A Black and White issue

I finally convinced Helen that our dark red and brown kitchen would be better in white. A mid-project photo:

Rather than go all white, we gambled a bit and decided to be Panda-fie it with a black trim.

Left photos are before, middle photos are the left photos magically gimp-ed white to see what it would look like, the right photo is the after:

Turned out great! So much brighter now:

Next up was the renovated bedroom:

Last was the living room:

I got lazy and hire some pros. Those tall ladders are scary:

Bottom 2 photos are the after. Is interesting to see the ‘Alabaster White’ color changes under different lighting conditions:

I also hired pros to fix a couple of leaks in slate roof. That roofer on the left is likely the only slate certified roofer in the state. His hammer is a 80 years old!

Speaking of scary projects, we re-potted our 30 year old bonsai tree, fingers crossed for a recovery:

Trying to be true Alabaman’s, we went to a college football game:

Had a dinner party. Easy to spot the dog lovers:

Did a video on how to display videos:

Went to a Florida beach the weekend of hurricane Irma. Doggies swam for their lives:

Actually, we had great weather and left just before the storm landed:

Enjoyed the white sand beaches:

We met Bantik’s twin sister, another 4 year old black and white Coton-de-Tulear:

These bugs somehow defy the laws of physics and have sex while flying around stuck together butt-to-butt:

Found the perfect spider to complement our new black and white paint schemes, the spiny-backed orb-weaver.

Closing with a backyard snake, the Black Speckled King. He is giving me that ‘better stay back, I am poisonous’ look, but I found out later he is not supposed to be. I didn’t test it.

Bruce

Wall Down

Houston, The Baby as landed! Clark Kaiming Winter arrived on 7/29 weighing in at 8lb 10oz. Max is taking good care of him:

We are over the moon.

Back on Earth, Helen had a nice trip LA to visit Aya & Eric:

I’m enjoying retirement with various activities. I started with Irina’s house, finished cleaning it out, did an estate sale, and FSBOed it onto the market:

3041 Whispering Pines Circle
170,000 with Rooms: 10, 3 Bedrooms, 3 Bathrooms (Full), Condition: Well maintained, 1960 sq. ft., Lot size 0.53 acres…3041whisperingpines.com

Now I’m into renovations on our house. I started with replacing a ’70s style sink faucet with something from the future:

It lights up blue/green/red, depending on water temperature:

The next project was/is a bit more challenging. I had a dream in which a Regan like voice said ‘Mr Gorba-Winter, tear down this wall!”. He was speaking of this wall between our bedroom and fireplace room:

So we did, and now we have a room fit for a King and Queen and his King sized bed (why is it that the Queen’s bed is smaller?):

The next challenge was the floor. The solid oak wood floor was in good shape, but the carpet had to go. So I you-tubed up how-to-tile videos and gave it a go. First had to take out the old carpet and particle board:

Then replace sections of weak sub-floor and installed new plywood with legions of screws:

Then comes the Ditra membrane, a bit thinner then conventional tile backer-board, for a better height match with the wood:

We went for these new bleached wood plank styled tiles:

I used a yellow wedge leveling system. A bunch more work, but helps keep the tiles level with each other:

This video condenses the 1 week project down to 3 minutes:

Next up is painting. This room, living room, and kitchen, all white, we like light!

Speaking of light, the eclipse here was at 94%. Dogs were not impressed:

The shadows were interesting, sun crescents everywhere:

Closing with a baby Alien, captured by our spider defense network:

Bruce