These are great pix of people who've been Raptured. (Yes, it happened; didn't you notice? I guess you weren't taken, either....)
(And this is post #978, btw.)
Showing posts with label pictures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pictures. Show all posts
Monday, May 23, 2011
Here's a new word for you!
New word of the day for you: "Rapturebombing." This is a Rapture-related photobomb. (And a photobomb, as we all know, dear ones, is having someone/something unexpected in a picture.)
These are great pix of people who've been Raptured. (Yes, it happened; didn't you notice? I guess you weren't taken, either....)
(And this is post #978, btw.)
These are great pix of people who've been Raptured. (Yes, it happened; didn't you notice? I guess you weren't taken, either....)
(And this is post #978, btw.)
Monday, January 17, 2011
I see faces everywhere....
This is a strange and appealing little photo array. It's things that have faces that you wouldn't have expected to have faces. Like these....
Saturday, November 06, 2010
The Bohemian Flow Chart
You'll need to click on this to see it all, but it's worth it. Start in the upper left corner.
BTW, this comes from a collection of funny photos at PhotoNexter.com.
BTW, this comes from a collection of funny photos at PhotoNexter.com.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Stuff no-one told me
Just found a great site, Stuff No-One Told Me. The artist lives in Barcelona.
Here are three examples of his work. Go to his website and look at all of them.
Here are three examples of his work. Go to his website and look at all of them.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Pictures of mushrooms
There's a blog entry on Brave New Traveler from late December that's full of pictures of rare and beautiful mushrooms.One of the pix is even 3-D!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Pictures from the cruise
I posted the pix from the cruise here. I spent yesterday morning providing captions as well, so you'll have some idea of what you're looking at. There are lots of pix of baby sloths from the Aviarios Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Bernie and BC
I used to have a 21" monitor here in my office a few years ago. My old cat BC used to sleep on top of the monitor: it was warm, it was big, and it was comfortable. He'd stretch out on top of the monitor and sleep for hours. Paws would dangle over the edge every so often and once in a while I'd have to move a leg so I could see part of the screen.
Yang would do the same thing. His tummy was always a lot bigger than BC's and he'd tend to lap over the edges in some less-than-dignified ways. Once in a while, I'd have two cats curled up on the monitor at a time.
When I went to a flat-screen monitor about a year ago, Yang came into the office once, looked at the flat-screen monitor, and tried to leap on top of it. This had about the result you might expect. He was grumpy with me for a while for having made him look foolish.
Bernie the Fuzzball has never known a CRT monitor. He's spending his time curled up next to the keyboard or halfway on top of it. I'm hoping to get him used to the idea of being charmingly round and somnolent nearby on the desk and not blocking the keyboard or mouse as he seems to prefer. However, he has found a place: stretched out on me, purring, and generally contributing to the writing process.
Yang would do the same thing. His tummy was always a lot bigger than BC's and he'd tend to lap over the edges in some less-than-dignified ways. Once in a while, I'd have two cats curled up on the monitor at a time.
When I went to a flat-screen monitor about a year ago, Yang came into the office once, looked at the flat-screen monitor, and tried to leap on top of it. This had about the result you might expect. He was grumpy with me for a while for having made him look foolish.
Bernie the Fuzzball has never known a CRT monitor. He's spending his time curled up next to the keyboard or halfway on top of it. I'm hoping to get him used to the idea of being charmingly round and somnolent nearby on the desk and not blocking the keyboard or mouse as he seems to prefer. However, he has found a place: stretched out on me, purring, and generally contributing to the writing process.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Catroy was here!
Bernie has discovered how be a sink-cat. I spotted him in the sink this morning, where he obligingly let me take a few photos.
I'm banging away at a lot of things at the moment, and it occurred to me that everything's on the glide path to finish up about the time I start my vacation in a couple weeks. (Yes, I know, I just got back from a vacation in Palo Alto. I'm about to take a much longer one through the end of the year to take care of a bunch of use-it-or-lose-it vacation.) I'm going to catch up on my sleep, for one thing, and I think I'm going to do some computer restructuring and finish cataloging the baseball cards.
Stop bugging me; I'm trying to sleep!
Are you about to turn on the water?While I'm at all of this, I'm likely to consider updating my #1 computer, CLARISE. A reload of WinXP would be lovely on CLARISE, too, but I'm not sure how much I'm interested in doing all of that: a system reload is a lot of work, no matter what. OTOH, I may end up with an extra 1TB of disk space on an eSATA connection, which means data comes fast fast fast. Temp-tinnnng!!!
I'm banging away at a lot of things at the moment, and it occurred to me that everything's on the glide path to finish up about the time I start my vacation in a couple weeks. (Yes, I know, I just got back from a vacation in Palo Alto. I'm about to take a much longer one through the end of the year to take care of a bunch of use-it-or-lose-it vacation.) I'm going to catch up on my sleep, for one thing, and I think I'm going to do some computer restructuring and finish cataloging the baseball cards.
Stop bugging me; I'm trying to sleep!
While we were in Palo Alto, I went to Fry's for their Black Friday sale. I picked up a lot of very nice toys, including a DL DVD burner to replace the DVD burner that I've been using for the last couple years. I also got a 1TB hard drive and an external case. I'm looking forward to restructuring at least one workhorse secondary computer that desperately needs a system reload to get rid of the old, mangled Windows 2003 Server. I've also got a stray collection of smaller hard drives in it. Well, we call 'em smaller hard drives these days, but it's still about .75TB of capacity as it is. But I could sure structure it a lot better.
Are you about to turn on the water?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Bernie, being helpful
It's difficult to work when you've got a fuzzy growth on your chest. I managed to actually get a couple of pages corrected before I finally had to pause, pet Bernie up a bunch to make him happy, and then remove him gently.
The digital camera was within arm's reach on the desk or I'd not have been able to take this shot. He's now wandering around the office so I can get back to work.
The digital camera was within arm's reach on the desk or I'd not have been able to take this shot. He's now wandering around the office so I can get back to work.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
The Pep Boys: Mannie, Moe, and Jack
The rug didn't stay rolled up for long, btw. I discovered that all three of these cats were sharpening their claws on the nap, which wasn't doing it a bit of good. There were little bits of rug yarns all over the place. I unrolled the rug asap thereafter.
Bernie and the Babe
Bernie does make such a good conversation piece....
Bernie being helpful
Friday, June 27, 2008
Silas the stupid cat
I've mentioned Silas, Susan's hyperactive cat, on a number of occasions. There are photos of him lurking throughout the blog.
One of the lovely features of our new house is that it has a half-rail on the second floor that looks down into the living room 12-15' below.
Last night, the Babe and I were sitting on the couch around 10pm. All of a sudden, we heard a loud splat. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Silas had fallen from the railing to the hardwood floor. He'd landed on his feet and then his feet spread out and he'd done a chinplant.
I leapt up to get him and he took off. I chased him through the house and he sprinted upstairs and into Susan's room and under the bed. I tried to fish him out from the bed, but it wasn't working. He was really scared and was yowling and not cooperating. I couldn't tell if he was
I got the Babe up there and we fished him out from under the bed... then a little while later, we got him from under the couch in the music room, then the couch in the living room, and finally under our bed. He was very panicky by this time as you can imagine. I'd gotten one of the cardboard folding cat carriers and we put him, semi-wrapped in a towel, into the cat carrier and closed it up. Hurrah! I picked up the cat carrier by its handle... and the bottom fell open. I hadn't folded the darned thing right and the flaps unlocked. Silas ran under the bed again. The Babe and I were laughing at this--poor guy, he was in great pain and scared, but DAMN, that was funny!
We fished him out again, put him in the more-sturdily-constructed cat carrier, and took him to the emergency vet. The Babe and I discussed what might be wrong with him on the way over--broken bones, sure, possibly internal injuries, I hoped not. The Babe said "Brain damage from the impact." I said what we were both thinking: "How could we tell?" Susan and her b/f met us at the vet.
They worked on him for a couple hours and determined he had a clean break of his right radius. His jaw wasn't broken, they figured, but it sure was gonna hurt. (The next day, I could see that Silas's chin was one massive bruise punctuated with a large cut. He may also have a hairline fracture, but it wouldn't be easy to spot and there's nothing we could do about it except not pry his jaw open to give him pills.)
They splinted his leg with bright green Koban and then added a neat little red Koban heart, which was very cute. I'd predicted it was going to cost us $500 for our little adventure. It turned out to be $514. (Gawd, I'm good....) Susan and b/f came home with us to get Silas settled in to Susan's room, then they took off for the coast near Portland to spend the week at her b/f's parents' place.
Even though whacked out on a painkiller cocktail of what the ER vet referred to as "kitty magic," Silas was still pretty hyper. Not surprising, I suppose, but I do say that I'd neuter him again if I thought it'd do any good. We finally got to bed at about 1:30am. Bleah. We'd been told we had to give Silas painkillers every eight hours, so the Babe got up at 6:00am to do so. She came back to bed and said "You have to take him to the vet today."
"Why?" I asked. We weren't supposed to need to do this for a week.
"Because he's pulled his cast off."
"Shit."
I phoned our regular vet that morning and got an appointment for 1:00pm. At the appointed time, I rounded up estúpido gato and put him in the cat carrier, and took him over to the vet.
They were very nice and gave him a new splint (this one in red Koban with white Koban letters applied down the side that said "O U C H"). They taped that one up around his armpit, so that'd keep him from getting it off this time. I also got an Elizabethan collar, the lack of which they figured was why he had gotten out of the other splint. You could see kitty teeth marks all the way down the splint. Not bad for someone with a mighty sore jaw, I must say. The vet also gave me some free pain pills for him, all for $81, which was a lot less than I expected to pay. And while I was there, I entered a contest with HomeAgain microchipping services that will give me Silas's 10 lb, 6oz weight in silver if I win. Good: maybe he'll earn his keep on this one.
I came home, gave him his 2:00pm pain meds and went back to work. Just because other creatures in the house were on pain meds and grumpy, somebody has to pay for it.
The Babe got home from work and I went upstairs to check on Silas. He was sitting in Susan's room, his Elizabethan collar on, pissed off... and I realized he didn't have his splint on, again. Sure enough, it was elsewhere in the room. Aw, shit, this was not fun.
The Babe took him to the vet this time. They did an incredible job for us: re-resplinted him, added a supporting network of bandages around his torso, built a t-shirt of Koban so he couldn't hook his hindlegs under the part on his chest, trimmed his toenails so he couldn't even get purchase on it, and charged us a mere $21. They're doing a lot for us, they are!
The Babe ran out and got moist food (it was painful just watching him try to eat the dry kibble he normally inhales like a furry vacuum cleaner) and later this evening he ate a bunch of it. We also fed him a powdered kitty trank hidden in a couple of balls of Greenies (which are pure kitty heroin if you haven't tried them on your cat). That worked and we got most of an acepromazine dose down him.
At this point, the young Houdini is in a large animal crate so he can't run around a lot. He's already bashed off his Elizabethan collar. I'm REALLY hoping he doesn't rip the splint off again, because this is getting seriously expensive. We'll see what he's like tomorrow.
One of the lovely features of our new house is that it has a half-rail on the second floor that looks down into the living room 12-15' below.
Last night, the Babe and I were sitting on the couch around 10pm. All of a sudden, we heard a loud splat. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Silas had fallen from the railing to the hardwood floor. He'd landed on his feet and then his feet spread out and he'd done a chinplant.
I leapt up to get him and he took off. I chased him through the house and he sprinted upstairs and into Susan's room and under the bed. I tried to fish him out from the bed, but it wasn't working. He was really scared and was yowling and not cooperating. I couldn't tell if he was
I got the Babe up there and we fished him out from under the bed... then a little while later, we got him from under the couch in the music room, then the couch in the living room, and finally under our bed. He was very panicky by this time as you can imagine. I'd gotten one of the cardboard folding cat carriers and we put him, semi-wrapped in a towel, into the cat carrier and closed it up. Hurrah! I picked up the cat carrier by its handle... and the bottom fell open. I hadn't folded the darned thing right and the flaps unlocked. Silas ran under the bed again. The Babe and I were laughing at this--poor guy, he was in great pain and scared, but DAMN, that was funny!
We fished him out again, put him in the more-sturdily-constructed cat carrier, and took him to the emergency vet. The Babe and I discussed what might be wrong with him on the way over--broken bones, sure, possibly internal injuries, I hoped not. The Babe said "Brain damage from the impact." I said what we were both thinking: "How could we tell?" Susan and her b/f met us at the vet.
They worked on him for a couple hours and determined he had a clean break of his right radius. His jaw wasn't broken, they figured, but it sure was gonna hurt. (The next day, I could see that Silas's chin was one massive bruise punctuated with a large cut. He may also have a hairline fracture, but it wouldn't be easy to spot and there's nothing we could do about it except not pry his jaw open to give him pills.)
They splinted his leg with bright green Koban and then added a neat little red Koban heart, which was very cute. I'd predicted it was going to cost us $500 for our little adventure. It turned out to be $514. (Gawd, I'm good....) Susan and b/f came home with us to get Silas settled in to Susan's room, then they took off for the coast near Portland to spend the week at her b/f's parents' place.
Even though whacked out on a painkiller cocktail of what the ER vet referred to as "kitty magic," Silas was still pretty hyper. Not surprising, I suppose, but I do say that I'd neuter him again if I thought it'd do any good. We finally got to bed at about 1:30am. Bleah. We'd been told we had to give Silas painkillers every eight hours, so the Babe got up at 6:00am to do so. She came back to bed and said "You have to take him to the vet today."
"Why?" I asked. We weren't supposed to need to do this for a week.
"Because he's pulled his cast off."
"Shit."
I phoned our regular vet that morning and got an appointment for 1:00pm. At the appointed time, I rounded up estúpido gato and put him in the cat carrier, and took him over to the vet.
They were very nice and gave him a new splint (this one in red Koban with white Koban letters applied down the side that said "O U C H"). They taped that one up around his armpit, so that'd keep him from getting it off this time. I also got an Elizabethan collar, the lack of which they figured was why he had gotten out of the other splint. You could see kitty teeth marks all the way down the splint. Not bad for someone with a mighty sore jaw, I must say. The vet also gave me some free pain pills for him, all for $81, which was a lot less than I expected to pay. And while I was there, I entered a contest with HomeAgain microchipping services that will give me Silas's 10 lb, 6oz weight in silver if I win. Good: maybe he'll earn his keep on this one.
I came home, gave him his 2:00pm pain meds and went back to work. Just because other creatures in the house were on pain meds and grumpy, somebody has to pay for it.
The Babe got home from work and I went upstairs to check on Silas. He was sitting in Susan's room, his Elizabethan collar on, pissed off... and I realized he didn't have his splint on, again. Sure enough, it was elsewhere in the room. Aw, shit, this was not fun.
The Babe took him to the vet this time. They did an incredible job for us: re-resplinted him, added a supporting network of bandages around his torso, built a t-shirt of Koban so he couldn't hook his hindlegs under the part on his chest, trimmed his toenails so he couldn't even get purchase on it, and charged us a mere $21. They're doing a lot for us, they are!
The Babe ran out and got moist food (it was painful just watching him try to eat the dry kibble he normally inhales like a furry vacuum cleaner) and later this evening he ate a bunch of it. We also fed him a powdered kitty trank hidden in a couple of balls of Greenies (which are pure kitty heroin if you haven't tried them on your cat). That worked and we got most of an acepromazine dose down him.
At this point, the young Houdini is in a large animal crate so he can't run around a lot. He's already bashed off his Elizabethan collar. I'm REALLY hoping he doesn't rip the splint off again, because this is getting seriously expensive. We'll see what he's like tomorrow.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Silas the kitten
We've got a new addition to the house, who is making life very difficult for me as I pack up for the next trip. His name is Silas and he's about 12 weeks. He's currently curled up behind me on the chair. I'd think he's sleeping, except he keeps shifting his position and I worry I'm going to suddenly get needle sharp kitty claws in the small of my back.
Nevertheless, he's as cute as any kitten ever was and he purrs an awful lot. He's also passionately fond of little balls of paper, which he tends to pick up and carry around as his lawful prey. He also brings them back to me so I can throw them again, so he's good at playing Fetch.
Nevertheless, he's as cute as any kitten ever was and he purrs an awful lot. He's also passionately fond of little balls of paper, which he tends to pick up and carry around as his lawful prey. He also brings them back to me so I can throw them again, so he's good at playing Fetch.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Bunny bao
I grew up eating bao tzu (hum bao for all you lo-fan) when we had guests and Mom was making big food for everyone. I have her bamboo steamer and I make them every so often, myself.
Brian sent me photos and a recipe for Easter bunny bao tzu. If you have trouble with them, here are some tips for making sure you get them just right.
Bunny bao.... mmmmmmmmmmmm!
Brian sent me photos and a recipe for Easter bunny bao tzu. If you have trouble with them, here are some tips for making sure you get them just right.
Bunny bao.... mmmmmmmmmmmm!
Friday, March 16, 2007
My niece Addie is so cool!
My sister Lorraine sent me a photo of my niece Addie after winning an award for an art project she did. She won 1st place (naaaa-tchully!) with 2,000 submissions and her entry goes on to the county level next (she's in Southern California). If she wins that, she gets to shake hands with Arnold S!
Thursday, March 08, 2007
At the STC SoCal Awards Banquet
I was one of the presenters at the Society for Technical Communications SoCal Awards banquet this past Saturday in Irvine, CA. It was a really nice event, held at a restaurant that did not serve the usual rubber chicken dinner. I caught up with several folks I've not seen for quite a while. I also got to see my co-workers dressed up to the nines, which was fun. A very pleasant evening all 'round.
Me at the STC SoCal Awards Banquet, March 3 2007.
Me at the STC SoCal Awards Banquet, March 3 2007.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Susan the Wonder Child
Susan the Wonder Child was always a pretty girl, but she's really getting to be quite dazzling. She was hanging out with a friend the other evening and they did a photo shoot for fun. Here are a few of the pictures; there are another dozen in the Susan set in my Flickr account.
Susan all gussied up
She's even doing a darned good job of keeping her room clean these days. Far better than I usually manage to keep my office, too!
This one is her favorite from the shoot
Susan, noir
Susan all gussied up
She's even doing a darned good job of keeping her room clean these days. Far better than I usually manage to keep my office, too!
This one is her favorite from the shoot
Susan, noir
Saturday, September 23, 2006
And heeeeeeere's our new HOUSE!!!
Friday, we took possession of our new house. We're thrilled with how well it all turned out.
It's really hard getting good photos of the house because to do it justice I really need a fish-eye lens. Bear with me; we'll be bombarding you with photos I'm sure.
As you can see from the outside shot, the front door has a round top. What you can't really see is that the door's about 8 feet tall. The front hall has a 25' arch to it, which is really only photographable from the top of the stairs.
The music room is to the left as you walk in. There's white wainscoting on the walls and we painted the top section with a dark blue… or what we thought was a dark blue. Well, hell, it looked dark blue on the paint chip! As you can see from the pictures below, it's really more of an electric blue. We're going to have this part repainted with a much darker blue before we move in.
The stairs are classic. There's a cherry first step (and it's a good time to note that most of the floors throughout are solid hardwood, a nice dark cherry) and hardwood banisters and these rather nifty metal rails.
There's a guest powder room in the main hall. It's a bit on the narrow side (the Babe refers to this as "the airplane bathroom") and we painted it with the same blue color as the music room. Yeah, it's getting repainted, too.
There's a large storage area under the stairs.
The living room couldn't be better lit unless you removed the roof. There are windows most of the way up the eastern wall (and the ceiling's 30 feet up) and numerous lights in the ceiling. The gas fireplace is faced in rock and that goes up all 30 feet to the ceiling. One of the shots here shows the floor vents, which have a hardwood grate on them. (I think that's cool.)
There's a built-in TV well next to the fireplace that has two levels. The upper level will be used to hold art of some kind--we haven't quite figured out what yet--but the new TV will go into the bottom one. In a pinch, though, we could use these for bunkbeds--they're certainly big enough.
The kitchen adjoins the living room. The cabinets are cherry, too. I've put a couple of photos of the refrigerator in just because we like it: it's one of the new "French door" models that gives you room for a whole turkey on a single shelf. I'm looking forward to trying this aspect out in a few months.
Mind you, I'm still planning on having the second refrigerator and the small upright freezer out in the garage still. We'll have sodas and beer and oddments in the second fridge and the freezer will have all those things you always store in a freezer.
The living room is open and you can look up into a gallery/upstairs hall area, or, conversely, look down from the gallery into the living room. We're worried about the cats jumping up on the half-wall upstairs, losing their footing, and plummeting to the living room 15 feet below, so we shall have to see about teaching them that it's a bad idea without actually having them learn this empirically.
The laundry room is next to the entrance to the master bedroom (which is downstairs, hurrah for the Babe's knees!). It's a laundry room, y'know, so there's not a lot to say about it… except that there's more of this solid cherry floor. That's perhaps a little silly; after all, you'd like to not have a floor that'll take water damage or stain easily in a work area. But there it is. We'll probably be putting a protective rug down on this so the floor doesn't get too badly chewed up.
I couldn't get any shots of the master bedroom simply because the camera won't shoot a wide enough picture. The master bedroom's really well-lit, has off-white berber carpeting, and we're going to be painting it something colorful. Our current choices are leaning towards plum.
The master bathroom is very well made, which is something of a pity because we really hate travertine. Unfortunately, that's the choice we got: dark travertine or light travertine. The builder did an excellent job of fitting it all together, but, as the Babe says, it still looks like wet paper bags. *sigh* We'll be getting a price on what it'll take to rip out all the travertine and replace it with something we like, though it's probably not going to happen right away.
The fixtures are nice, the workmanship's first-rate, and they spared little expense. But we really dislike the bathroom. It's the one thing about this house that we'd have liked some other choice on. I'm looking forward to ripping the travertine off the walls and floors.
The master closet adjoins the master bath. It's big: about 8' x 8'. I couldn't get really good shots of the master closet, either, but you'll get an idea from what you can see.
The upstairs bath is finished in tile. It's better than the travertine, although it's still a bit on the dull side. There is a skylight, though, and we'll be painting this a sage green.
The upstairs hall has the gallery wall on one side. There's an alcove with a built-in desk (more cherry) at the end of the hall. The Babe's probably going to put her sewing machine in the alcove for now: there's a lot of light and she can be connected with what's going on in the rest of the house.
Susan the Wonder Child has a large bedroom right off the stairs. Her closet is as big as the closet in the master bedroom downstairs.
My office… ah, my office. It's roughly 12' x 20' although it's not a complete square. The floor isn't cherry in this case; it's actually a laminate that looks a lot like it. The original plans called for the same carpeting as elsewhere, but I also know how much coffee I spill. And I've dropped bits of popsicles on the floor in my office in the old house (which also has an off-white carpet) and I've left stains in orange and purple from the food coloring. A laminate floor with a rug over it seems the safest way to go. I'll need to pad the bottoms of the computers and other equipment so I don't gouge the floor.
I should mention that there's CAT-5 networking throughout the house, so I'll have the cable modem coming in here and then feeding the rest of the house via a patch panel. No more wireless connections with so-so signal strength; everyone will have a direct-wired connection. If we still need to provide access to some location that isn't near a wall plug, I can mount a wireless router in the same room or very near and the signal strength will still be good.
The guest bedroom adjoins my office. There's a smaller closet in this room. There's unheated storage access in the closet and this is where I'll probably be storing some of the stuff I don't need high-priority access to.
There's not much else to show you, except the garage. Perhaps the biggest thing we can say is "Look at the garage while it's still clean and uncluttered!" We're about to get a bunch of storage cabinets so we can put all the garage miscellany away as we move in. The Babe has spotted some really good ceiling-mount storage racks that we can use for things like camping gear, Xmas ornaments, and other lightweight stuff.
That's the house. We're darned proud! We're going to be doing some additional painting and then we'll move in.
It's really hard getting good photos of the house because to do it justice I really need a fish-eye lens. Bear with me; we'll be bombarding you with photos I'm sure.
Note: I'm using a new "group photo" display feature from Flickr, where I store my pictures online. All of these picture thumbnails are tied to my Flickr account, so you can click on any of them and get a Much Bigger version.
As you can see from the outside shot, the front door has a round top. What you can't really see is that the door's about 8 feet tall. The front hall has a 25' arch to it, which is really only photographable from the top of the stairs.
The music room is to the left as you walk in. There's white wainscoting on the walls and we painted the top section with a dark blue… or what we thought was a dark blue. Well, hell, it looked dark blue on the paint chip! As you can see from the pictures below, it's really more of an electric blue. We're going to have this part repainted with a much darker blue before we move in.
The stairs are classic. There's a cherry first step (and it's a good time to note that most of the floors throughout are solid hardwood, a nice dark cherry) and hardwood banisters and these rather nifty metal rails.
There's a guest powder room in the main hall. It's a bit on the narrow side (the Babe refers to this as "the airplane bathroom") and we painted it with the same blue color as the music room. Yeah, it's getting repainted, too.
There's a large storage area under the stairs.
The living room couldn't be better lit unless you removed the roof. There are windows most of the way up the eastern wall (and the ceiling's 30 feet up) and numerous lights in the ceiling. The gas fireplace is faced in rock and that goes up all 30 feet to the ceiling. One of the shots here shows the floor vents, which have a hardwood grate on them. (I think that's cool.)
There's a built-in TV well next to the fireplace that has two levels. The upper level will be used to hold art of some kind--we haven't quite figured out what yet--but the new TV will go into the bottom one. In a pinch, though, we could use these for bunkbeds--they're certainly big enough.
The kitchen adjoins the living room. The cabinets are cherry, too. I've put a couple of photos of the refrigerator in just because we like it: it's one of the new "French door" models that gives you room for a whole turkey on a single shelf. I'm looking forward to trying this aspect out in a few months.
Mind you, I'm still planning on having the second refrigerator and the small upright freezer out in the garage still. We'll have sodas and beer and oddments in the second fridge and the freezer will have all those things you always store in a freezer.
The living room is open and you can look up into a gallery/upstairs hall area, or, conversely, look down from the gallery into the living room. We're worried about the cats jumping up on the half-wall upstairs, losing their footing, and plummeting to the living room 15 feet below, so we shall have to see about teaching them that it's a bad idea without actually having them learn this empirically.
The laundry room is next to the entrance to the master bedroom (which is downstairs, hurrah for the Babe's knees!). It's a laundry room, y'know, so there's not a lot to say about it… except that there's more of this solid cherry floor. That's perhaps a little silly; after all, you'd like to not have a floor that'll take water damage or stain easily in a work area. But there it is. We'll probably be putting a protective rug down on this so the floor doesn't get too badly chewed up.
I couldn't get any shots of the master bedroom simply because the camera won't shoot a wide enough picture. The master bedroom's really well-lit, has off-white berber carpeting, and we're going to be painting it something colorful. Our current choices are leaning towards plum.
The master bathroom is very well made, which is something of a pity because we really hate travertine. Unfortunately, that's the choice we got: dark travertine or light travertine. The builder did an excellent job of fitting it all together, but, as the Babe says, it still looks like wet paper bags. *sigh* We'll be getting a price on what it'll take to rip out all the travertine and replace it with something we like, though it's probably not going to happen right away.
The fixtures are nice, the workmanship's first-rate, and they spared little expense. But we really dislike the bathroom. It's the one thing about this house that we'd have liked some other choice on. I'm looking forward to ripping the travertine off the walls and floors.
The master closet adjoins the master bath. It's big: about 8' x 8'. I couldn't get really good shots of the master closet, either, but you'll get an idea from what you can see.
The upstairs bath is finished in tile. It's better than the travertine, although it's still a bit on the dull side. There is a skylight, though, and we'll be painting this a sage green.
The upstairs hall has the gallery wall on one side. There's an alcove with a built-in desk (more cherry) at the end of the hall. The Babe's probably going to put her sewing machine in the alcove for now: there's a lot of light and she can be connected with what's going on in the rest of the house.
Susan the Wonder Child has a large bedroom right off the stairs. Her closet is as big as the closet in the master bedroom downstairs.
My office… ah, my office. It's roughly 12' x 20' although it's not a complete square. The floor isn't cherry in this case; it's actually a laminate that looks a lot like it. The original plans called for the same carpeting as elsewhere, but I also know how much coffee I spill. And I've dropped bits of popsicles on the floor in my office in the old house (which also has an off-white carpet) and I've left stains in orange and purple from the food coloring. A laminate floor with a rug over it seems the safest way to go. I'll need to pad the bottoms of the computers and other equipment so I don't gouge the floor.
I should mention that there's CAT-5 networking throughout the house, so I'll have the cable modem coming in here and then feeding the rest of the house via a patch panel. No more wireless connections with so-so signal strength; everyone will have a direct-wired connection. If we still need to provide access to some location that isn't near a wall plug, I can mount a wireless router in the same room or very near and the signal strength will still be good.
The guest bedroom adjoins my office. There's a smaller closet in this room. There's unheated storage access in the closet and this is where I'll probably be storing some of the stuff I don't need high-priority access to.
There's not much else to show you, except the garage. Perhaps the biggest thing we can say is "Look at the garage while it's still clean and uncluttered!" We're about to get a bunch of storage cabinets so we can put all the garage miscellany away as we move in. The Babe has spotted some really good ceiling-mount storage racks that we can use for things like camping gear, Xmas ornaments, and other lightweight stuff.
That's the house. We're darned proud! We're going to be doing some additional painting and then we'll move in.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Latest house news, sort of
I actually shot these pictures of the house's progress this weekend, but I'm only getting around to posting them now.
The footings for the new house are poured.
And the house next door, which is 7 weeks ahead of schedule, is ripping along: in the few days between the previous pictures, the builders have got the siding up. Pretty cool!
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