New Plant, and Home Renos
I bought another plant on Saturday. I was looking for a regular plain green Sansevieria (Snake Plant) and they happened to have some at Home depot. They had both the yellow stripe version (Laurentii), and the plain green, but I'm not a big fan of the yellow variety. They're beautiful plants, and the yellow is fun, and different than what you see on many other "plain green" house plants, but there's just something I'm not crazy about with the yellow version. Maybe it reminds me of the 1970s, or of something I'd see in offices and commercial spaces. These are incredibly common house plants, and have been popular for decades.
For reference this is the yellow stripe variety:
But like I said, they had some beautiful plain green ones. At first I only saw 2 green ones, but there were a whole bunch of them in a different section. Last time I saw them they were 29.99$ but these were all 19.99$ which is a really good deal. Snake Plants tend to be a bit more expensive because they're slow growing, so it takes a long time for them to be big enough to sell in stores. A local flower shop has one or two of them for sale at 89$ (which is a little too pricey for me).
I picked one of the ones with the tallest leaves.
There are about 5 main rosettes, but about 9 total (a few small ones on the edges). The tallest leaf is 39" from soil level (1m). The nice thing with these is that they grow straight up. They don't take a whole lot of space, and can easily sit in a corner or near a table/chair. They're also super low maintenance, and will tolerate a large variety of lighting conditions.
***
As far as home renos, I took this week off work to work on the house. Specifically to do the hardwood floors. I've wanted to sand and refinish them for a few years now, and it's finally happening. Ironically (or conveniently) you can see the crappy condition of the floors from the photo just above. That's the living room floor with the original birch hardwood. These were covered over with plywood and cheap quality floating laminate. I don't know if they were just waxed originally, or if the finish wore off, but they are incredibly cruddy looking.
The PLAN was to do JUST the 3 rooms with the original floors, and eventually do the hallway later, but the plan has already changed. I decided that since this is already a HUGE pain in the butt, and that there will be a giant MESS of dust through the entire house, that this is something I just wanted to do ONCE. So I'm going to do the hallway at the same time.
I've been indecisive about what to put for the floor in the hallway, since the original floor was ripped out and can't be replaced or easily copied. The original floor has a mix of 3 sizes: 2", 2.5", and 3" and they're all mixed and matched. To make a proper matching "original floor" I'd have to have custom pieces milled in those three sizes. The new wood also won't match the age and patina of the old floor. Salvaged floor will also be too hard to find/match. SO... I'm just going to put a plain new birch floor in the hallway and I'll match the colour as well as I can. I might do a stencil border (something like a Greek key, nothing too crazy).
I spent yesterday emptying out 90% of the rooms (it's insane how much stuff is in just 3 rooms). Today I ripped out the tile and plywood from the hallway, and set down the cardboard layer (underlay to prevent squeaking). I also removed the baseboards, and replaced one damaged/bent subfloor board. I still need to trim the door thresholds to fit the transition boards (which I've had upstairs for maybe 2 years already).
Pics/updates to come.
For reference this is the yellow stripe variety:
But like I said, they had some beautiful plain green ones. At first I only saw 2 green ones, but there were a whole bunch of them in a different section. Last time I saw them they were 29.99$ but these were all 19.99$ which is a really good deal. Snake Plants tend to be a bit more expensive because they're slow growing, so it takes a long time for them to be big enough to sell in stores. A local flower shop has one or two of them for sale at 89$ (which is a little too pricey for me).
I picked one of the ones with the tallest leaves.
There are about 5 main rosettes, but about 9 total (a few small ones on the edges). The tallest leaf is 39" from soil level (1m). The nice thing with these is that they grow straight up. They don't take a whole lot of space, and can easily sit in a corner or near a table/chair. They're also super low maintenance, and will tolerate a large variety of lighting conditions.
***
As far as home renos, I took this week off work to work on the house. Specifically to do the hardwood floors. I've wanted to sand and refinish them for a few years now, and it's finally happening. Ironically (or conveniently) you can see the crappy condition of the floors from the photo just above. That's the living room floor with the original birch hardwood. These were covered over with plywood and cheap quality floating laminate. I don't know if they were just waxed originally, or if the finish wore off, but they are incredibly cruddy looking.
The PLAN was to do JUST the 3 rooms with the original floors, and eventually do the hallway later, but the plan has already changed. I decided that since this is already a HUGE pain in the butt, and that there will be a giant MESS of dust through the entire house, that this is something I just wanted to do ONCE. So I'm going to do the hallway at the same time.
I've been indecisive about what to put for the floor in the hallway, since the original floor was ripped out and can't be replaced or easily copied. The original floor has a mix of 3 sizes: 2", 2.5", and 3" and they're all mixed and matched. To make a proper matching "original floor" I'd have to have custom pieces milled in those three sizes. The new wood also won't match the age and patina of the old floor. Salvaged floor will also be too hard to find/match. SO... I'm just going to put a plain new birch floor in the hallway and I'll match the colour as well as I can. I might do a stencil border (something like a Greek key, nothing too crazy).
I spent yesterday emptying out 90% of the rooms (it's insane how much stuff is in just 3 rooms). Today I ripped out the tile and plywood from the hallway, and set down the cardboard layer (underlay to prevent squeaking). I also removed the baseboards, and replaced one damaged/bent subfloor board. I still need to trim the door thresholds to fit the transition boards (which I've had upstairs for maybe 2 years already).
Pics/updates to come.