new thermostat

This weekend’s big excitement was that we replaced our main thermostat, the one in the original house. We have two thermostats, but the second one (in the family room addition) only turns on the second circulator and doesn’t have the ability to kick on the furnace. There were a variety of issues with the old thermostat, but they can be summed up as: it didn’t really work.

Our happiness with the new thermostat can be summed up as: it works! It’s really kind of odd and satisfying to have the house temperature be maintained at a specific temperature. No more are we freezing and having to turn up the heat to get the furnace to kick on, nor do we wake up in the middle of the night in a sauna because it finally got cold enough to get the thermostat to work…and heat has been blasting out for hours. We’re hoping this will do wonders for our natural gas bill, but it’s already helped us to feel much more normal.

The only down side was that the installation required us to scuff up our nicely (newly) painted (yellow) wall. The new round backplate doesn’t quite cover the old rectangular hole, and the scraping off of bits of wallpaper that were hidden behind the old thermostat caused some wear that is visible now. I’ll paint it, but at a later point we really should take it back off and spackle and sand behind it. That would be the point when we get to improving of parts of the house that are perfectly functional and not in plain view. You know: later.

new thermostat

dining room

I’d known from the time we moved in that I wanted to paint the dining room two shades of yellow, but it took a long time to find the colors that matched the image I had in my head. In the end, we went with ‘Golden Yellow’ on the upper section, and ‘Bicycle Yellow’ on the bottom half (both from Ralph Lauren, much to my chagrin). We did the actual painting in December, finishing up just in time for our housewarming party on the 17th.


Dining room paint job, upper half complete.

Halfway through the first coat, the upper yellow looked really dark, next to all the white on the other walls. We had some challenges with this paint, as one gallon wasn’t mixed properly, and had little clumps of pigment floating throughout. Rather than taking it back (the choice I will definitely make in the future), we mixed the two gallons together and then smoothed, smeared, and picked out with toothpicks the clumps of pigment as they appeared on the roller and walls. As a result, we suspect that the walls are lighter than, and not a true match with, the intended color. We like it this way, though, so it worked out well.


Dining room paint job, front corner.


Dining room paint job, door to kitchen.

Particularly when I was just starting to paint the lower section, the yellow looked really brassy, and notably more green, compared to the yellow on the upper part of the room. Again, it looked the worst when I’d only edged it; once the third coat went on, it looked pretty good. We’re used to it now, and of course much of it is blocked from view by furniture, a ficus tree, and paintings. Nonetheless, it’s still quite bright, and it’s lovely in the morning with the sun coming in that side of the house.

Completing this room has had the unforeseen effect of making the rest of the house look very dull. I’ll get to work painting the living room just as soon as I pick a color.

dining room

reflecting on 2006

This past year included several good changes for me. I bought a house, I left teaching, and I moved to a new state.

I also learned to do two things I’ve wanted to learn for years: how to use a pottery wheel, and how to make art mosaics. I plan to work in both these media during the coming year, and it’s always nice to be able to accomplish something on my list of things to do in my lifetime.

On a smaller scale, I successfully knitted two scarves–one for me, and one for my toddler pal. I technically learned to knit in 2005, but these are to date the only two things I’ve successfully completed, and I have yet to learn how to knit things that are not rectangles of some kind. I have yet to return to studio painting, but I painted my dining room and one bathroom, and I have plans to paint nearly every other room in our house. I am nowhere near as skilled a painter as my grandfather, but I was pleased to paint the rooms without using edging tape, and with only minimal drips on the plastic (I haven’t taken the leap of some in my family of not putting down plastic at all).

This past year I also lost my pet hamster, Ernest, to old age. When I got him in 2004, it had been 10 years since the last time I’d had a pet. He was a good little guy, and well worth the $8.99 we paid for him.

All in all, 2006 was a full and swiftly moving year. It’s left me with lots to build on for 2007.

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mosaic mirror
My first mosaic project, made during the mosaic workshop I took in Ann Arbor, inspired by my grandparents’ blueberry farm.

reflecting on 2006