Floors and Flores

The Carpet Cleaner delivered the rugs yesterday, and it was so exciting. With the addition of the oriental-style rug, the dining room is ready for use:

The rug is polyester or synthetic whatever, but it sure cleans up well. For the low low price of (seriously, get this!) $25, it's like I have a brand new rug. I found it in a house I lived in way before I met D. and have dragged it around ever since. I had it cleaned once years ago, and I think he never knew what it looked like clean. Also, in the big cities, it cost four times as much to get it cleaned - and they didn't pick up and deliver at home.

We still have to hang art, and we're on the lookout for a nice antique hutch, but no more yucky rug from the POs. Yay! As soon as our rug went down, I started planning to have guests over for dinner.

The vintage hooked rugs aren't as sparkly, but that's good. I told the rug guy that I wanted to keep the patina, but now they smell fresh and clean. I put them into the back guest bedroom:

I think a nice cast iron bed-frame, a green-and-white quilt, and some pink cabbage-rose curtains would go perfectly, don't you?

While I'm writing about floors, I wanted to show a few highlights from the upstairs refinishing work. There are a fair amount of nail holes, which I think look pretty cool:

There's a pretty big variation between the floorboards that had been painted brown (left) and those that had not (right):

Which led to a few glitches.

Before - the outline of the old walls and closets when this was two separate bedrooms.

After

We're just regarding that as a feature - not a bug - of having old floors.

Speaking of bugs, the "country life puts you more in touch with the natural cycle of the seasons" department reports that, one day last week, butterflies started showing up in our garden. Apparently, the monarchs are migrating this time of year - who knew? Even though our butterfly bushes are pathetic under-performers, probably desperate for some compost and a good trimming, they still seem to attract monarchs and other butterflies I can't identify:

In other garden news, the gargantuan (eight feet and growing in every direction) volunteer squash plant has been producing flores de calabaza for about a week now. One of my favorite foods, fiori di zucca was one of my food revelations on my first trip to Italy. This week, we've eaten them in quesadillas, sauteed with squash, cilantro, and lime juice, and in pasta primavera with zucchini, red bell pepper and basil. I haven't even gotten to the really delicious and simple soup you can make with them! Today, I harvested the first fruit of the vine:

Joining the squash and bell peppers in bloom, one of the tomato plants in the wine barrel planter has put out a few tiny flowers:

I don't hold much hope for any tomatoes before frost, but it's fun to watch the plant's progress. Thankfully, the basil plant has not gone to flower, but just continues to bush out, when I'm not hacking it back to make bruschetta.

The farmer's market continues to be a great and inexpensive source for peaches, tomatoes, peppers, and corn:

And we just keep heading out to the yard after hard days of house work and grilling those goodies up.

So basically, life is good at Casa de Revivalized - inside and out.