Hollywoodland

Watching the daytime Emmy Awards, only because I don't have to work tomorrow. And I admit it: I want to see what/who everyone is wearing. Conan is hosting again, and something about him just irritates me a little. Maybe it's the hair, coiffed like Johnny Bravo. I can't pinpoint it and I won't try to tonight, I'm just too tired.

Friday night we went to Shaun's (second) cousin Brenda's house in Kanata. His other (second) cousin Wendy is visiting from North Bay. Wendy cooked us another amazing dinner and I made a Kahlua Mochaccino Cheesecake for dessert. Brenda and her husband (who is in Afghanistan until mid-September) have an amazing movie theatre set-up in their basement. So we watched Poseidon first, which was okay. Somewhat predictable. Kurt Russell is starting to show his age, as is Richard Dryfuss. Just as the movie ended, Brenda remembered that Richard was in the first JAWS movie, which she has on DVD, so we popped that in to watch. Hard to believe it was made nearly 30 years ago. Fake yes, but gorey! I don't think I ever saw the first JAWS movie, but I can't remember which one(s) I actually have seen.

As I'm watching the Emmys, I can't believe Steve Carrell didn't win for "The Office", he's so freaking funny. But Mariska Hargitay just won for Law & Order: SVU, and I just love her. She just had a baby boy a couple of months ago and looks beautiful. And she was genuinely happy and honored, you could tell.

Okay the laptop fan is starting to do that irritating buzzing thing so I'm going to clock out for the evening and hit the sack.

Buenas noches!

Okay so I have a blog. Now what? Of course, my first instinct is to start posting pictures like crazy, but I'll try to contain myself. Let's instead discuss the recent project Shaun and I have taken on: installing laminate flooring.

Sounds easy, I know.

We did our bedroom last weekend and after laying the first two rows I was ready to rip my hair out. But we really got on a roll on Saturday morning and had the entire room finished by 7:30pm Saturday night. We even got to nail down some irritating groans that were in the floor. We still have to cut, paint and nail down the quarter-round, but that shouldn't take long. A big THANK YOU goes out to Shaun's dad and stepmom, for loaning us a table saw, chop saw, nail gun and compressor, and for shedding some light on how to get started with the flooring. I have to say the trickiest part was the closet, only because our chimney runs right up the middle of it. We mucked up a few places, but nothing so major that the general public would even notice. It's more just us being picky and perfectionists.

One of the best parts about doing our bedroom is that we had the office and guest room to temporarily store furniture (and sleep in).

So today we got started on the basement. The previous owner had laid the old carpet ripped out from upstairs (with no underpad) when really, he should have just thrown it out. I'd say the hard part was finding room to put all our furniture. The laundry room only holds so much, so we ended up pushing all the furniture to one side of the room, ripping up half the carpet, then moving the furniture all to the other side of the room to roll up the remaining carpet. By the time 6pm rolled around, we had about half the room finished. We're lucky the cement flooring was so level, otherwise we would have had an extra few steps before we could even get started on the beech laminate. We're hoping to get the other half of the room finished tomorrow, then the room needs all new baseboard.

The previous owner of my little townhome was somewhat of a "do-it-yourselfer" without possessing any of the needed skills to actually do-it-himself. Example: he installed laminate flooring on the mail level, in the living and dining rooms. He lined up every single seam. It's driven me crazy since the day I moved in, because it doesn't look natural and now the seams are starting to buckle ever so slightly in some areas. It doesn't help that Home Depot is selling oak laminate at 88 cents per square foot. Our next flooring projects include the guest room, office, upstairs hallway, kitchen, two bathrooms, and entranceway... so we'll worry about those before we tackle our most-used living space.

Once we have the baseboard and quarter-round all finished in the basement and our bedroom, I promise I will post some pictures. I can't get over what a difference it's made; everything looks much brighter and much newer.

I really, really have to thank Shaun today for being so patient with me. I don't know if it's my lack of iron lately, or a rough sleep last night, but I was SO not motivated to work on our flooring today; I could barely keep my eyes open. I even had a nap while he was sawing 5 feet away from me! He is one of the most patient people I have ever met... and those of you that know me really well understand what a virtue that is for him to possess.

Goodnight...