The other day I started, but never posted, a "Temporary solution!" to my kitchen floor dilemma. The perfect solution that would allow me to move on; throw some cork down and carry on with more important things. Cork is popular right now, cork seems to be easy to install and must be easy to remove. A small investment to enable me to move forward. Loving it is a possibility, but my options are open. A day away from the rest of the kitchen reno.
Online, I had found some dark plank cork. Went to Lumber Liquidators that night to finalize decision and move on. Sadly, the sample was not at my local store ... they only carried 3 variants of cork. Doom. The salesperson told me that cork wasn't a big seller in my city. BUT the store was filled with many other beautiful wood samples, with great prices.
I went home and mulled over a wood floor. Next day I mulled over 6x6 black slate, my original want.
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| Daltile continental slate (porcelain) 6x6 |
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| Elements chocolate cork |
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| Pacific Black Slate 6x6 |
Two different looks, but both rustic. I realized I preferred the sharp, clean and contrast lines of black and white (cabinets) over wood and white. BUT every time I walk into a store with a tile floor, I change my mind and lean towards wood. And if I get wood, I kinda of want it laid in herringbone style.
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| tumbled tiled and cupboard (white birch) |
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| black slate and cupboard (white birch) |
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| black slate and cupboard (white birch) |
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| flooring selections and soapstone counter |
Decisions that weigh me down. Slow down the flow. Get in the way of the things that I really want to do (counters, appliances, finish).
And then last night my
dog went missing. I was cutting the grass, he was on the new
Parisian Balcony barking. I finish up and decide we will walk to restaurant row and grab some dinner. After a round about way home I discover the basement door wide open. I didn't think much of it and it wasn't until a few hours later that I realized our dog was missing.
I discovered several things:
1) none of my flashlights work and it isn't a battery problem.
2) the collection of sharpie pens were EXACTLY where they should be.
3) Lucy had the loudest voice, calling out for Luc.
4) Luc is hard of hearing; we can all whistle.
5) All the flooring options look good.
6) Who cares about floors.
We came home, put the kids to sleep, I sat on the front porch listening for snorting Luc and waiting for the last, late night dog walker in hopes of letting ONE MORE PERSON know. Sun drove around. Sun walked around. The moon high, the emotions low, nothing else to do, we went to sleep, dogless.
A dream woke me up a 5. A dream of a wet dirty dog returning. I shot out of bed, into my shoes. Found some markers and paper and stapler, walked the neighbourhood pinning up posters.
Lost Pug
Charming, Chubby, Selective Hearing.
PLEASE CALL
Repeat one hour later. Repeat one hour later. A friend had a printer and printed out a bunch of posters. Everyone off to school, and I'm stapling posters on poles. Feeling useless, yet optimistic, I headed home. Our hope was that someone picked up Luc last night and I needed to plaster our phone number ALLLLLLLLLL over so they could call us. I see one more dog walker approaching with a curly tailed dog; I squint and walk closer and realize it wasn't a pug. I asked her if she had seen the dog and she HAD. Last night, a person was driving around with an older, deaf pug. We knocked on his door, woke him up and he sheepishly grinned that he passed the pug to someone else. We went to the next block and knocked on all the doubles. Some answers, no one knew of the pug or the "guy with plugs" in his ear. Got my posters, stuffed them in all the mailboxes. Called out for him and YES I did hear him bark. Pegged one house and knocked again. Swung by one last time on the way to work. Checked craigslist AT work and there was a listing of FOUND DOG. Luc the Pug! The caretaker explained he had no phone and an email was in order.
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| Luc, and floor samples |
I was hoping while I wrote this post an email would appear. Writing here was a good distraction, better then clicking on reload every minute ... Guess I better try to do some work.
Follow up: We did retrieve Luc the Pug two days later. The "caretaker" had posted an ad on craigslist but after 24 hrs, had not responded to my emails. So I POSTED an ad on craigslist and the next morning, I woke to find a response. We called right away 7am! and luckily the caretaker was awake and not miffed at the early morning call. We located Luc and the care taker one block over!
