Let the cursing begin

Welcome to this week's Reno News & Review.

Winter's coming. I give you fair warning. I don't arrive at this masterful conclusion by looking at the calendar. I arrive at it by a feeling I have. I think it's mostly in my chest—it's a kind of a tingling, kind of an emptiness.

Sounds depressing, doesn't it? It's not. It just means it's project time in the house of the seven foibles. It happens every winter. Sometimes it's resolved by something as simple as painting a wall. I guess there are some walls that could use a coat, and I actually have an idea for a copper-colored ceiling project that might be enough to irritate me, but it's probably better to look down.

When I moved into that house, the previous owner had put down the lowest quality white carpet you ever saw. Cheap? It sheds fibers like Alice sheds her undercoat, only all year round. White? At one time, two dogs, three children and two gardeners lived in that house. It was white for about a minute.

But I'm a cheapskate, as I may have mentioned. I've been removing it piece by piece. I did this whole project where I removed the carpet, old padding and two layers of tile from my foundation level floors, then I stained the concrete a lovely shade of mustard. It looks fantastic. I paid my good friend Bill Ring to put down an incredible hickory hardwood floor in the living and dining rooms.

I'm probably going to do something myself this time. God help me, I might even try to tile the master bedroom and bath.

But really, what I'm thinking, is, wouldn't it be cool to do a room's floor with muslin or some other textured, loosely woven cloth? Sort of decoupage it to the floor and then shellac the hell out of it. I've got some coffee bags that might do the trick.

What do you think? A weekend's worth of work? Or should I start my therapy now? I'm certainly not going to begin this job until the end of the semester, but I feel as though I should get some second opinions. Please, somebody, talk some sense into me.