Going Art Deco

For the past two years, I've been wrestling with what to do with this house. Summary: my husband & I moved to Calgary, moved into his parents' house, and his parents bought a condo.

Of course, all of Calgary is booming, and property values are obscene. But my husband's parents lived in a neighborhood which is now becoming impossibly swanky. Perfectly decent houses are being demolished, and being replaced with mini-castles of the arts & crafts or Frank Lloyd Wright variety.

In fact, we've determined that if we put a second floor on this house, we'd have a view of the downtown skyline on one side of the house, and the mountains on the other.

So we haven't wanted to make extensive improvements or renovations on this house, because we're holding out for the Big Reno - - or the Big Demolition Followed By Entirely New House, whichever the case may be.

The only things stopping us are lack of time & lack of money!

So I've been living in this house that feels totally my in-laws. Not that they're horrible people - I love them and very much appreciate the opportunity they've provided us.

But I want our house to express us, our lives, and so on.

Okay, I'll be even more blunt. Dang, I hope my mother-in-law doesn't blog-surf. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt her feelings.

But let's just say her taste and mine are nowhere near each other. For instance, we haven't been able to replace the gold shag carpet in the living room yet. She argues that it's top quality and people still comment that it looks like it's new.

She's right. It does look new. It's still well-padded and very pleasant to walk barefoot on, and it's clear that she kept it very clean.

May I quote my mother?

When I was in high school, I went with my mother to pick out carpet for the living room. The salesman kept trying to talk her into a higher end carpet with the best padding. He said "This carpet with this padding will last you 30 years!"

My mother retorted "I don't want to have the same damned carpet 30 years from now!!!"

Anyway, if my mother had been in my shoes, she'd have ripped that carpet out by now.

Of course, my husband argues for prudence, and speaks of the day in the near future when we can install some low-priced but decent carpet to "tide us over" until we do the renovations.

My mother would have ignored him and ripped the carpet out herself. Then they would have been forced to get new carpet then & there.

Several friends have said "You should go hardwood."

I'd love to go hardwood. But my ever prudent husband points out that we're just going to rip it out in a few years. It would be easier to re-use carpet, perhaps in a utility room or something.

Anyway, I ramble. (Isn't that what blogs are for?)

My in-laws did do some upgrading. They spent a lot of money on new floor tiles for kitchen, hallway, and bathroom, new countertops, new wall tiles in the kitchen, paint, and so on. The kitchen looks reasonable, but the bathroom is a dog's breakfast.

The bathroom has 1950 style tiles on the wall, which are totally groovy. They absolutely CLASH with the "trying to be sophisticated" taupe-ish textured large floor tiles of the mid 90's. And the guy who did the work for them convinced them to let him cover the bathroom counter with the same glossy black countertop tiles he used in the kitchen - with GOLD trim! Oh my god, it's a travesty!

Oh, and the bathtub is pink.

The master bedroom has the same gold carpet as the living room, and the trim in the room is painted pink. Not pretty.

There are a few other unsightly things happening in the house.

Anyway, I've been trying to come up with some things we could do in the interim, but the last thing I want is a cobbled, make-shift look.

I believe, after we replace our furnace, our next major purchase will be new carpet for the living room. I'm thinking something beige and unassuming.

So we have a dining room suite that my husband inherited from his brother who passed away 7 yrs ago. It's a bit on the art deco side. I've been wondering how to incorporate those pieces into a new look, and have been perplexed. Then my husband brought another piece of furniture home - an end table kind of thing, looks like it was made in the 40's and looks like late end art deco.

So it hit me. I need to go art deco.

But right now, I'm trying to renovate my daughter's bedroom. I'm trying to do it myself. My husband has doubts about the wisdom of this. He is NOT a do-it-yourselfer kind of guy. He's a hire-someone-and-get-it-done-right-the-first-time kind of guy.

So my daughter & I picked out the room's colors, and I began to paint. I did the ceiling already - dark blue, with glow-in-the-dark stars and a moon - very cool.

I was thinking I might as well leave the carpet be while I paint (rust coloured shag), so it can be the drop cloth.

But now I'm finding I can't paint the baseboards.

So yesterday I ripped up a corner of the carpet to find hardwood underneath. Sheesh! I then knew that I had to rip out all the carpet.

So then I had another brainstorm - I should move my daughter's bed into our room for awhile, and possibly some of the furniture. This would open the room up and allow me to finish more quickly.

I went into our bedroom, pondered the layout, then rearranged the furniture. It's a bitch to move antique furniture over shag carpet, by the way.

So then I tried to move my daughter's bed into our room. It wouldn't fit through our door.

I disassembled it as far as I could, but I couldn't get some of the bolts out. So I reassembled it and put it back in her room.

I was pooped by this time. Besides, it was time to get ready to go to shul for Simchat Torah, where we danced in circles around the Torah - more physical exertion!

Today I'm pretty stiff as I type this.

But I know two things.

We're going to spiff up this house, with a nod to art deco, and I'm going to move the rest of my daughter's furniture into our bedroom and leave the bed. I can work around it.

That's another flaw of this house - it originally only had 2 bedrooms. My inlaws added one in the basement. (Actually, my mother-in-law calls it the lower level.)

Okay, enough already. If anyone actually started reading this entry, I'm sure they haven't made it this far.