November Snowfall

View of snowfall from my window

This was the view from my bedroom window as I woke up yesterday. It’s been cold recently, but this is the first time it’s got cold enough to snow. Things soon warmed up enough for the lovely white snow to become slush, and then puddles. Today it’s been a little warmer, enough at least to melt most of the snow on roofs where it had collected in sufficient quantity to hang around a while. You can tell from the photo that it’s pretty grey here at the moment. At least the white snow brightened things up for a few hours.

I’ve been working all weekend on the staircase from the living room to the bedrooms. After cutting a lot of pieces of flooring to the right size, I was working up to putting on the stair nosings. These will cover up the inaccuracies in my wood cutting and they’re also anti-slip for security. Turns out that the drill won’t get deep enough for the screws I’d bought without making a lot of horrible grinding noises, so I’m going to wait and see if I can’t get away with shorter screws. So in the meantime I have noseless stairs, but at least there’s no old carpet on the stairs any more for cat hair and dust to accumulate on.

14 Comments

  1. That’s a really pretty pic! 🙂

  2. Simon

    28/11/2005 at 12:45 pm

    Hi SareBabe,

    Thanks for the nice comment about the photo. Was it written whilst sitting comfortably in your nice new stain-free couch?

    -Fruey

  3. It is lovely. I wish it was white here in Duluth (Minnesota). It’s unusal that we are having pouring rain this late in November! It’s so dark it’s not even gray any more. *sigh* I’m ready to x-country ski! Rain rain go away!

  4. Simon

    29/11/2005 at 10:15 am

    Hi Carrster,

    Looks like from your recent post on your blog that you’re actually expecting a decent amount of snow – you would have to be if you’re thinking of cross country skiing. Here, it’s rare to see snow settle long enough to even *think* about skiing. That’s why that morning snow moment was so precious.

    Of course in the mountains the slopes are already open above about 3000m, but that’s like 6 hours drive away. There are some nice places to ski cross country as well, like the Jura. I’ve never been on a pair of skis though. Snowboarded once, fell over a lot.

    Regards,
    -Fruey

  5. Simon

    29/11/2005 at 3:44 pm

    Hi P,

    Just for you: stair nosings. A little thing that goes on the end of each stair to stop you slipping and make it look all neat and tidy.

    It’s great to be in a carpetless place. Hoovering is so much easier without having to go back and forth over the carpet all the time to pick up all the cat hair and dust.

    One thing I won’t have to hoover up is pine needles. I don’t think I’ll get a tree this year, even with Ikea just 15 minutes up the road. Makes a lot of mess. Cunning marketing scheme they have that you spoke about in your post though.

    -Fruey

  6. P in France

    29/11/2005 at 2:56 pm

    I’ve no idea what a ‘stair nosing’ is, but that sounds very ‘bricolage’ to me !

    I’m like you though glad to be in a French home that is carpet free ! It wasn’t until we bought our home that has wooden floors from top to toe that I realised how much dust accumlates and when you have a carpet it gets trodden in. Yuk, yuk, yuk !

  7. Simon

    29/11/2005 at 5:05 pm

    Oh, that’s OK then. Can I use you in defence with my lawyer if I get taken to account because there are needles all over the floor? 😉 😀

  8. P in France

    29/11/2005 at 4:31 pm

    Ahh but the Ikea trees needles don’t fall out at all, I promise you.

    That is until Christmas is over and you need to get the thing down stairs into the car and back to the Ikea car park.

    Then you leave a trail of needles behind you ….

  9. P in France

    29/11/2005 at 5:32 pm

    No but I’ll you my “lady that does”

  10. Simon

    29/11/2005 at 6:55 pm

    Euh, not sure I follow you there…

  11. *sigh* not enough snow yet for skiing, just cold and ice (although there’s snow on the downhill slopes). I’m with you on the carpet free homes! Ripped up *most* of the carpet last winter and have the hallway & stairs left to do. 🙂 It’s sooooo much cleaner than carpet (esp. with cats!)

  12. Simon

    1/12/2005 at 10:15 am

    Lol this thread is becoming the carpet-free club.

    Stairs are tough to do without carpet though. I just finished our little staircase and it took ages…

    -Fruey

  13. I’m willing to put in the time, although….cheap nice carpet might be the way to go too. We’ll see how cold my feet are!

    Still no snow. 🙁

  14. Simon

    2/12/2005 at 10:25 am

    Hi Carrster,

    I hope it snows soon so that you can swoosh along on skis in nice warm snowboots. Nothing wrong with carpet, but it’s not compatible with two cats and an aversion to daily hoovering :-).

    -Fruey