So, the house is looking pretty damn good. I realize I'm biased but still! The rest of the lighting fixtures arrived today and as of last night, there's power in the kitchen. I walked upstairs last night and flipped the kitchen switch...it was mesmerizing. After not having power on that floor for months to then have bright inset lights twinkling away. Amazing.
All the inset lights are dimmable which is exciting to me at this juncture in my life. The under cabinet lights are being installed tomorrow. Here's a daytime pic of the other side of the room/the dining area.
That table is really small for the space but it'll do for now. I'll take a better picture of the chandelier tomorrow.
The faucet arrived which is awesome because I was worried it would take the full 6 weeks to get here.
So pretty! I bought a bigger window ledge to go behind the faucet since the crappy ledge of yesteryear was only 2 inches wide which would never be able to support a little herb garden. So for $7 I bought a new ledge at Home Depot (again, much respect to the big HD), ripped out the old one and had Andre (in the blue shirt by the sink in the pic above and below) install the new ledge. Voila'! Herb garden ledge!
You may notice the biggest event to happen to the house recently...the floors were stained over the weekend. It was the most stressed I've been since renovations started. I wasn't sure about that color I'd previously been so sure about when they started rubbing it in the wood. For about 20 minutes I was convinced I'd picked the wrong color and ruined the entire house. I did what anyone would do. I took a break and ate an ice cream sandwich in silence. When I went back upstairs and saw the main area done I realized it was a great fit and everything was fine. Here's the before pic-
I actually really liked the unstained, IKEA-esque color but the darker stain blows that out of the water. The grain of the wood is gorgeous and you'd never see it with a lighter stain. All hail Minwax Provincial!
Countertops are getting installed on Monday or Tuesday which leaves only plumbing work to be done. That reminds me, I have a bedet in the back of my car. I gotta bring it in the house. I keep forgetting. I trekked over an hour away to pick it up because almost no one stocks bedets or the elusive hardware that goes with them, so I had to drive to an industrial park in Fredericksburg, VA to get it. Then I decided to take the more scenic route home and got lost for three hours. Turns out gps, maps AND a compass on my phone when service is sketchy is pretty much like not having anything at all. I had a full tank of gas and it was a pretty day so it could've been worse.
Let me introduce you to some new friends! See, we've been noticing that there are quite a few flies out in the country which made me think of one thing...one thing I always wanted as a kid and never bought.... A VENUS FLY TRAP!
*WARNING: The picture below is graphic*
What can I say? That fly had it coming. I couldn't love this plant more. It's my Little Shop of Horrors. I also bought a tiny cousin to the venus flytrap-
This little plant doesn't have mouths that snap shut, instead its little leaves are covered in prongs of syrup that stick to gnats and then dissolve them. Nature is amazing. With these two plants and the dozens of frogs hopping around the house outside, I'm hoping the slow flying raisins dissipate.
With almost everything getting done next week, we have to paint as much as possible this weekend. What I'm realizing is that the hard work is just beginning. Louis looked at me today and said, "What colors are we painting the rooms?" Well, what a fine question Louis. Looks like I'll be staring at interior design websites all night!
I'm thinking of doing an old school finish on the walls of the main room/hallway so I need to brush up on that technique- pun intended.
As you can see, I need to finish the ceilings now that the floor is free of death trap objects to maneuver around. Taping drop cloths over the floor is easier than hurdling buckets, fans and table saws.
Our contractors are so lovely, they decided to replace the screen on our porch as a gift to us. I won't say it didn't come without a price though...Rob had Rush Limbaugh blaring the whole time and this feminazi's head almost exploded. I had to sequester myself downstairs.
The last drivel I heard was about Obama's dumb idea to pursue clean energy technology and how he's just like that idiot Carter- cut to my dilated pupils and clenched fists. Yeah and the oil spill is a part of nature and the ocean will heal itself and don't worry about there being more carbon in the atmosphere than EVER before because living in a man made science experiment is natural and who needs clean energy anyway my hefty pill popping ass will be dead soon so who cares?! SUCH a test of my patience- to the basement!
Lastly, I made a very, very, very cool discovery yesterday. When I got back from my three hour bedet tour I went to the garden where I planted more corn, soybeans and cow peas. I noticed that this one type of weed has practically taken over since Farmer John tilled the area for me yet it's nowhere else on the property. I've been pulling it like a weed but every time I do I say to myself, "Self, this weed is too pretty to be a weed and it looks kinda familiar". SO, I did some research and it turns out that this "weed" is actually something called Purslane.
It turns out that Purslane is not only edible and revered in Europe, Mexico and Asia but it's also AMAZINGLY good for you. Here's an excerpt of the description:
Purslane contains more Omega-3 fatty acids than any other leafy vegetable plant. Purslane has .01 mg/g of Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). This is an extraordinary amount of EPA for land based vegetable sources. EPA is an Omega-3 fatty acid normally found mostly in fish, some algae and flax seeds. [5] It also contains vitamins (mainly vitamin A, vitamin C, and somevitamin B and carotenoids), as well as dietary minerals, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium and iron. Also present are two types of betalain alkaloid pigments, the reddish betacyanins (visible in the coloration of the stems) and the yellow betaxanthins (noticeable in the flowers and in the slight yellowish cast of the leaves). Both of these pigment types are potent antioxidants and have been found to have antimutagenic properties in laboratory studies.[6]
100 grams of fresh purslane leaves (about 1 cup) contain 300 to 400 mg of alpha-linolenic acid.[7] One cup of cooked leaves contains 90 mg of calcium, 561 mg of potassium, and more than 2,000 IUs of vitamin A.
WOWZA! I've been pulling it like a weed for weeks! I'm going to try making it for dinner tomorrow. It can be eaten raw or cooked like spinach and it has a salty taste.
Then I'm at HD tonight and I was drawn to a brilliant red/pink flower and wouldn't you know it...
The tags may be hard to read but they say, "Rio Purslane"! There are a ton of varieties. Mine have yellow flowers. I've been paying for omega-3 oil for years so the idea that I magically have a field of it is pretty exciting!
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