Monday 3 September 2012

Painted floors


My studio.  Of all my floors I will miss this one the most.  It was here we celebrated my girlies with wedding showers
and here where my own artist daughter started her painting career.  And here where I find comfort and let the music play.
 I'm not exactly sure how the conversation went ever so long ago when our living quarters housed three teenagers, two parents, and three medium/large sized dogs.  I believe it was initiated one day when we inadvertently introduced the dogs to a new food without a slow change.  The results were catastrophic as their digestive tracts needed time to adjust (if you know what I mean) and the ancient carpet in the family room HAD to come out.  But what to do?  We did not have a plan to replace the carpet and there was old flooring everywhere which would mean only a matter of time, change in food or not.  Our complete house was a high-traffic area and we were hard pressed to decide what to do with the floors on a tight family-raising budget sooooo.... the conversation was birthed and initiated a new task for me to run out and grab a few cans of inexpensive mis-tints from Home Depot and maybe one or two 'chosen' colours to tie things together.  And so it began.  Who knew?  that slowly and surely floor after floor would expire for various reasons and up it would come exposing the sub floor just begging to be painted.  Our own version of wood floors under our bare feet.  We loved the feel and they became just part of the landscape.  Each year more and more traffic worn. 

My kitchen floor.  The demo begins.
'One day you are in and the next you are out.'
They literally took a saw or sander to all my floors

Fast forward, O I'd say, 15 years or so?  Maybe 10, and this week marks the demise of all these floors with professionals coming to do major surgery and then put a 'real' floor in.  Laminate is not what it used to be people!  And with the passing of the third dog last December, we are ready to add to our family which is now sans teenagers.  We chose a laminate especially with a critter in mind.  And just maybe there will be two of the four footed kind.  Either way, I am not sad to see the painted floors go, even though this is how all my friends know us.  I just could not keep them clean any longer.  I will miss them and I'm ever so grateful for an open-minded SwHt who let me do things my way. 

And just for posterities’ sake let's look at the rest

Navigational star, the center of the studio floor.  I had figured out exactly where North was. 
See not to far off from being perpendicular.  I had sort of hoped it would be more dramatic
but decided to stay with authenticity.
My kitchen table stood over this modern faux carpet.  This section
is painted over linoleum which is ever so much more hardy than
the plywood sub floors.  This one stood up to a beating.
I copied this from a particular painting and now when I want
to give credit I cannot remember their name.  It may come to
me later.

In my study, where I do most of my work for a living I painted
large tiles and topped it with a more traditional looking carpet
style.  I also included the Twenty-third Psalm around it's border.
I've literally sat on the promise of those words for years and
prayed many prayers along with David.  "He prepares a table
before me..."
Front hallway looking into my studio

It marks the end of an era for me.  But we have things we are looking forward to in the future and a little grandbaby that we want to crawl over the floors so it's time to upgrade.  What a sweet reason to do so!