And the Hidden Life of Floors
When we last left Disaster Cat, she was toddling off on her way to a nice, sulking cat nap, being too irritated and annoyed at the world to do much else. Well, remember all those helpful government commercials they use to have? The ones that would say things like, "if you are feeling depressed see you doctor, it may be a symptom of something else." Does anyone ever really do this? Did Disaster Cat? Not for a full week, by which time walking across the kitchen to put on a kettle felt like a hike up Mt. Everest. Oh my, even the normally lazy Disaster Cat realized this was not normal. And, husband was getting worried about her going to be early, being up for two hours and then going back to bed. Cat naps are one thing, cat barely awake is another.
So, in the course of things, Disaster Cat was hauled off to the People Vet last Friday where the nice lady vet informs Disaster Cat, that
"Oh, you have a really nasty kidney infection, no wonder you feel grumpy and sleepy." Lots of antibiotics later, Disaster Cat is now once again up to feeding chickens, cats and her family. For which the male members of the household are most grateful. The Wolf did a wonderful job of feeding everyone last week, he managed to make rice for the first time. But a steady diet of a lightly cooked meat dish plus one hot carbohydrate (which The Wolf himself does not, just meat and bread thank you), was starting to make the weeds outside look interestingly green and appealing. Besides, my mother-in-law is here and there is lots of work to do. Oh my is there ever...
Trying to sort out this house, I already know is a never ending nightmare. But one that my mother-in-law, is The Mommy Wolf, is always willing to attempt. This time, we may be getting closer to success as we are finally getting enough plastic boxes (after several trips) to just stuff everything into that we keep stepping over. FlyLady its not, but at least we are beginning to see the floors of several rooms. The carpet was pulled up in my husband's office after being declared a toxic waste site. It had been in bad shape for years. but his poor kitties last illness was the final straw. Into the hired skip it went, to reveal a cement floor. For about one second, we thought we had a nice stone floor, but that turned out to be only the old marks left by previous rug squares, left under neath the current carpet. When we bought this place, we found out that most of the carpeted rooms had nasty surprises underneath. Like the floor boards in the drawing room, which had only been stained around the wool carpet square. So when it was pulled up, you had a giant square of ugly, untreated boards. Or the library, whose carpet removal revealed lots of sawdust and builders sand, left behind by some former handyman. Eventually, we hope to pull up all the wall to wall carpet that was laid down by the previous owners, who lived here during the fad for putting the stuff into traditional Irish houses. Thankfully, they sold it to us before they could put the stuff everywhere. This fad is passing away now, as folks discover what happens to modern, cheap, acrylic wall to wall carpets in a very damp climate. They get mold, mildew and rot underneath. And if you are very unlucky, they may get so damp that they go squish when you walk on them. None of ours were that bad, but they are starting to look hideous, grimy and old. As well as contributing the allergies suffered by various members of the household.
Because of past experience, we always pull back an existing carpet with trepidation. This time, it was not so bad, it was only the carpet itself that was toxic waste. As was the original carpet underneath the first one, that had just been left when the second one was glued over it. Underneath it all was cement, which was probably laid down over the original basement floor. In the old days, our ground floor was underground, until it was dug out sometime in the 1980's. Parts of its still are and at least one wall of my husband's office is in that category. Which means the room is one of the dampest and chilliest in the house. He has a turf stove for extra heating, but hasn't used it much this Winter. Which may also have speeded the demise of the carpet layers. Cement floor exposed, he is now seriously considering putting down lanolium, which he could then put a throw rug or two over. They can be taken out and washed, as can the floor. I think its a good idea. Since he never lets anyone into the room anyway, no one will see it much. If it proves to be practical, I may consider it for the small room next door. Which still has a cement floor and nothing else.
Oh, decisions decisions....of course we really need to replace the old lanolium in the Kitchen. It wasn't great to begin with, but now its starting to peal back of its own accord. I'm hoping to wait to mess with it, until we can break down the utter monstrosity that lurks in the middle of the room. Well, Monstrosity is what I call it in polite company. It is by far, the largest and weirdest thing we inherited with house. Or at least the most annoying thing we couldn't afford to do anything about. I have no idea which previous owner decided that what a 200 year old Irish farmhouse kitchen really needed was an island taking up one half of the room. An island whose middle contained not a useful bit of workspace, oh no, the middle of this giant bunch of bricks contains an ugly brick column that doesn't even quite go to the ceiling. It doesn't have to, because its not supporting anything (thank goodness) except for the giant, I mean huge, rusted wagon wheel embedded in the very top. Too high to hang pot or pan, it sits there waiting for new house guests to comment on it. The entire effect convinces me that some previous householder had seen a copy of South Western Digest Magazine, circa 1972, pointed at a picture of some kitchen in New Mexico and said to their building contractor,
"See this, I want this!"....
Which, wanting to please his customer, the contractor attempted to do. Unfortunately, this contractor was not likely to have been from New Mexico or even been there. Even if he had, the local materials would not be quite the same as the lovely adobe bricks one finds there. Also, there is the fact that an Irish farm house kitchen is not constructed the same way as one for a Southwestern Ranch. I have friends in New Mexico with a similar kitchen theme and it looks lovely against the organic, clay and brick walls. Dumped in the middle of a formerly basement kitchen, blocking every bit of light produced by the windows for half the room, this in a room that is basically a rectangular box is depressing. In fact, I've been known to refer to our kitchen in the winter as: The Bat Cave...
It gets worse, when we first moved in, there was an er...a...matching, at least it was supposed to be matching corner which was covered in more of the same bricks. No other wall had such a corner, just the one. In it was stuck an oven about five feet off the floor (its common here to have separate ovens set into a wall, so that was only strange to me) and above it was a little alcove. This alcove was an imitation adobe style oven, except it was really only an imitation adobe oven space. Useless and holding nothing, it was a dust trap. Not even the cats used it to hide in. If the entire kitchen had been bricked over, the effect might not have been so bad. But by just having the one corner this way, it made you feel like you were walking into some demented appliance showroom. The sort where they have a mishmash of different styles every few feet.
The corner has long since been demolished. Or rather it fell down when we went to put in a new oven. When our old oven died, we were just going to slot the new one in and continue living with things the way the were for awhile. But, the placing of the bricks was so bad, that it all came down in a mess, once the oven was removed. Thankfully, no one was hurt. However, a this collapse revealed that when the old oven was installed (and the brick corner put in) the contractor had just hollowed out a huge chunk of the main retaining wall of the house! Our house, had been partly held up by a few bricks and an electric oven! Of course, we had to have the hole patched in, and the wall cemented over. The new oven could not be put there, so for a "little while" the new oven was plugged in a placed on the three foot deep window sill. Where it still sits, three years later....
Meanwhile, equally badly built, the wagon wheel island of doom (which contains our sink, dishwasher, and stove top) is starting to list badly in various directions. Appliances set on the counter top slope this way and that. And my sink keeps threatening to fall through and hit the floor. Someday it will, either that of the microwave will slide into the dishwasher (its already half way there). In either case, we will then be forced to take action. The whole thing has been sch dueled for demolition a few times already (house-mate has a brother who is an architect and one night after dinner he climbed up the thing and declared it a non-supporting feature that could be sledge hhammered). But, something always comes up. Hideous as it is, we still have to have a sink, stove top and counters somewhere. Until we can get the sink moved, total anialiation will have to wait. My house-mate and several friends are all lining up with hammers for when that day comes. I'll be delighted to stand there and watch it DIE! On the other hand, we will then get to pull up the linoleum and have to view what is underneath. I wonder what surprises lurk for us there?
Stay tuned and find out...
With the further adventures of Disaster Cat and the Kilmurry House Gang