Momentum, Part 2
Published On: September 25, 2011

We had always intended to use carpet tiles, or something like them, for that entrance.  It seemed easier than taking up the linoleum.

The house and I have a slightly wary relationship.  I like it.  Love it even.  And I admire it for sticking around for 91 years and counting.  But I don’t trust it not to do something like spring a leak or develop holes or do something else equally dire.  I’ve adopted a sort of respectful distance.  I will fix problems.  I will make considered cosmetic improvements.  I will not go mucking about with perfectly good (read functional) things that don’t need to be changed.

Given this philosophy, tearing up the linoleum seemed unwise.  It could be full of asbestos.  It could be all that was holding the floor together.  The tearing up could just piss the house off and drive it to do something dramatic four months from now (it will be snowy four months from now, the scope for drama is increased).

FLOR seemed a good choice.  It didn’t require any holes in the house (one of the central tenets of my respectful distance philosophy). It doesn’t even stick to the floor…it just sort of holds on with gravity and friction. It seemed to fall on the side of reasonable cosmetic change.  Even better, the website made it look easy and quick.

And it likely was a good choice.  It was affordable, I was able to get it fitted to the space, and it looks good.  It was not, however, quick or easy.  Now to be fair, a big part of that was me and the space I was working in.  The landing has lots of corners, lots of edges, and lots of fiddly spots.  Even better, it has limited space to maneuver and  poor lighting.  Each and every tile required at least one cut, most more than that.  Add in a few kitten supervisors and a very sharp knife, and I’m a bit scuffed around the edges.  It took about three hours and my pajama pants may never be the same.  But the floor looks good, and the house doesn’t seem to be pissed off enough to be plotting revenge.

And of course it’s nearly impossible to photograph.  If you’re standing on it, you’re too close to see it through the camera.  If you stand upstairs, you can only see part of it.  If you stand downstairs, you don’t get any sense of perspective (but do get an excellent view of the dirt on my shoes).  I know this isn’t great, but it will have to do.

I’m standing in the kitchen peering down the stairs.  That’s the side door there and the milk door beside it (I love my milk door, the only thing cooler would be a dumbwaiter).  All the way at the right you can just see the edge of a coat hanging from the row of hooks over there.  We’ve got a little shoe rack (each of us keeps two pairs of shoes by the door, any more than that and it gets unruly).  Levon is staring down into the basement waiting for someone to do something about the laundry pile down there.

Now as soon as my fingers heal, I promise I’ll come back with some actual knitting content.

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