Sunday, October 07, 2007

Powderpost dust on the carpet

It has been a nest-building week. On Wednesday I finally framed a poster that has been propped up in the back room, with it's frame, only wanting for some matting material. I realized that the desired shade of red would be difficult to find in big enough sheets of paper and took a look at the fabric remnants bin, finding just the right size and colour of stuff for $2. I went right home and framed the poster, feeling very smugly creative and domestic.

This weekend we painted our bedroom two shades of blue, a very pale sky blue called "raindrop" and a medium french blue with the odd name "liberty". Liberty is almost but not quite Saltire blue.

So we have been hauling half the furniture out of the room, discovering three whole cat's-worth of fuzz under and behind the furniture, sleeping in the living room because of the fresh paint fumes and lack of curtains, buying a new bedside lamp and, finally, discovering that my blanket box had become the home of a bunch of Anobiidae. Painting is always disruptive of course, but the woodworm were an added spanner in the works. I'm very glad it wasn't moths eating the contents of the blanket box, since the box was a cheapie from IKEA I've had for five years, but it contained a couple of nice woolen blankets and an expensive William Morris tapestry it took me four months to complete. It's convenient that Matt and I were eyeing up a rather nice trunk when we shopped for a new bedside lamp, and it's exactly the same size as the wormeaten number we just threw out.

We might even have enough money set aside for home improvement that we can replace the blanket box and not have to delay the next project, which is reflooring the bedroom with red cherry laminate.

3 comments:

Loth said...

Oh no! Now I want to run home and check my blanket box for wormy type things! Ours is an old one tho' - belonged to husband's granny and is now home to an infestation of Humpties (some new, many which belonged to husband as a child). Are Humpties susceptible to woodworm????

K said...

Sigh about the woodworm. I want a blanket box, and have been looking for months but have yet to find just the right one... I wonder if you can woodworm-proof them?

What's a humptie, I wonder?

Rosemary Riveter said...

If you buy finished wood it'll be less of problem, this was an unfinished soft wood trunk, and if the beasties came in the cedar blocks I added (I suspect they did), then the whole thing was susceptible, but treated and sealed wood is much less appetizing.

My Dad said to use rentokil or something similar, but it's in our bedroom. I'm not a fan of surrounding oneself with chemicals, I get enough of that at work