Floored.

Tomorrow will be a cooking blog.

Today? Today is a complaining blog.

I hate interior design. This is a serious problem for me, since I purchased a house built in the 1960s and promptly spent a fortune remodeling it. With no designer. I sucked it up for the first year, when I told myself I could get it all set and never touch it again. Great idea, except that it wasn't all finished by the end of the first year.

But my brain was.

So here I am, almost three years later, having moved on to puppies and gardens and producing offspring, when I realize that half of my house is still only painted with primer. Why is it still painted with primer? Because I'm secretly masochistic. When I do notice that things around the house need to be done (which is surprisingly often given how slowly I seem to be progressing) I think the following series of thoughts:

1. Lydia, that looks terrible.
2. You should call Dan Dan the Handyman and have him take care of it.
3. Calling Dan will require you to make some decisions (paint color, landscaping themes, actually *purchasing* furniture).
4. If you're going to go to all the trouble of making the decisions, you may as well just do the job yourself and save the money. It can't be that hard.
5. If you don't just call Dan and make it happen you're never EVER going to make those decisions.
6. Ooooh is that RIGHT? You're not the boss of me, I can do what I want!

Yes, I do occasionally tell myself I'm not the boss of me. And if I'm not really sure who is.

Possibly P. Except I get cranky when he tells me what to do. Which doesn't mean he's not the boss, but...

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I go back to ignoring the decisions in question.

Until I can seriously no longer ignore them. Like now.

A year ago, my basement flooded, which is a pretty stinkin' big deal since it's fully finished and houses both my teenagers. It was awful and disgusting (yes, it was that kind of flooding) and I'd rather not revisit those memories. When all was said and done, the cork flooring that I spent what felt like years deciding on when we created that space out of nothing, was damaged. Not badly damaged, but damaged.

I filed and insurance claim, reminded myself that the most damaged area was in the bedroom of a 17 year old slob monkey, and didn't think another thing about it.

EXACTLY A YEAR LATER, literally, to the day, my basement flooded again. This time, the in-floor radiant heating broke and leaked up through the cement under flooring, totally saturating all the cork.

I can't ignore the damage anymore. It haunts me. The gaping ravines between the tiles where they've swelled and released again, taunt me. They giggle at my silly attempts to be "different" and eco-friendly with my cork choice. I can't even tell them to put a cork in it because...well, it would be rather redundant.

So now I have to choose flooring for the downstairs all over again *sob*. I so hate choosing permanent things for my house.

There are so many things to consider: will I like it in the end? Will anyone else like it? Will it break the bank? How will it effect resale? Am I going crazy?

Don't answer that last one.

My choices at this point are some kind of tile, or some kind of hardwood that is raised off the floor with pressure treated wood underneath to keep it relatively dry for future flooding. The idea of having tile in the three bedrooms down there seems so ... cold. Also, I've never seen tile in a pretty bedroom unless it's Mediterranean style or something, which my house is most definitely not. The wood would (wood would wood would) be nice, but I'm sorta worried about it getting messed up in another flood despite being an inch off the ground.

Either way, deciding on a style and color may very well defeat me.