60s and 70s furniture away, now it's becoming prohibitive to collect. Oh well. I'm neither planning to get rid of my pink beauty nor buy another one.

Not that I'm cheap

But it's been so mild this October, and I had to run the air conditioning at the start of the month (that nearly killed me), that I'm trying to get into November before we put the heating on. It hasn't been a problem until today when the temperature inside dropped to 64F. The weather is set to get warmer again on Halloween so I'm just going to tough it out. After all, we didn't have central heating when we were kids and we survived. And it's environmentally friendly. Right?

Wake up call

Hermes managed to sneak in the bedroom and woke me up at 4 AM by peeing on me.
Seriously.
I am actively re-considering my position as a cat lover or at least a lover of highly-strung Colorpoint cats.
On the other hand this made me laugh.



Baseball bat or pee, what's your choice for an early morning wake-up call?

Sunday afternoon with the Roosevelts

A perfect fall afternoon - blue skies, a slight chill in the air and the trees just beginning to turn red and orange - was a great time to visit the summer home of President Teddy Roosevelt, Sagamore Hill. The house is always undergoing some form of maintenance and is well worth a visit (see someone else paint columns and replace a rotted verandah) but we chose just to walk through the grounds and kick up a few autumn leaves.

What downturn in the housing market?

Carol Polsky, the journalist who wrote the story on our house for Newsday has written another article on home renovation. But this time, we are talking extreme luxury. It seems that more people are discovering that one $100,000+ kitchen just isn't enough. There is a trend towards second kitchens in high-end homes - that's one for the family and one for the caterers! And guess which kitchen will have the more expensive cabinetry.
Check out the article here.

I'm Classical Trendy

I've fallen in love with a new kitchen and in the process defined my style. The modular Fiamma kitchen by GED Cucine has gorgeous, tactile walnut cabinetry designed to blur the boundaries of living and cooking areas, or as they put it
"System Kitchen, Fiamma leaves the limit of the kitchen to continue in the living-room, recovering a material of memory: the walnut in sepia-grey tone."
That's what I want - walnut "the material of memory". I can't imagine how much it would cost, but the copy on the website does say that it's a "valuable soft-finish wood" that they combine with "shining steel" and "natural cut stones", so I'm thinking somewhere between very expensive and prohibitive. The kitchen seems to be sold only in Italy so I'm unlikely to find out. But "Classical Trendy" is the tag-line and it seems to fit me and the things I like so I'm going to adopt it.

Levittown, Long Island

It's 60 years since Levitt & Sons announced plans to build a community on Long Island to provide housing for returning WWII GIs. The New York Times has an very interesting slideshow depicting the original Cape Cod style houses and some of the remodeled and much enlarged versions you can see today.
Detailed information about America's first suburban community can be found at The Levittown Historical Society.

Raccoon redux

It looks like we have an outbreak of distemper in the local raccoon population. On Sunday our next door neighbors called to say they had a raccoon acting strangely in their yard and although he wandered off he was back yesterday and again today. It seems that as the disease is so contagious, we could have quite a few sick raccoons in the area until the colony is decimated. That's what happened about seven years ago.
Apparently humans can't catch distemper and our cats and dogs have been vaccinated (raccoons get both canine and feline distemper) so we should be fine. And now I'm more convinced that it isn't rabies I am not so worried about them, I just don't like to see the poor raccoons suffer. The neighbors, on the other hand, are still at the freaked out stage. They bought a humane trap and the police have been here again trying to capture the beast but this one is even more tricky than ours. So until he's caught the kids are staying inside and we are keeping all the doors shut.
There's only one thing worse than a sick raccoon in the yard and that's a sick raccoon in the house

Submerged rocks

We temporarily interrupt this blog to bring you a picture of waves swirling around a submerged rock.
Peaceful isn't it?

Autumn at the Beach

2 pm, Monday October 22 2007 and it's 73F. We've had an unbelievable run of beautiful weather in NY. It hasn't been this warm through the end of October since we moved here. Someone termed in "perma-summer". That pretty much sums it up. The leaves are changing and falling and they've removed the awning down at the beach because summer is over but you wouldn't know that from the temperature or the number of boats out on the Sound.

They're selling my sofa on ebay

Well, not my sofa but it's the same make (Harvey Probber) and size as my sofa but it's in orange vinyl. Not as pretty as my pink beauty but still a great mid-century modular sofa. And it does have the advantage that you can just wipe off the animal fur and cat sick!

Terrazzo - hot or not?

Just as I'm making plans to take out another terrazzo shower base, this time in the master bath, I find that terrazzo is hot again. These days it's eco-friendly, made from things like old toilets (I kid you not) and 100% recycled glass bonded with coloured epoxy resin and turned into bright, shiny countertops.
Our old terrazzo shower base is made from crushed marble set in portland cement, the same as one we took out during the boys' bathroom remodel. It's not a look that I find appealing, more cement than marble and is the devil to keep clean. You might want to close your eyes at this point and surf away as the photo below is quite disgusting. This is what happens when the terrazzo gets cracked and you can't scrub it properly because the water will leak through to the foyer below. Yuk, ugh. I can't wait to take a sledgehammer to it.



The new terrazzo is supposed to be easy to maintain and they even have a product made from actual terrazzo and glass that's suitable for flooring - it looks like terrazzo but is cheaper, and easier to lay. I don't think it would work in our house as it's not scratch-proof. It sure does sparkle though.
I really want to update this house in the greenest way possible but I think that, in the end, I just find the new terrazzo too irregular for my taste. And I'm a little afraid that I might be letting back into my master bath the avocado and fawn beige toilets we took out of the other bathrooms. That's a step too far for me.

Reptiles in the bathroom

I'm still looking for something to trigger that "eureka" moment for the master bath re-design. Somehow I don't think this is it.



Monty from the Jungle range by Ceramica Cielo in python finish. Monty the Python. Get it?
Scared of snakes? There's a crocodile collection called - wait for it...
All together now: Dundee

Our environmental impact

Today is Blog Action Day, the day when bloggers worldwide blog on a single topic and this year it's the environment.
We're still trying to do our part to save the planet but I have to say that since we moved from Europe I feel that we've become a lot less environmentally conscious.
For example, in Belgium we sorted all our garbage. We had to as the law changed to mandate it. We were forced to buy separate garbage sacks for household rubbish, bottles, cans and cartons, paper and vegetable matter. Everyone grumbled because the sacks weren't cheap and the price varied from commune to commune but there were fines for non-compliance and eventually people got with the programme.
When we moved to the US in 2000 we attempted to keep up this regime but there was no separate collection and thus no incentive to sort. Then when we moved to this house in a different district we found that we could recycle our bottles and cans (but not cartons) one week and our paper the next. We can also put out bundles of twigs and grass clippings but not kitchen compost. So we sort of recycle. But the garden waste goes into the same truck as the ordinary household waste so I guess even if we sort, the garbage collection guys don't. Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose?
We have replaced all the outdoor lights and most of the indoor bulbs with the compact fluorescents but once again in Europe we would have done all of them by now because they are more readily available and we know everyone else does it.
Further than that I can say that today I'm running neither the air conditioning system nor the heating, which has to be good news both for my wallet and the environment but that's a matter of climate and not a conscious decision on my part. When we do run these system I keep the airco at 78F and heat at 65F. We strip off in summer and wear layers in winter.
Outside we don't do too well either. We have a pool, although we don't heat it and a sprinkler system that uses a lot of water, although I do use a landscaping firm that has "Environmental" in its name and the tree spraying firm I employ only uses environmentally friendly products (hot oil). That's still a big environmental impact.
On the renovation front we try to be as green as possible - bamboo floors and silestone for example, and re-purposing the previous owners' furniture but I'd like to do a lot more, including solar panels. But we have a long way to go to renovate in a truly sustainable manner.
I also try to ensure that all the products and furnishings we use are made in factories that comply with International Labour Standards.
The sad truth is when we were forced by the government to do our part, we did it, and while I like to think we are environmentally aware we are not coming close to do all the things we could do to ensure that we are impacting the environment in a positive way.

Raccoon wrangling

A weekend saga in two parts.
Part One: Saturday 7 AM.
We were lying in bed and the dogs were going totally beserk. Woof, woof, bark, bark, bark. Calling them did no good. Commanding them to "come" just resulted in more urgent barking so Steven went down to see what was causing all the commotion. Then he yelled to me "There's a raccoon just outside the window".
I ran downstairs and there it was, lying on the path outside the dining room window. Raccoons shouldn't be out in daytime, and they shouldn't be stretched out on the doorstep at any time of day. I wasn't sure if it was alive or dead but I had to get dressed before I could rationally assess the situation. We've had reports of rabid raccoons in the county, so if we see any raccoons behaving out of character we're supposed to call someone. Only we couldn't remember who. So while I went off to shower and dress Steven called 411 and asked for animal control.
Turns out a raccoon is not an animal, it's wildlife and we needed to call the police. More interesting still is that the Village has a wildlife expert, who used to be the Police Commissioner. But she'd caught a raccoon the day before and had left her raccoon-snatching gear at the vet's so she couldn't be at our house for a couple of hours.
We had to be out in less than an hour to attend 6 hours of defensive driving tuition to get 10% off our auto insurance. (And with the number of fender-benders Steven had last year, we need it!). We were just going to have to trust the police would be able to find the raccoon without our help. They told us to get a garbage can and put it over the raccoon and they'd deal with it. But when Steven approached it the (we thought) dying animal with the bin it sprung to life and climbed 10' up the maple tree.



There was nothing else we could do at that point so we locked all our pets in the house and headed off to the course hoping that the wildlife expert would see the raccoon up the tree and capture it. When we got home there was no sign of it, just some scuff marks around the tree, so Steven took the trash can away and we thought the drama was over.

Part Two: Sunday 6 AM
The dogs started barking again but this time at something in the back yard. Even in the dawn light we could see that the raccoon had made his way to the barbecue and was standing there shaking.



This is where things took on a cartoonish quality. Steven went out to look at it, the dogs rushed past him to get to the raccoon and once again the raccoon came to life and shot up the linden tree.



After a while the poor thing fell off the tree and staggered around some more. At one point he fell into the pond, but he managed to climb out again. Every so often he'd fall over and shake. It was really horrible and the wildlife expert promised she'd come and get it but we needed to watch it in the meantime.
So I grabbed my camera and I watched it. I watched it coming towards me



I watched it walking away from me


And I watched it lying down.



Eventually the wildlife expert aka a neighbourhood volunteer turned up with her raccoon catching gear: a pink cat carrier, a garden shovel and a noose made of plastic line. That was it. No boots, no gloves, no protective gear or special equipment whatsoever. Nothing to prevent her from getting rabies should the animal bite. I felt like a complete wimp at this point.
The came the fun part. Herding a wild animal into the cage with limited equipment. Rocky proved very recalcitrant for a sick raccoon and our neighbour decided she needed to go to the police station to get a noose on a long pole so we could trap him. While she was gone, however, Steven decided to have a go and managed to get the line around the raccoon's neck.



Then he sent me off to find the expert and get her to help put him into the cage. But by the time we got back he had the raccoon in the carrier and the excitement was over. My hero.
The raccoon will be taken to vet and monitored for distemper and rabies. If it can be treated it will be and then it will be released.

There's no arguing with that

Driving into town yesterday evening to eat sushi I turned to Steven and remarked on the gorgeous sunset.
"Should we go and watch the sun set first?"
"I don't think so, hunger trumps beauty".

Funky, stylish and fun

I knew I should have left that wallpaper alone when we moved in. Even though it had fused to the wall where water had leaked through the windows, and there were damp patches from the water penetration from the roof it was typical 60s paper. And guess what? All of a sudden wallpaper is back and it's fabulous.
I really want to put one 60s inspired kick-ass wallpaper somewhere in the house and I think the foyer is crying out for this one, appropriately called Party Girl, in red. Or maybe this ferm Living Feather wallpaper in a rich teal colour.
Either way, I'm going to have to wait until the master bath is renovated and all its leaks fixed, it would be heartbreaking to put it up and then find dripping bath water had fused it to the wall.

Cold bath time

I decided to take a long, hot bubble bath this morning. Not something I'd normally do being an in and out refreshing wake-up shower sort of girl but you know, once in a while a relaxing soak can be good.
So I filled the tub with lots of bubbles and plenty of water and got in. And out again pretty quick. No hot water. That's funny because the oil burner guy came yesterday and gave both the heating and hot water boilers a thorough cleaning. Unless........
Yep, a quick trip to the boiler in the basement confirmed it. When he'd finished he FORGOT TO SWITCH IT BACK ON. I thought it was quiet last night.
So there was enough hot water in the tank for Steven's shower, a load of washing, several hand washes but not enough to fill the bath. Must remember for future, take bath before Steven gets in shower.