Ain't that the kick in the head (part 2)

We just might have worked out a solution about the hard wood dilemma.  Keep your fingers crossed; it may turn out to be a wholly stupid idea.

Or, worse yet, it may work out that it's not stupid, but impossible.

The decision to remove part of the floor, right or wrong, was not ours.  We can't beat ourselves up over what was done in the past.  All we can do is move on and do what we can to salvage the ass-wipe of a situation.

That being said, I truly think the party is over for the hard wood as flooring. We've debated the relatively few options that would let us use leave the hard wood visible, and none of them are appealing:  either cover the subfloor with something else (hard wood, laminate), cut it out and replace with something else (hard wood, laminate) and do some kind of divider straight down the middle of the room delineating between the two floors; or, create a feature in the room (like a step) but basically do the same thing.  We could move our bedroom into the living room and make the subfloor area our closet (which would mean moving the living room to the back of the house).

All of the ideas were scrapped as ridiculous.

We concluded that the flooring ship sailed 40 years ago when half of the hard wood was removed from the house and discarded.  But if that old wood can never be flooring again, could it be something else?

I've been mulling it over and over and over, and a glimmer of an idea has taken shape as a remote possibility.  Any interior decorators (or interior decorator wannabes) please DO voice your opinion.

The idea (no clue about logistics at this point, which is why I said it may turn out to be a good idea but impossible):

Rather than just cover up the hard wood with laminate and never see it again, we're considering taking out one of the planks and cutting it down (and refinishing, of course) and using it to replace the three windowsills.

Here's a shot of one of the windowsills.  Look carefully under Blake's ass and you might be able to see it (har har):

The three windowsills in the room are about 8 inches wide.

This is the longest one--the front picture window.
Remember, Blake is the size of a small elephant

and his right ass-cheek is still falling off.

Hear me out.  I absolutely do not want to commit a historical preservation sin that will land me in interior decorating hell.  But, I really think this could be a neat idea.

First of all, if we don't do something, the hard wood will be covered up for probably another 40 years (the warranty on the laminate we chose is 30 years--40 years is a guestimate).  Which is to say, the hard wood won't be lost, it should be protected from damage, but still:  even though no one can anticipate what might happen in the next 40 years, if we cover it up we assuredly won't be able to enjoy the beauty of the hard wood.  That's a Given.  So is "out of sight, out of mind."

Secondly, the hard wood is the old style.  Oregonians have no clue what the old style is (and before last Sunday, nor did I), so in case you're wondering what "old style" is:  the planks are huge (not like the manufactured 2 to 4 inch wide planks you see at Home Depot -- rather, the size of a sheet of plywood, which is what we'd have to use to put in place of the one we take out).  One plank should be plenty to replace all the windowsills.

Back to the "first of all:"  that means there would still be the same unusable amount of hard wood that would be untouched and protected beneath laminate.  In 40 years or whenever, when/if we (or someone else) take up the laminate, the situation is going to be no WORSE off, and no BETTER off, then where it is now.  Still SCREWED because there still won't be enough to do anything with.

So although yes I can see there is a definite downside (once you cut it, you can't put it back), I still think it is okay because the whole point is that right NOW, before we've cut or altered anything, there isn't enough hard wood to use it as functional flooring.  What's one more plank when half of it is already gone?

Also, it's is a neat idea because our windowsills are so uncool.  In the picture, you can see it's a weird color.  That's because I painted it.  That's right, I painted our windowsills.  I know that sounds like the sin that should land me into interior decorating hell, but trust me:  the windowsills were so offensive to the eye, painting them was the only solution.  Eventually we want to replace the windows anyway, so I didn't worry about it too much when I did it.  It looks a million times better though because:

The windowsills, under the paint, are the leftover vinyl laminate from the kitchen counters!  Avocado green marble vinyl/plastic/laminate (I have no idea what it really is) from 30-40 years ago!  The windowsills!  It was too bizarre; my brain couldn't even handle it.

Our goal timeline for replacing the three windows in this room is within the next 2 years, so we would probably just pull up the plank and keep it safe until we're ready to do the windows.

Any thoughts out there?

--------------UPDATE!!--------------

FORMICA!!!  That was the word I couldn't think of.  Our windowsills (that I painted) were originally avocado green, marble-style FORMICA.  Major faux pas.  Major UGH-O-RAMA.

Ain't that the kick in the head?

Life can really be unfair sometimes. But don't worry, I'm not in the mood for Deep Thoughts on the meaning of life, or anything like that. No, instead I'm going to tell you a thoroughly superficial, wholly shallow story about the death of our Orange Shag. And it will bring tears to your eyes.

When the Orange Shag Adventures first began, anyone that heard about our awful shag carpeting would say to me, almost verbatim: "But you live in an old farmhouse, right? Does it have hard wood underneath?"

Sigh.  If only.  My husband and I are both active in our local historical society, and we would love it if we could restore existing hard wood as opposed to putting in laminate or even manufactured hard wood.  On Saturday, we ripped up one section of the room and sure enough:  subfloor.  We already knew it, but since the carpet was probably 30 or 40 years old, I wouldn't say we were 100 percent sure about what was lurking under there.

Terrible lighting, I know, but still: there it is.
Pay special note to the lower right-hand corner of the picture.
We started by only removing the back part of the room.
As I took this picture, I was still standing on shag.

We started with the back section because that was where Blake had been peeing.  I can't even express what a relief it was to get the worst of the stank out.  We ran out of time on Saturday and just left the carpet only partially removed.

Skip forward to the next day (yesterday).  We kept trucking along ripping up carpet, and discovered in due speed that underneath the remaining shag there is still some of the original hard wood.

Woe!  Oh, woe.

Absolutely filthy, of course.  But it had been cozily hibernating beneath a warm shag blanket for the past 40 years, why wouldn't it be filthy?  I looked past the grime and felt tears sting my eyes.  It would have been perfect.

Old, old planks (we can't be positive, but undoubtedly it's the original wood from when the house was built in the early 1800s).  We're fairly confident in saying that because we can see the original sandstone foundation in the basement, so it is not unreasonable to suspect that this is original wood flooring.  From local trees.  Put in by pioneers.

Our hearts burst because we can do nothing about it.  There's a line down the middle of the room.  Half of the gorgeous wood flooring is gone.  Apparently it was ripped out ages ago due to previous tenants and out-of-control pet stains (the irony is not lost on me).

There isn't enough of the hardwood left to do anything with. It's just enough to tease us with If Only. To tauntingly say, "This is what could have been! Muhahaha!"

It's a very small section; not big enough to transfer to another (smaller) room.  Or if it is, just barely, then it wouldn't be worth it.  How bizarre would it be to have our bathroom (the only room close to being small enough) original hard wood and the rest of the house laminate?  Yeah, that's just too weird.  We're left with no options but to just cover it up (gaahhh! I can't even say it!) with the laminate.

Does the fact that it breaks our hearts to do it absolve us from what is assuredly a historic homeowner's sin of massive proportions?

Even utterly filthy and in desperate need of refinishing, you can see how similar in color the laminate we picked out is to the existing, unusable hard wood.

The line between the hard wood and the subfloor (under the

sample) goes right through the center of the room.
The weird checkerboard pattern is just from the pad under the shag.

An adventure in laminate

Okay, so I realize all photos in this post are complete crap.  But, I'm trying to document our adventures with the carpeting and the laminate, so what's a girl to do?

I started my search online.  I wanted to get an idea of the price range (holy all over the place, Batman) and familiarize myself with the colors and how tree names (oak, birch, walnut) translated to my eyeballs (at least from the perspective of a computer screen).  The room that Blake has utterly defiled has wood paneling on the walls that is going to stay, so the flooring that we choose will need to coordinate.  To make matters even more complicated, we also have a matching wood coffee table and end tables (in a different shade from the paneling, of course) and dark leather furniture.  I'm not even going to mention the cast iron wood stove on the red brick hearth (that I occasionally slip up and refer to as a "fireplace" -- so shoot me).

I had an idea in my head of what was pleasing to my eye based on my computer search, but when I picked up the samples I decided to think outside the box and try not to let that influence me.  Kind of like when you're shopping and you try on clothes that don't look good on the hanger . . . sometimes they look better on.  So we began with about 18 samples covering a vast range of colors.

The different ends of the spectrum that we started with:

Against the wood paneling.

Against the couch.

Our family picture from the Year End Project is the only one I could find that shows our coffee table:

There's the coffee table.  It's not the same as the paneling.

A couple people have said that the lighter of the 2

middle shades looks better with the paneling.

That may be true but it looked terrible with the coffee table.

Good times, good times.

See how the carpet is discolored in the lower left of that first picture with the samples against the paneling?  We have no idea why, but some part of the carpet-cleaning process is to blame.  Probably not the cleaner because there were just patches of discoloration, and of course I cleaned the entire carpet with the solution.  Sigh.

Anyhoo.  Back to the samples.  After looking them over all next to each other, I realized what I had preferred on the computer screen is also what I prefer in the living room with the other factors thrown in.

I made my decision--both by color family and which specific sample--and brought Dan in to look them over and make his decision on his own.  I asked him to just start taking away the ones he didn't like based on his first impression so we could see what was left.  I prayed that his eyeballs wouldn't like something wildly different from mine.

Hot diggity!

We both liked the darker end of the middle tones.  I was so excited when the first ones he started removing were also my least favorites.

Our mutual, blind decision was that the redder cherries coordinated best with the wood paneling, existing furniture, and leather couch.  That is to say, the darker end of the middle-tones.

I know you're loving the shag underneath the samples.

Which, by the way, looks especially orange to me.
Also, note how shockingly different the paneling and carpet look because I must
have had a different angle of the flash or something.  Good grief.

What a relief that we agreed on a color family!!  The samples above are all similar enough that I'm not even concerned.  It's a potayto/potahto decision at this point.  But, if you're curious, we decided on the furthest to the left.

Brazilian Cherry!

Orange shag saga begins

The results are in:  it's not a bladder infection.  I'm relieved because I certainly don't want my cat to have a bladder infection, yet a teeny tiny part of me is a little disappointed because at least that would have been a clear-cut reason for the sudden flood of urine, with a simple treatment.

No such luck . . . .

The vet did have one thing for us to try.  My vet assured me that it's a very common treatment, and I've since done some reading up and the Internet agrees with him, but to say I was shocked yesterday at this proposition would have been an understatement.

We're putting my cat on an antidepressant.

I have no idea if The Real William Blake ("TRWB") (who my cat is named after) was depressed in his lifetime.  I know TRWB was not appreciated as an artist while he was alive; it was only after his death that he became an icon of the Romantics.  Whereas, and only on the merit of the fact that he was unappreciated in his time and I need to perpetuate the stereotype of depressed/starving artists to make this work, I am going to theorize that perhaps TRWB was depressed and putting his namesake on an antidepressant is the mother of all ironies.

All jokes aside, it is pretty common.  The pharmacist didn't bat an eyelash when I brought in his prescription.  She even allowed me to put it under Blake's full name.  So when I get refills, I can just call in and ask for a refill for William Blake (FELINE).

I've been doing some research on inappropriate elimination (nice way of saying they pee or poop outside the litterbox) and guess what?  Anti-anxiety or antidepressants are frequently mentioned as a form of treatment (not sure if it is correct--and PS I don't really care if I'm wrong--but FYI, I use anti-anxiety and antidepressant interchangeably).

One more tidbit:  if you start typing in the Google search box antidepressants then you will discover antidepressants for cats appears as one of the first suggestions.  Are Google's suggestions alphabetical?  I have no idea but I didn't think so (I thought they were listed by frequency of use).  At any rate, if they are alphabetical, then I suppose this has no significance (oh well):  antidepressants for cats appeared on the list before antidepressants for children.

The peeing has been continuing daily, and the work will begin this weekend of ripping up carpet and laying down laminate instead.  We're going to cut out the subfloor in the worst areas, and seal the entire floor just in case there are any sneaky spots from Blake or any other pets from the past thirty years that we can't see.  Between that and the Prozac, we should be good to go.

Wish us luck!

Here's Blake sleeping on the orange shag carpet.  He's saying goodbye . . . the shag only has a few days left to live.  Isn't he cute?

Good bye, Orange Shag!  It's been thirty years.

We're not going to miss you.

Okay, okay, okay.  I was kidding up there.  Here he is:

It is shocking how well he blends in though.