Dreaming of Paperhands

I used to hate wallpaper, but in recent years it has begun to excite me.Wallpaper can be a great way to add art and intrigue to a home, and the many unique design options out there today provide lots of interesting alternatives to florals.

When my mom recently wrote and told me that one of my NZ cousins had started his own wallpaper business along with his wife, I immediately went and checked out their website. Then, I fell in love. With wallpaper.

Check out http://www.paperhands.co.nz

Now you see why I'm in love. I'm particularly partial to the Vices print and the Native print, and within 5 minutes of looking, I was e-mailing my cousin to see if it would be possible to ship some of this fabulous wall covering to the US. I encourage you to do the same. ;) If I could figure out a way to do it, I would be selling this stuff on street corners, because this is how much I love it. I love the print process, the colors, and the way it transforms a room.

Sure and Steady

Sorry it has been awhile since I last wrote...the days seem to be blowing by right now! Progress on the house is coming along, but the visuals aren't nearly as dramatic as the demolition pictures from July. Randy is STILL working on finishing up the monumental task of painting the house. In many regards, I think we could accurately call his task "extreme painting," because he's had to do all kinds of crazy things, like construct a narrow catwalk between roof overhangs on the front of the house and double stack ladders. For this reason, I'm going to hold off on including any more pictures of the paint job until it is completely done...so you can ooh and ahh.

In the meantime, Eric, our contractor, has managed to complete the following tasks in the last three weeks:

• jacked and leveled our sunroom and replaced the subfloor in this room,
• reframed a couple of rotten walls in the basement,
• run the electrical for the entire house (and included a second subpanel on the upper level),
• run most of the plumbing (Randy helped with this, and R removed all the old plumbing one weekend),
• reframed underneath the basement stairs,
• framed the pony wall along the front of the house where the new foundation meets the original wall,
• excavated the old stack/drain in the basement, replaced it, and repoured the concrete around it and the only working toilet (see picture above),
• removed a three-story chimney that hasn't been used in decades,
• started regrading the yard, and
• numerous other things that aren't coming to me (hired roofers, called in boiler specialists, made many trips to the dump, etc.)
  

In addition to the items above, our good friend Erik devoted the better part of a Sunday to helping Randy install five new windows on the upper floor of the house--a job that Randy could not have done alone, and that I would not have been much help with.

So, progress is being made, but right now a lot of what is being accomplished is stuff that is essentially "behind the scenes." The interior of the house is a disaster, but our enthusiasm hasn't waned.