Backsplash - option 4

Well, the results are in for my poll about your backsplash tile preferences, and the vast majority preferred either the subway tile with steel strip, or the stone-look tiles, with the subway tiles winning the day. But I have to confess that I'm not warming to the steel strip. I really do think it'll date the kitchen.

Anyway, Katie and I played around with the tile samples a little more tonight, and I think we hit on a design that I will really like. (I also bought some sticky-tac so I could place the layout on the wall vertically and get a better feel for how it will look.)

Note: there will be a 3-inch granite backsplash between the countertop and the wall tiles. It's a long story. Don't ask.

So here's the tile layout we came up with:


See how it combines options 1 and 2, and ties the cupboard colour into the wall tile? What do you think? I think I like it!

Our little piece of heaven

A big part of why we bought this house, rather than the many other (larger) homes we saw, was the park that is right across the street. This park has the usual things: baseball diamonds, basketball hoop, wading pool, butterflies. (No, those aren't butterflies in the picture, just yellow leaves.)

But even better than that (look to the very back of that picture), it has a forest! A beautiful forest, laced generously with mulch-softened paths, and dappled with green-tinted sunlight. So beautiful!

It even has bridges, which, like windows, are always a captivating image for me, as transitional spaces between here and there, between now and the future.
And these beautiful little plants that grow about four inches high. Are they a kind of fern? I don't know, but they remind me of miniature pine trees.

It's a magical place, which I look forward to exploring in all seasons.

Arachnophobia

You know how I feel about bugs (and, yes, I know that spiders are not, technically, bugs, but you know what I mean). Imagine my pleasure when this huge, orange interloper set up housekeeping outside our patio doors. And this is only two days after I thorougly swept the outsides of all the windows and doors. (The blurry pencil in the foreground is to give you a sense of scale.) I guess all those years of our yard returning to its natural state - ungroomed, left to the local flora and fauna - are going to take some time to undo.

In happier news, the living room is finally coming together. Emily put the curtains up yesterday, and the room immediately felt a lot cosier, more homey. As a reminder, here is a "before" picture of the room:

And here is the After:

Doesn't it look like it's just ready for a fire in the fireplace? And doesn't the new mantelpiece that Steve built look much better proportioned? (I still wish the shelves were thicker, but we have plans to fix that - thanks for your suggestion, Mary.) It still needs a rug, but that can wait until I get a job.

And, here's a picture of yesterday's birthday boy. The cake is a little unorthodox - it's just a simple vanilla cake, but, instead of frosting, Brian asked for Brown Sugar Sauce. What! You've never heard of Brown Sugar Sauce? It's just the yummiest comfort food around! It was always my favourite as a kid, and now it's Brian's as well. He keeps chirping, "You know, I wonder why the food industry hasn't grabbed onto Brown Sugar Sauce." Here's the recipe the way my mother always made it, if you want to try it yourself:

Mix in a saucepan:

1 Cup brown sugar

3 Tablespoons flour

Add:

1 Cup boiling water

Cook over medium heat until thickened. Remove from heat and add:

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 Tablespoon butter

Ladle over the cake to glaze it, then ladle on more as you serve. That's it!

And when it rains ...

It pours. At least, it did so in Ottawa today. Really heavy downfall, with traffic chaos and flooding everywhere. Including, as it happens, our basement. One of our basement window wells had filled with composted leaves to above the sill line. So the water had nowhere to go but indoors.

So, on top of our $10,000 reverse windfall, we have a basement full of boxes and furniture which are now at great risk of mildewing.

Do you remember this picture? See how we've stacked all the furniture and boxes along one wall? Well, guess where the water went. That's right - under the furniture and boxes stacked along the wall.

Here's the puddle. It is seeping under the wall. If you follow the tail that points toward the camera, it'll bring you right back to those boxes.

Really, we should've had an inkling that something like this would happen with the first real storm. After all, the yard certainly demonstrated that our 90-year-old, one-armed original owner was not big into maintenance. Nor did he hire anyone to do the heavy work. And just yesterday, we pulled a metre-long pot-bound rat's nest of composted leaves and roots from one of our downspouts. It looked like this: Looks like we've really got our work cut out for us outdoors.

Oh, and humidity is currently 94%. Don't know what it is inside, with the air conditioner, but it still feels freakin' sticky.

Today has not been a great day in the Sibbald household. Tomorrow will be better, I'm sure. After all, it'll be Brian's 14th birthday - which calls for cake, which is always a good thing!

It's only money. Right?

We finally received the close-out report from our lawyer, who handled the sale of our tiny house and purchase of our current house.

Bad news: the lawyer paid the seller an extra $10,000 on the purchase of this house. Fortunately, we have documents (the same ones he had!) so we should be able to recupe that money.

Worse news: upon discovering vermiculite in the attic, our realtor called the selling realtor, who then called the vendor with our proposal to reduce the selling price by $10,000. The vendor wasn't happy, but he agreed. Somehow, that change NEVER MADE IT INTO THE CONTRACT! Fools that we are, we signed the documents we were given, without checking that the $10,000 reduction was included. And, with so much money - huge hunks of cash - flying around, we didn't spot the error ourselves until now.

At this point, we probably have no recourse, except that we've contacted the realtor and, if the company is ethical (and believes in keeping the customer happy), they may reimburse us that $10,000. But, since we signed the papers, they could very well push all responsibility back onto our shoulders.

In the meantime, we're feeling pretty cheesed with our lawyer, our realtor and ourselves.