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Apropos of Nothing: November 2010
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Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Friday, November 19, 2010. Goodbye Ferns, Hello Winter Urns. Tropical upright fern/winter urn. Blue Princess holly, cedar boughs, red osier dogwood twigs, magnolia leaves. The impaled moss ball topiary (slightly askew from this angle). Thursday, November 11, 2010. The Half a Bath. A schematic rendering of our basement half-bath, by N using SketchUp. The Liberty "Low Pro System". The half bath plan, rendered in 3-d by N using SketchUp. In keeping with...
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Apropos of Nothing: Tackling the Backsplash
http://nothingapropos.blogspot.com/2011/05/tackling-backsplash.html
Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Sunday, May 1, 2011. Yes, Will and Kate are lending a hand. So much for the Globe and Mail keepsake wedding insert. We'll soon be in a quandary over grout colours. We have matching grout in the bathroom, but I think we might prefer to emphasize the subway pattern in the kitchen. I remember being vaguely disappointed when our bathroom walls lost their definition to the matching coloured grout. The ungrouted corner showing clear shadow lines. I think f...
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Apropos of Nothing: The Tale of Our Multi-Year, Live-in Kitchen Renovation (Episode 2--fixing the brick column)
http://nothingapropos.blogspot.com/2009/03/tale-of-our-multi-year-live-in-kitchen.html
Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Saturday, March 7, 2009. The Tale of Our Multi-Year, Live-in Kitchen Renovation (Episode 2- fixing the brick column). The kitchen layout between episodes 1 and 2. Between episodes 1 and 2 of the kitchen story, several years elapsed. In the meantime, we. Decided to restore the layout of the house to something close to its original floorplan. Planted many trees and boxwood hedge. Insulated several exterior walls with spray foam insulation. Finally, N h...
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Apropos of Nothing: May 2012
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Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Thursday, May 17, 2012. If a tree falls. The gorgeous, irreplaceable sugar maple canopy, before. And the gap in the canopy, now. And here's why we did it:. The devastating split in the trunk. Can you blame us? The canopy looking southwest (it's the middle tree that's doomed). And looking north and south (the trunk illuminated by the sun). Sawdust (in increasingly large chunks), rot, insects, lack of root flare. Going, going, going, going. Still, mayb...
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Apropos of Nothing: November 2011
http://nothingapropos.blogspot.com/2011_11_01_archive.html
Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Thursday, November 10, 2011. Kitchen Seating: our hunt for the perfect banquette. Our slumbering cat on the banquette. During the many years we spent planning our kitchen renovation we would often refer to something we called our future dining sofa. We would say, "It will be so wonderful to sit here when we have our dining sofa! We'd need to define our version. By Mariette Himes Gomez for Hickory chair. By Mariette Himes Gomez for Hickory chair.
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Apropos of Nothing: Tile Backsplash Update
http://nothingapropos.blogspot.com/2011/11/tile-backsplash-update.html
Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Monday, November 7, 2011. Our renovated kitchen has existed in a nearly complete state for several months now, but we're still several details short of proclaiming it fait accompli, so I'm going to post about some of the interim stages before revealing the full thing. The bar sink corner now grouted. When I left off telling the tale, we were in the process of tiling our backsplash (read about it here. But in the end we liked the cement and decided to...
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Apropos of Nothing: February 2011
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Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Friday, February 4, 2011. Stainless Steel or Soapstone? Just when I thought our final kitchen finish decision involved a mere edge profile, another quandary. We couldn't bear to do this with marble. Initial finishes palette (plus brick wall, not shown, see. Cruising the amazing GardenWeb kitchen forum one day (here). Revised palette with cast iron pan as proxy for soapstone. What do you think? This marble, called calacatta carrara (more about it here.
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Apropos of Nothing: Backyard thugs unmasked: Sciurus carolinensis
http://nothingapropos.blogspot.com/2012/02/backyard-thugs-unmasked-sciurus.html
Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Monday, February 27, 2012. Backyard thugs unmasked: Sciurus carolinensis. We've had our share of losses at the teeth of the local rodent population. Just before bloom time each year, squirrels decapitate my spring bulbs, and rabbits have decimated many of our small trees and shrubs while searching for food in past harsh winters (see here. Can you spot it? Look for the tree limb with its bark completely stripped. Caught in the act. Oooooh, you varmint!
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Apropos of Nothing: Not last night but the night before...
http://nothingapropos.blogspot.com/2011/11/not-last-night-but-night-before.html
Inventing our lives one tangential anecdote at a time. Tuesday, November 1, 2011. Not last night but the night before. Forty-two robbers came to my door. Okay, it was last night. And they all asked very politely. Pumpkins, washed, and awaiting their fate. The first swarm of 6 little girls were costumed as Dorothy, a bee, and various princesses. Next came a tiny walking Jack-o-lantern,. And then two social workers (really) asking for non-perishable food items (they got the best haul of the evening),.
