We have a new vacuum!

It's a miracle! New carpet

With 3 cats, we really need to have a working vacuum. I've regaled my faithful readers with the story of the new carpet. I reviewed an excellent book on the history of carpets: Revere, Glenn; All About Carpets. 
A new carpet needs an excellent working vacuum!

About to vacuum said new carpet, the old vac got sick. It dates from 2005, as I recall. I took it apart, cleaned it out, replaced the bag, and all was not well. I'd replaced the belt a couple of months ago. The carpet book says you must vacuum a carpet regularly as it increases its life.

Long story short, hubby bought a new one in February. It is amazing! Hooray for entrepreneurs. He took the initiative, researched it, and went for it. (You can read a bit more below!)

It was on sale, $100 off. It was a goodly chunk of change, but with vacuums you get what you pay for. I had to put it together, but it was pretty easy. Then I used it on the carpet... It is so light, much easier to navigate amongst chair legs, and when you want to use it in a tight corner, the red handle lifts out, and you can use the wand for suction. For anyone with a bad back, it is priceless.!

You can see what the vac picked up. All I have to do is go outside, pop a button in the orange top, and the bottom of the canister opens, and out falls the cat hair! You can see what it picked up the first time I used it. I was shocked. It is amazing. And I'm worth it!

Shoddy goods

This one is a great story. Sir James Dyson began inventing a better vacuum. Unlike many of the products in the big box stores, this one is a quality item. It does what he says it does.
I am highly offended by stores, like CheapMart, selling shabby goods. A lawn mower that stops working after a year. Clothes that fall apart. They demand cheaply-made goods, which ends up paying someone in a foreign country a paltry sum to work in a shabby factory. That $10 t-shirt,or cheap tie people crow about, means that foreign workers aren't paid a living wage. Then there are the costume jewelry products, which poison its wearers.

Toxic jewelry: Cadmium found in Ardene, Aldo products - Health ...

Sir James Dyson

This UK engineer inventor wanted better than this. In the late seventies, he began researching a better vacuum. He had to sell his vacuums through Japan, online, since the big companies did not want the buying of filter bags to become obsolete. He founded Dyson in 1993. Following his success, Hoover copied his design, and he sued them, earning a whopping £4 million in damages. Hah!


He has done very well.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2016, his net worth is £5 billion,^[3] 

He's also opened a technology institute in the UK:



"The Dyson institute will fill a vacuum in education"

This will help to plug the severe shortage of engineers, but more importantly equip students with the mindset of risk-taking that is so central to the success of his company.

It's a miracle!

Since we moved in, I've been lobbying for a new living room carpet. SIX YEARS! I spend most of my time in this room, if I am stuck indoors. It was a weary carpet. It didn't owe us anything. Wall-to-wall, the cats would play with the little worm fibres that would come loose. It was a sort of medium pile, and just falling apart. The family before us had 2 cats and a small dog. I don't know about the previous family, nor when it was bought. There was only one family before that. The house was built by Ozzie Love!

It's been used and abused, this carpet. I encouraged my grandies to have TV Breakfasts, and dinners, when we were babysitting. My lobbying effort, I told my daughter. A yucky beige with some weird contouring, I was tired of it!

It came to a head when I was holding a cup of coffee, out of the way of Annabelle, and she jumped right on my arm. Coffee all over the carpet. I swore. At that point, hubby said that for my 60th birthday, on Dec. 26th, we would get a new carpet. Lots of fun.

We went to the store, and pulled some samples on Friday, Nov. 8th. John came over, measured it and went back to the shop and priced it. We didn't need a new underpad, so I went with the slightly more expensive one. The kids were over and we compared, felt it, thought about the girls sitting on it!

I chose 'Heron Gray', as I adore the Great Blue Heron. It goes well with our navy blue L-shaped couch is wearing a cover we bought for $10 at Ikea on a sale. It was a good buy when we did NOT have two white cats! The curtains are Sears 'off-the-rack', also navy blue.


Nov. 29th finally arrived. Despite the freezing rain forecast, it was a go. I wasn't confident that they would arrive, but hubby went off to deliver Meals On Wheels, and it was a go. They arrived at 9 a.m.
John was surprised that I hadn't cleared the room. Seriously.
I said hubby's back isn't good, and I waited until I was sure they were coming.
All the furniture was pushed aside in the dining room, and more stuffed into other rooms. All was good. Out went the old, rather quickly. In came the new. As he carried it in, the installer said, "I hope it's the right colour.'

  

It wasn't. The wrapping, from the factory, had mislabelled and we had another beige carpet. It was rolled up and removed.

John headed back to the store, and the installer and his son and I sat on the stairs and had a coffee.
THIS is heron gray!
 It wasn't well-wrapped from the factory, see the folds. The installer shaped and ironed them together, however, and it looks great.


Next chore: stripping the couch cover and pillow covers and washing them. I was not entirely successful, but I washed them both twice. Two white cats...
The pillows sat in the living room and dried overnight.


Ta da! The cats like it, too.


Happy birthday to me!