Shocking (pink) Discovery

Today I noticed something strange, a small hot pink patch hidden between the closet and the wooden moulding in the dining room. We all know that the pink room is, well, pink. And we know that our bedroom was once pink (because it is bleeding through the wallpaper). But today we made the shocking discovery that the DINING ROOM WAS ALSO PINK. All of it, walls and wainscotting. This is insane.

We are now wondering how many rooms in the house were hot pink, and whether someone who lived here was crazy or in a cult, or perhaps was blind. We're also wondering about the timeline for all of this. Could it be that the yellow paint and the upstairs wallpaper are actually recent updates, perhaps done at the prodding of a real estate agent, a real estate agent who is a "staging professional" and might have also added new furniture to the house? [We know that the agent for the sellers was a "staging professional," and it seemed pretty clear that the house was in fact "staged" with limited furniture, no personal stuff, and perhaps a lot of fake furniture.]

The blogging has slowed down, which I think represents both a return to the business of the semester, as well as a much-needed break in home repair emergencies. No critters (that we didn't invite) and no leaks (as far as we know) for a couple of weeks now, so we're hoping it stays that way.

In other news, we also got new curtains for the front room. They're from Ikea.




We will need to hem them, but for now we're letting them skim the floor. They let in a lot of light, but also give us some privacy, and I like that they're not just plain white. Check out the pattern, which fits nicely with the medallion and the wallpaper border at the top:

The Unflappable Mr. Carter

The dog will not be flapped. I think we may have won the dog lottery.

Here is a partial list of things that have so far failed to elicit a bark, whine, struggle, or really much response at all from the dog: the mailman, his Elizabethan collar, crowds, police on horseback, loud noises, other dogs barking at him, other dogs sniffing his butt, squirrels, vacuuming at a distance, vacuuming nearby, vacuuming around the occupied dog bed, vacuuming the bed itself right around the dog, vacuuming the dog.



The hitherto untold dog backstory:
We decided to get a dog because I'm kinda stupid that way, and Bridget is kind enough to humor me. That's the misleading soundbite version of the explanation. Here's the longer version: We're both suckers for the cute and fuzzy. When we walk around the neighborhood, we like to walk up by the reservoir, partly because it's a nice place to walk, but mostly because we stand the best chance of seeing the motley bunch of dogs who play there. There's a shaggy dog at the bottom of the hill who we've been stalking for the last three months. The owner may well be afraid of us at this point, not knowing that we just want his dog. Prior to buying the house, dog ownership was impossible, or at the very least too unreasonable even for me. But once we became not only house owners but yard owners, a dog became a possibility to consider.

Being reasonable people, we weighed the pros and cons of dog ownership. On the con side we have: Dogs smell bad and destroy everything; they bark; they take up time; they make it a pain to travel. That list is far from exhaustive, but you get the idea. On the pro side we have: Dogs are cute and fuzzy. That list is exhaustive, and here's the part where I'm kinda stupid. By my measure, the pro outweighs the cons. Bridget had more misgivings, not because she's less a sucker for the cute and fuzzy, but because she pays better attention to the possible disastrous consequences of decisions.

A few weeks ago I became enamored with a Brittany Spaniel mix puppy listed online. It turned out the puppy was already adopted, but the New England Brittany Rescue wanted to meet us in case we wanted to adopt any of their other dogs. They sent a volunteer over, with her dog, to make sure we would make good dog owners. We passed the test, but the volunteer had so many tales of misbehaving dogs that we (by which I mean mostly one of us) were convinced that we didn't really want a dog.

Meanwhile, down in South Carolina, Carter somehow got lost. A lady found him, but couldn't find his owners, and also couldn't keep him. She called a Cocker Spaniel rescue group who wouldn't take him since he's insufficiently Cocker Spaniel. She then called a Brittany Spaniel rescue group who took him, then decided he wasn't sufficiently Brittany Spaniel and gave him to a shelter in Carter County, Tennessee. The New England Brittany Rescue (NEBR) is not so hung up on racial purity and decided to find a home for our little mutt, naming him after his temporary location.

So NEBR called us a week or so ago. I told them that we had reconsidered, due to the fact that dogs smell bad, destroy everything, and take up too much time. They said they had just the dog for us, a mild mannered, full grown, "plug in pet." No effort required. So we drove to North Sandwich, NH, met Carter, signed some papers, and brought him home.

Meet the new resident

Hello, faithful readers! This is Carter. He is about 5 years old. He's a mix of Brittany and Cocker Spaniel. We're very happy to have him here at 83 Durant Street.

I'm adding more pictures now, after requests. Please do come meet Carter! He's a sweet, sweet dog. We haven't heard him bark yet.



So the only thing cuter than a cute dog is a cute dog with a collar around his head. Poor guy. He had to have a little snipping done (ouch!) so he has to wear this for a few days so he doesn't pull out his stitches. He's actually surprisingly calm about having this thing put on.



I think Carter might be part cat -- he has been SLEEPING a lot! Isn't he cute?

Chim chiminey Chim chiminey Chim chim cher-ee!

The masons are gone and our chimney is done! This is the back, flat roof chimney, all freshly repointed with a chimney cap.












And this is the newly stucco'ed inside of the chimney from the attic. We're pleased and relieved to have it all done so quickly.








And because there's never a dull moment at 83 Durant, I'll go ahead and document the next thing we need to figure out: fascia boards. They are the boards that you see underneath the roof, and are attached to our wooden gutter (yes, we have wooden gutters on one side of the house). This one, as you can see, is pretty rotted. This is because the wooden gutter seems to be pretty ineffective at actually draining the water. We're not sure what to do, or even who to call on this one. I think we'll wait to talk to our slate roof guy, and see what he suggests. For now, we'll enjoy the fact that we have such nice chimneys!

Top-Down: Adventures in the Basement

Today I did a bit of picking up around the mess we call our basement. On the serious plus side, there's no water down there. Well, there is, but only in one spot, and it's quite clear that it's the window near the driveway that leaks. We've been managing this by putting towels there. It's not a huge deal. We'll work on cement/caulk fixes to this, as well as a plastic bubble over the window well, once things warm up.

But, seriously, otherwise, there's no water to be found. This is good.

Half of the basement is very basement-y, with fieldstone foundation and a cement floor. The other half is strange to me -- it's a wooden floor over a crawl space. The house is built on a hill, so only half of it is in the ground; the back half (the flat-roof part) of the house has an above-ground basement, which includes windows and a door to the outside. It's surprisingly bright down there, which is a nice bonus.

It's clear that the previous owners were working on finishing the basement. In fact, they had one bedroom-like room in the cement floor area, and another back under the kitchen (where we now have the pantry shelves). There's a lot of drywall and partition walls already set up. Some are painted, some not. It's in a bizare mid-project kinda stage. It's weird to be down there, realizing we're in the middle of a project that someone else started.

Today's improvements began with some weatherstripping on the door to the outside, which was, as we say, "wicked drafty." I weatherstripped the heck out of it, and now it's far less drafty, which hopefully will help energy efficiency, and also lessen the ever-present, ever-terrifying risk of pipes freezing. Can I tell you how much I fear this happening? I fear it a lot. Those dreams I used to have about the whole house flooding are now replaced with nightmares of the whole house flooding and then freezing, looking something like Superman's fortress of solitude.

I also did a few minor cosmetic things. We have three paintings from Sam Black, also known as "Uncle Sam" to Jake's mom's family (even though he's not actually their uncle, or related to them in any way). Uncle Sam also happens to be the father of Lewis Black, one of our favorite Comedy Central ranters. Just a few degrees of separation. Anyway, we have these three paintings of Uncle Sam's. They were great in our old apartment, which was very mod. But they look seriously out of place in our new Victorian lifestyle. So they were sitting around, making me sad, wondering what to do with incompatible art. Today I put them up on the big orange wall in the basement. I think they look pretty great.



By the way, that orange color was there when we arrived. I doubt we would have chosen it, but it is nice to keep it bright down there.

I also installed a retractable clothesline across the main area of the basement. It's a nifty little mechanism that we got at Target a while ago:


After some general cleaning up, throwing out, and organizing, I think the basement looks better, though it still has a long way to go. I'd like to work on the laundry room, and also get Jake's bike shop organized. But these are probably more likely to happen in the spring or summer. And they're not really pressing issues.

When I'm in the basement, though, I start looking at the walls and the joists and beams and wonder "how the heck does this place stay up?" It's kind of scary, really. But I guess it's still here after a hundred-plus years, and probably isn't going anywhere, right?

Chimney Evolution

Here is our sad, sad, leaky chimney just a couple weeks ago. That pile of green at the bottom: towels. Wet, wet towels.




















Here is our chimney (or lack thereof) just a few days ago. I rather like how you can see the neighborhood through the gaping hole in the roof!







And here is the chimney now. The guys are supposed to come today to cover this stuff from the inside, and also re-point the back chimney.

Introducing....Our New Chimney!

Wow, these guys work fast! We have a new chimney. And it's quite lovely, if we do say so ourselves. It snowed a bit last night, and some more this morning, but it got to be about 40 degrees out, so everything melted. So the team showed up around 10 am, and by 2 this afternoon, we got to meet our new chimney! Check out the adorable squirrel home we have perched up there!

Another small step for beauty

The basement landing melee has been slightly improved today. As you may recall, there is no door at the top of the basement stairs. There is one at the bottom, but there's a pretty serious draft coming up into the already cold kitchen. So we had a temporary fix, in the form of a seriously ugly yello-orange blanket. The color itself wasn't exactly ugly, but it made an ugly curtain (safety pinned together) and just generally looked bad in the mostly green & blue hall/kitchen area.

But today, Target to the rescue (again). I got a longer version of the green velvet panels I used on the sliding glass doors off the kitchen. OK, so that new curtain really needs to be ironed. But I'm glad it fits here so well.

Dude, Where's my Chimney?

I swear, it was there this morning, and then, I turned around, and it was gone!

Remember folks, lock your chimney every time you leave the house.

But seriously, our chimney is gone. The nice men came this morning, built up scaffolding, and took it away.

If weather permits, they will be back tomorrow to put a new one in its place.

While we have the chimney specialists here, we also had them take a look at the flat roof chimney -- the one that vents the kitchen stove and the one that first aroused my suspicions regarding how chimneys work (see previous post). It does indeed need to be repointed (the home inspector had told us this), but the flashings looked fine.

Also, as I suspected, it should have a cap, although it doesn't seem to be having any problems as it is. So 83 Durant is getting some major overhauls in the chimney department. This is an expensive proposition, but one we should never, ever have to do again.



UPDATE: We're now a bit concerned about the hole in the roof where the chimney once was. The weather forecast calls for snow tonight and tomorrow turning to light rain, and here's the view from inside the attic:

That tarp was sorta wadded up in the front, thanks to our masons. We've since done some impressive work with scrap wood, plastic sheeting, duct tape, a staple gun, some rubber tubing, and string -- all the materials of quality craftsmanship. Check it out! Fingers crossed.



UPDATE: after we fashioned this awesome creation, and managed to sort of get it in the right place through the hole in the attic, the mason showed up at our door to tell us to rest assured, all was well. He put more tarps on the outside, and promised they would be back tomorrow.

Attic Open Questions

I was up in the attic recently (I say that a lot these days) and noticed something weird:

attic ice
Originally uploaded by Jake Bridge.

See those white dots on the ceiling? That's ice. Every nail hole and knot hole has a frosty bit of ice on it, but only on one side of the house, the side without the chimney. Where's this water coming from? Is the whole roof, on one side, leaking a little bit? Is this just ambient moisture in the air freezing around the very cold (it's 12 degrees out) nails on the north side of the house?


That's today's new attic mystery. Here's an oldie but a goodie:

shady vent + ice
Originally uploaded by Jake Bridge.

You can see some ice in this one too, but notice that pvc pipe. That vents two p-traps (such an unfortunate name) from the upstairs bathroom. The pipe to the left goes to the toilet and the pipe straight down vents the shower drain. The pipe ought to continue straight up through the roof and vent sewer gases out of the house, but instead it vents straight into the attic.

The internet tells me that:

Make sure the vent doesn't terminate in the attic. Trapped sewer gases can be dangerous, stink and cause serious structural problems.

That's easy to believe, 'cause this guy looks deadly serious.

My New Favorite Book

So I went to the Pollard Library today (our lovely downtown public library, where Jack Kerouac used to hang out when he was skipping school). I checked out a bunch of home improvement and home repair books. I found this one that I think is AWESOME: The Do-it-yourself Guide to Home Emergencies by Don Best. I was going to post a picture here, but it doesn't seem to be working. Anyway, it's from 1996, and I just bought my own copy for 94¢ so that I can obsessively read it whenever I want to, or whenever we actually have one of the many emergencies ("from breakdowns adn leaks to cracks and critters" as the book says).

This book tells me all of the mundane and insane things that could go wrong -- for instance, did you know that if your water heater's thermostat goes haywire AND it doesn't have a working relief valve, it could literally EXPLODE LIKE A ROCKET UP THROUGH YOUR HOUSE? I did not know that. Now I do, and you do too. You will never feel safe again.

But seriously, in addition to telling me all the things that can go wrong in any house, it tells me what to do about them. Very sensible prevention and repairs are all spelled out for me.

I like this. I am now thumbling through Popular Mechanic's Complete Home How-To Book, which I like a lot because it has good pictures, and so far, has covered many things we need to do, like fixing plaster walls and ceilings.

In other news, it's snowing here at 83 Durant Street. The weather said no snow, but there it is. I'll end here with a photo of our sad, sad chimney in the snow. Jake talked to the mason today and we're moving forward with the plan.....though not sure of the timeline quite yet.

In which I show my Lehigh Pride

Or something like that. My grandfather gave me this rather large, framed color-toned print from 1907 depicting the Lehigh campus (our mutual alma mater). So riding the wave of hanging-stuff-on-walls that 83 Durant has experienced in the last few days, we finally got it up this afternoon! It's in the office/guest room. We've actually kept the set-up we had when my mom was here with the futon in the downstairs office along with my desk, while Jake's desk is in the front room with all the bookshelves. It's a decent arrangement, allowing our guests (you too could be one!) a comfy & private place to sleep, and also giving us each a little more room to spread out when we're working.

Obviously, I'm using the blog as a major procrastination tool these days.

In which we break our house

It has been raining a lot. The chimney has been leaking a lot. This has led to the discovery of water in the spare room closet. It's obvious that this has happened before, but it's the first time we've seen an active leak. So it was not so surprising exactly, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. The plaster is all wet and soft, so we decided to take out a big hunk of it, both to get rid of some of the wetness and (we hoped) expose the leak so that we could direct it more productively (say, into a bucket, rather than into the rest of the plaster).


It's rather shocking to see a hammer knock off plaster.

With our shop-vac, we sucked up all the mess. Jake hung some towels from the laths, hoping to direct the water seepage out of the walls. There's not any active driping at this point. I think we actually contained a fair amount of the drippage in the attic by putting more plastic up there.


Incidentally, horse-hair plaster is crazy stuff. There are CLUMPS of hair in there. I am not kidding. We took some pictures, but you can't really see it; you'll just have to take our word for it.


So that's where we stand. I don't know if there's anything else we can do at this point, other than wait for chimney-repairing weather, which may be a few months.

A Few More Little Things

We continued with the hanging efforts this afternoon. We put up two old maps from Jake's grandfather in the front hallway. There was a bit of trickiness with making them level, but I think they work here!
(I also think the shadows from the lighting fixtures in this picture look really wacky. Note to self: we want new hallway lighting fixtures.)



And I am THRILLED to report that we have finally hung my mirror. It has actually been sitting around, wrapped in a blanket and leaning against the wall ever since we moved from Northampton! It was once attached to the vanity, but after a few moves, the screws that attached it actually broke, so we decided it would be best to hang it. It's a rather heavy mirror, so we never got around to getting appropriate hanging materials. Finally, oh joy, we did it today! The mirror, vanity, and bed, are a matching set that my parents bought at an auction when I was 10; they refinished them in the backyard. I like them quite a lot.

Incidentally, if you look very closely at this picture, you will notice a previously blogged "WHHHHHAAAAAT?" element: the wallpaper in this room is lovely and stripey, with the stripes impressively straight and matched, especially considering the lack of level or straight corners anywhere, and the rather uneven plaster. Despite this great attention to detail on the part of the paperhanger, one step was neglected: PRIMER. This room, at some point in its history, was the same HOT PINK as the main room downstairs. This pink now bleeds through in patches all over the walls. If you look at the picture, you can see some of it. When you're in the room, it sorta seems like maybe your eyes are playing tricks, but no, there are pale pink bleed-throughs all over the place.

Little Things

We finally hung something on a wall. First things first, the mirror w/ hooks that serves to hold keys. Finally (hopefully) we will be able to find our keys! It's right inside the front door.

Also under the heading of "Little Things" is this nifty little thing that I love about the house. Between the front hall and the front room, there is a glass-pane door. It's quite lovely itself, but it has this little detail that I love: the keyhold has a keyhole cover! How demure and Victorian!




Jake has pointed out an interesting question about the keyhole cover here. Why does a glass-paned door need a keyhole cover? Clearly, it's not for privacy. Strange. Perhaps this is not the original hardware for this door. Hmmmm...

This is probably one of the most boring blog entries ever. Where are the squirrels?

of Squirrels and Chimneys

No more squirrels, so far. Today we did some "squirrel exclusion," which consisted of shoving some stainless steel wool pads into some cracks and crevices around the flat roof. The other day, we did some general attic exclusion, which included new metal mesh over the attic vents.












Meanwhile, the chimney is a mess. The mason said we need to have it rebuilt from the roofline up. This is a big job, made more difficult by the slate roof. We need some good weather for this to happen. So for now, we're laying down plastic and towels to absorb whatever water comes in. We've had a nice stretch of dry days, but it looks like we'll be wringing out towels again this weekend. Sigh.

Not a varmint is stirring....

Varmint #4, which we took up to Brook Farm State Park, seems to be the last varmint, at least for now. We put the trap right back up there yesterday after we got back. So we've been varmint-free for over 24-hours so far.

This leads to a disconcerting theory: what if there was only one varmint? What if he came back every time after we drove him to Shedd Park (less than 3 miles away, though across the Merrimack)? What if driving him all the way to Brook Farm was the only way to really get him out? Brook Farm is 12 miles away from here (though, as Jake pointed out, not as the squirrel flies). Will it just take him a couple of days to get back?

We wait. We wonder. We leave the trap set.

We also spent some time in the attic, plugging up a few likely places. It has rained a lot all day today, so we had a chance to see the extent of the chimney leakage. It's a lot. It looks like it will be clear for the rest of the week, so we're hoping we can get the mason in to take care of it. He has recommended that we take down and re-build the chimney. That's probably what we'll do. The thing probably hasn't been touched since the house was built, so it's time. And then we won't have to worry about it again for another hundred years. By then, hopefully, they will have trained flying squirrels to take care of jobs like this.

Varmint #4: The Legend Continues....

We woke up this morning to yet another little flying squirrel in the attic. That's number 4. We took him to Great Brook Farm (the others went to Shedd Park) and took a long walk there. I also caught myself a tick! It's been quite the wildlife filled day.

Jake is putting the trap back upstairs right now.....will there be another tonight?

Varmint #3

This is getting a bit ridiculous:



Here's the thousand dollar question: is this little guy the same one as before? Does he just keep coming back for a free meal? Is that possible? Here is where we take him:



Does he hitch-hike back? Does he fly? In order to answer this question (we hope) we have painted a little bit of purple ink on the belly of the beast. At least we'll know (maybe).

Varmint Count for January 6th, 2007: 3
For the math-enabled among you, this means half a squirrel a day.

Ew.

Shall we start a betting pool? My money's on 5 (for no particular reason), but I'll be quite happy if we're done.

Non-Rodent-Related Updates

I promised pictures of the new dining room curtains, so here you go:

We get a nice sunset in the dining room. I ordered new sheers for the pink room, but they're not long enough (sigh). Those are some tall windows. We're also trying to figure out curtains for the front room (currently some hand-me-downs from one of my mom's neighbors) and for our bedroom (very old and faded lavender ones that don't really fit or look right). I hate shopping for curtains. They are never in the right size for our windows.

In lighting news, I recently discovered that the non-functioning light in the laundry room basement isn't a light at all: it's a heater. It is still inoperable (I can't figure out how the switch works) but we're one step closer, I suppose.

It's a "Fostoria" (that name is on it so I looked it up on the internet) and it's mounted on the ceiling, right beside a fluorescent lighbulb fixture. It seems to be some kind of infrared quartz heater. It looks like the one pictured here:
http://www.infraredheaters.com/och.htm
but I don't see anything that looks like the switch box, which looks like this:

It's not clear how this box could turn the thing on or off, so I don't know if works, or if it has a burnt-out heating element, or if it's a fire hazard waiting to happen. For now we just don't touch it. But I guess it's just another one of those WHHHHHHAAAT spots in the house.

Flying Squirrel 2, Electric Boogaloo

We can only hope that this is in fact a second squirrel, and not just the first one coming back.
This little guy was much more calm than the first.
Boy, these critters LOVE peanut butter!


Will there be more?

Let's start a pool. Any guesses?

We're putting the trap back up there tomorrow morning.

Flying Squirrel

Flying Squirrel
Originally uploaded by Jake Bridge.

The Havahart® trap worked like a charm (once I set it correctly). Here's our attic guest, captured at last.

Flying squirrels, you may notice, are much cuter than grey squirrels. It's those big nocturnal eyes. They also are suckers for peanut butter.

Flying Squirrel "Scooter" or "Lefty" Finally Caught!

In case you didn't figure it out yet, we have a flying squirrel in our attic. Well, as of this moment, 5 pm, we no longer have that flying squirrel in our attic. Jake is taking him on a little drive right now. We're very pleased. It has been quite a saga.

This morning, the little critter had indeed taken the bait. But due to a slight operator error, the doors did not lock him in, and he escaped. We re-baited, re-set (correctly) and just a few hours later, scurry, scurry, SNAP! we got 'em. He was pretty upset, so Jake covered the whole trap with some towels, put him (in the trap) in a plastic bin, and he's driving him up to Brook Farm State Park right now. I like the name "Scooter," Jake thinks "Lefty" (if in fact this is the one who got his foot stuck in the trap before).

Critter Calculations

Cost of dealing with mouse/mice at 83 Durant Street:

Initial spending:
Victor (TM) brand basic spring traps, 8 @ 50¢ .....................$4
Peanut butter (Jiff Crunchy), pro-rated ....................................5¢
(We do keep peanut butter in the house, so we cut them a break on that)
(Also keep in mind that they stole an entire trap.)

Upgraded spending after initial spending provided no results:
Victor (TM) brand "Easy Set" model spring traps, 6 @ $1....... $6
More peanut butter.....................................................................5¢
Bacon, pro-rated........................................................................25¢
1 hot dog from the local meat shop...........................................33¢
1 package gumdrops.................................................................50¢
(we do not keep hot dogs or gum drops in the house, therefore the critters incur the full charge)

Finding out you don't have mice: priceless.

Some things broken; some things fixed

I don't think I mentioned this previously on the blog, but the dishwasher broke on Friday. Its tiny "clean" light blinked and blinked and blinked, but believe me, those dishes were not clean. A-1 Maintenance Master to the rescue. A very nice man came today and checked it out. Dis-assembled the whole thing, got down to where the motor lives, and discovered:

A NAIL.

I am not kidding. I can't figure out how a nail got down in there, but there it was, making the motor (and thus the washer) inoperable.

The machine is back together and humming away now.

In other news, we have a leak in the roof and/or chimney. We discovered this because Jake was up in the attic to deal with the critter situation. Without the critter situation, we wouldn't know about the leak. Thanks, critters! Your work here is done. Now please leave. I wonder if the critters read the blog. That would explain why they don't fall for the traps. They know we're after them.

The slate roof guy tells us that it's a chimney problem, so we need a mason. We're working on finding one. I am a little exhausted by 83 Durant at the moment. Oh, and by the way, for those who already read the previous chimney post (WHHHHHAT #3) it's not even that chimney. All this time, I've been worried about the back chimney (what's with the hole? where does the water go?) when the front chimney was the real problem. [FYI, The front chimney vents the furnace; the back chimney vents the stove.] I still find chimneys mysterious and perhaps a bit ominous.

Good News/Bad News

The good is... Mouse Problem Over!!! relish that for a bit.

Now the bad news: The mouse problem never really began. It turns out we don't have mice at all, but there is something that was/is making noise in the walls and eating the peanut butter (but not bacon) we've been kindly serving.

Here was my previous reasoning:

1. Either we have mice, rats, or grey squirrels.
2. We don't have squirrels. (Squirrels are diurnal, and we always heard scratching at night.)
3. We don't have rats. (Please, oh please don't let it be rats.)

Therefore, we have mice.

Turns out the conclusion was false. Bear with me as I slip casually into logic teacher mode: The argument is valid (i.e. if the premises are true, then the conclusion must also be true), so at least one of those premises must be false. Here's an exercise for the reader at home: Identify the false premise(s).

[update: I don't know where those little flower bullet points came from. It was a numbered list in the preview window.]

Shelving Update!

Happy New Year!
We're starting off our New Year's re-organization by setting up some much-needed shelves for our many many books.
The front room is a whole new place, thanks to our friends at Ikea.

The Problem: PILES and PILES of BOOKS







The Solution: MARKOR shelves (2 units) from Ikea





Here's Jake with our box o' shelving:





And the first one is finished! It wasn't too bad.












The second one came together in a snap.









We filled both shelves (in some spots, two rows deep).