Hello Summer

Chickens-

I am writing to you from the lovely 70 degree humid-free environment that is now my home.

Let me be clear about this.  This is in the top five greatest things that has happened to me, following my own birth, my sister's birth, meeting my Charming Suitor, and becoming a published author.  And I am not exaggerating.  Air conditioning?  CENTRAL air conditioning?  Is a total lifechanger.

Luckily for us, since we had done the heating system this past winter, all of the ductwork etc. was in place, so we just had to install the compressors outside.

They are huge.  I went out when they were putting in the first one, which is about a three foot cube, and I thought "Damn. That is a honking AC unit."  And then they put in the BIG one!  We call them Lenny and George.  And I am madly in love with them.  They are Trane, same as our furnaces, run practically silent (we can hear it in the room where the big chase is, but that is the kitchen library, so we don't care).  The old window units sounded like small jet engines on constant idle.  This?  is so much better.

It is hot and muggy outside, and every inch of the inside is cool and comfy.  I swear when we came home Sunday after a couple of days away and walked inside to the embrace of the air?  I teared up a bit.

This means that the biggest infrastructure job is officially complete, and for anyone who has ever had to convert a 100+ year old house from steam radiators and no AC to a complete forced air system knows what a big deal this is!  The next big thing that is happening is we are finally getting ready to pour the concrete floor in the basement.

Have you any idea how annoying it is to live over a huge dirt pit?  Not fun.  As much work as has gone on in the past eight months, it just doesn't quite feel as real without a floor.  In general, it isn't ideal to pour concrete in Chicago until you are fairly certain of the weather, so now that the polar vortex has left us, we are good to go!  They are just gearing up to install the tubing for the radiant heat floor, and then it will be concrete time.  And this concrete is important.  Because we have decided to polish it and leave it exposed for the flooring in all but two of the rooms downstairs.

Since we are going for something of a 1907 industrial feel downstairs, leaving the stone and brick foundation and walls exposed, sandblasting and clear coating the steel beams, it was a natural fit to do polished concrete floors.  We will be having some sort of carpet tile in the exercise room for cushion and the media room for sound absorption, but since we are rug people anyway, it seemed silly to install flooring over the concrete pad just to lay rugs down.

In other news, I am going to take a two week social media cleanse, just to refocus energy and reinvigorate my brain and live in the moment with my Charming Suitor, so everyone have a great couple of weeks and when I get back online, I will have lots of house updates with pics!

Yours in Good Taste,
The Polymath