House Project Progress

A colleague of mine mentioned that the photos of our nearly completed room look like a French New England mansion.  After taking some ribbing from his listeners for the odd combination, he insisted that the colors and finish of our dining room suddenly put the wife and me in some kind of elite "golden" status. See for yourselves.  We are just putting the final touches on it before we bring the furniture back in.

The wife and dog touching up paint. Compare this picture to the one below that shows the dark green trim and ornate wallpaper.  

Wallpaper, dark green paint, paneling, built-in plywood cabinets.  All gone.  

Still some paining to be done, but the corner looks a lot more inviting now than it did in the photo below.  

Those deep cabinets were good for storage, but they made the room and that passageway feel so small.  The doorway was like a little tunnel.  

Zoom in if you can and look at the floor in the corner to your right.  That seems to be an indication that there was once a doorway there as the fellow told us he remembered when his grandparents lived in the house.  Look below at my earlier post and you can see the outline of a former doorway.  

I found some cold air leaks that I was able to patch and make the room much warmer.  And that cold-air return?  A home-made remedy, courtesy of a 40 cent piece of expanded metal from the local metal recycler.  

We like it.  

Thanks go to our home's previous owners for saving so much woodwork and keeping the house in order.  They did a lot of work on the house themselves, and I hope they enjoy seeing the progress we make in turning it into our home. Thanks too go to DeLon Mork, whose gift of access to the old Mason's building in town gave us much of the woodwork and flooring that we used in the renovation of the room.

Dog Sitting

We're watching our friends' dog for the next few days, and so far, so good.  I was concerned this morning that it would want to be at my heels during my morning routine, but so far, an hour later, the pooch is still on its bed upstairs as she and the wife sleep into the late hours of the morning (it's 6:30am now).  The wife is much more a dog fan than I am.  Not that I don't like dogs or pets in general; it's just that my attitude is more laid back than some of the people around me whose affection for pets is more pronounced.  They do sometimes amuse me, though, such as when this hound becomes engaged with the monkeys on the TV screen.

Dogs in Madison

A recent dog attack in Madison has led to some increased attention on dog regulations and requirements.  As a person who spends time out on the road and about town on foot or bike, I've noticed that many people do not adhere to the requirement that dogs be on a leash or be fenced in.  Many mornings I'm confronted with a barking dog running out onto the street where I'm jogging.  I see people walking their dog and having it make a pit-stop, leaving a surprise souvenir for the yard owner.  I hear dogs whose owners apparently don't recognize how annoying their constantly barking dog is.  I see dogs chained in the yard with no visible water or food.  I don't think the new regulations will address all these things, but maybe it will help people recognize that owning a dog requires more than bringing it home and feeding it.