12 "Dones" of Housemas

Since we bought our house 7 years ago, we've had a running To-Do list that seems to operate a little like a starfish. You cut off one arm and another grows in its place. You cross one thing off the list and another inevitably appears—often because when one thing becomes pretty, it illuminates the ugliness of the thing beside. Like when we enclosed our breezeway with a wall of redwood planks and suddenly realized that the garage door looked so hideous next to it, we needed to buy a new one.

Thankfully, in the last year or so we've been able to successfully amputate some of the starfish arms, taking our once two-page list down to about 3/4 of one page.

I've been terrible about blogging this year, but I wanted to post a list (partly for our own selfish project-tracking reasons) chronicling the To-Dos we've turned to Dones in 2019.

1. Driveway
This was essentially a miracle. I don't know what year our crumbly old asphalt driveway was laid, but it was The. Biggest. Eyesore. It brought down the aesthetic of the entire house. And every time I swept it after gardening, it would disintegrate. I was convinced that eventually, there would be no driveway left to sweep because every crumb of it would have been pushed into the lawn and the mulched planter.

Mr. W refused to even entertain the idea of a new driveway, so I would often say things like "When I win the lottery, the first thing I'm doing is pouring concrete!" I'm still not clear on what brought him around, but in the early fall, Mr. W decided to get a quote on cement. And it was so much more affordable than we thought it would be! So we did it. And it has totally transformed the front of our house. Worth every penny.

2. Retaining wall
Along with the driveway came a new niche for our trashcans and, possibly someday in the future, a cute little trailer. The catch was that we needed to make sure our neighbor's yard didn't accidentally avalanche into our new niche. Thus, the handsome new retaining wall.

3. Fountain
I think Mr. W added "fix fountain" to the to-do list like four years ago. We've had this fountain since we lived in Hollywood and I missed looking out the kitchen window to catch hummingbirds drinking from it and mockingbirds bathing. Very excited he got this puppy back up and running.

4. Sliding glass doors
The doors in our dining room and living room were original to the house—meaning they were installed in 1959. In addition to being murder traps (there was no way they were tempered glass) they were drafty, didn't slide great, and had grime around the frames that I couldn't ever seem to get clean. We (read: Mr. W, not me...) still need to patch the stucco around the new ones, but they have made a huge difference in our ability to control temperature inside the house and they look great (especially with our new carpet).


5. Curtain Rods
This was a minor update but I'd been wanting to do it a long time and am so happy. It's the equivalent of adding eyebrows to where none used to exist on a face.

6. Carpet
Not sure when the carpet was installed in our living room, but it was in sad shape when we bought the house. We shampooed the room two or three times, but as my dad once said about my beat-up Ford Escort "You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse." There was a thinning spot next to the slider where water seepage had destroyed the padding and rug. And when we got two kittens whose favorite game involved plucking individual fibers from the grid and tossing them like captured prey, thinning turned to bald. We needed to pull the trigger on new carpet. The room is now thick and lustrous as a Kardashian.

7.  Backyard staircase
We just checked this one off the week before Christmas and there's still much to do with it. But the stairs are framed and we can now get down to our lower yard without having to walk all the way around to the dirt path that runs between our neighbors' house and ours. It's thrilling. I plan to run up and down these suckers to get in shape like Rocky. And one day, there will be grapevines growing on the slopes that border them.

8. Wood surround on the pizza oven
We put the pizza oven in two years ago and the BBQ platform next to it had been a skeleton ever since. After finding a master carpenter to help us with the trim above our kitchen cabinets (which should be #13 on this list...) Mr. W hired him to finally put some meat on the BBQ platform bones. Now this pretty redwood matches the rest of the wood on our property and finally the pizza oven can stand in its true saucy Neapolitan glory.

9. Garden fencing and boxes
Very early in the year, Mr. W set to work installing a deer fence around all of our fruit trees. We decided this part of the yard would be a better place to plant our big garden, and that garden would need protection from the local herbivores. The fence paid off in pounds and pounds of apricots and plums in the early summer and thanks to the planter boxes Mr. W built, we were able to save most of the smaller plants from the titanium army of undestroyable gophers. We need to do some work on our soil (we didn't get a single zucchini in this garden, which is unheard of) but were happy with our tomato, basil, tomatillo, and pumpkin yields.

10. Greenhouse plants
I did find time to craft a blog post about the greenhouse we built in the spring, but sadly that beauty sat empty and unfinished most of the year. Finally in the fall, we completed the assembly of the shelves inside of it and added some plants. I'm happy to say I've been getting jalapeños all winter and we're hoping our tomato plant will fruit soon. The cauliflower plants are also coming along quite nicely. The dream is to have some semblance of produce production going all year, every year.

11. Gas line in the fire pit
In spite of my deep-rooted love of campfire smell, Mr. W insisted we put in a gas option so we could use the firepit without having to go to bed smoke-scented. I guess it's nice to have the option, but I'm likely going to lobby for real wood the next time we make 'smores.

12. Murphy bed
With six nieces between the two of us, Mr. W and I often have families of four staying in our house. Sadly, we only had one guest room and one bed, so multiple members of the fam were relegated to the couch and aerobeds if they spent the night. We had decided quite awhile ago to buy a Murphy bed for his office so we could have another guest bedroom, and this year we finally bought a kit and put one together. It's nice that we can pack it up when it's not being used. And I dig how it kinda looks like an old fashioned bar or something. Cocktail, anyone?

More Usable Space and a Whole Lotta Redwood

When I first moved in with Mr. W 6 1/2 years ago, I remember being mildly horrified by the lack of storage space in his house. Where would I put my wrapping paper supplies and Rubbermaid tubs filled with old photo albums and collection of board games? Of course, I made everything fit by forcing Mr. W to rearrange and purge his belongings. {Sneaky brilliance}

In 2013 when we moved into our Santa Ynez house, we were both delighted by how much space we were gaining. We'd be able to fit every last Halloween costume, piece of scrap wood, and superfluous blanket and bedpillow. We never dreamed we'd fill it all, but fast forward 3 years and we were starting to burst at the seams. Between Mr. W's supply of RC helicopters, my mass of hoarded wine bottles for Etsy projects, every power tool known to man, and the real elephant in the room—an airplane Mr. W is building from scratch—we needed more room.

The most logical place to expand was to make over the one part of the house we pretty much never used: the breezeway.

Though it had a cute set of furniture on it like a little kitchen-adjacent lounge in which to drink martinis and read the evening post, we never, ever spent time out there. It was really just a dumping ground for garden tools, chicken feed bags, paint cans, or whatever else we didn't feel like putting away in its proper spot.

So up went a removable wall, and in went Mr. W's makeshift workshop space (allowing me to finally start parking in the garage again...) We're still working on the curb appeal here—we're midway through stripping and staining the beams by the front door so they tie into the new more modern panelling. And I'm sure there will be some further tweaking after that.

We bought a new garage door, too, which we both really dig.

I think once we get the kinks figured out, it'll all look really nice (except the hideous driveway...). And it's great that Mr. W has spillover space for his aeronautics endeavors now.

RIP Carrie Birdshaw :( :(

So now you may be wondering where the cute set of patio furniture went. Behold my friends, the recently added crown jewel of our backyard: Prince Pergola.

We knew we wanted to erect some sort of sun shade feature in the backyard and after seeing this beauty on Fixer Upper one night, Mr. W concocted a perfect design for it. We brought in some pros and it was up and casting shadows in about a week.

Fixer Upper inspiration pulled from Instagram

I swear it has changed the entire house. It feels like an extension of the living and dining room, which is exactly what we wanted. At least 3 times a week, I'm outside on my laptop working from the "outdoor office" soaking up some vitamin D. It's truly fantastic.

These guys like it too. But only from afar.

Looking forward to having some nice red Sangria under those gorgeous red beams this summer. Cheers!

A Couple of Midcentury Makeovers

It occurred to me while typing the title of this post that Mr. W and I aren't all that far off from being "midcentury" ourselves. Eesh. Where does the time go? It seems like just yesterday we were dreaming up our ideal midcentury-style house in the wine country and now we've owned this place for four years.

Speaking of which—when we first purchased it and were coming up to work on it on the weekends, we bought a $20 IKEA coffee table to tide us over until we moved our real furniture. That terrible little laminate table survived even after we brought our Hollywood belongings, and in the corner it sat for three whole years, bowing slightly under the weight of the TV, stereo, and various other media components.

Sometimes I would catch myself sneering at it in disgust. It was never anything but faithful to me, and yet, I loathed that cheapie coffee table.

Mr. W promised to build me a custom media console...but he had about 850,000 other projects ahead of it. And then we got a kitten. And the kitten took to climbing behind Ugly IKEA Coffee Table and chewing on all the cords to our various viewing system boxes.

Thus began my renewed crusade to get something else in the corner of my living room.

Mr. W went to work in Sketchup as he likes to do, and drafted some plans...

Execution proved a smidge difficult, as after he applied walnut wood veneer to one side of the actual construction wood, it warped a bit. So I was called into the garage to stand on the wood while he screwed it together. Ah, the life of a DIYer's wife...

Thankfully, he was able to get everything together right and after a couple short weeks, we had an amazing, very authentic-looking midcentury-esque piece of furniture to take the place of Sad, Sad IKEA Coffee Table.

Of course, once the TV was mounted to the wall, I had a funny empty spot next to it that felt like it needed a something sparkly. Not like glitter on a stripper sparkly, but like 1960s starburst clock sparkly—only, without the $100+ price tag. Instead, for a mere $15 at Target I was able to construct my own makeshift burst mirror.

Not wanting to be shown up by Mr. W's redecorating skills, I decided I would also recover the cushions on the cute midcentury chair that sits across from the TV stand. The cover it came with was in ok shape when we first bought it last year...

But after many tooshes smooshing its surface, the fabric finally began to split. So I headed to Joann's, watched some videos on YouTube, and undertook my very first reupholstering project with piping.

I got the job done, but there was an inordinate amount of cursing involved. I may have also punched the sewing machine a few times. Not in like a Fonzie "Eeeeyyy this'll make it start working for me" way but like an "I hate you and want to smash you until you're dead" kind of way... It took a lot of stamina and a lot of wine to get the project done. But I did it and although it's not perfect, it looks just fine. At least that's what the cats keep telling me...

FLUFFERNUTTER

What We're Making: A Bench You Can't Sit On

Earlier this month, we completed the gallery wall project we had slated for our recently renovated master bedroom. But pretty much as soon as we hung the final frame on the wall, I started thinking the room looked unbalanced. #neversatisfied Though the wall looked sharp, we pretty much had a bowling lane running down the east side of the room. If I didn't find a way to break up the space and balance the heavy bed and couch on the west side of the room, I was going to have to start wearing an eye patch every time I walked in the room so I'd only see one side at a time. And nobody wanted that.

I decided a bench on the gallery wall would solve the problem, so I spent many an evening researching options on All Modern, Overstock, Crate & Barrel, Wayfair, Dot and Bo....and on and on. (Follow me on Pinterest and you can track the madness.) Unfortunately, nothing I found was the dimension I was seeking—I needed something long and shallow. And on top of that, the stuff I really liked was pricey. So I did what any self-sufficient DIYer would do: I asked Mr. W for help. 

I set him to task, cutting me a nice long bench base from one of our discarded closet doors, then I ordered some cool mid-century-esque bench legs from Home Depot. I had some foam left over from a previous bench project we'd done in the guest room, so all I needed was some nice fabric and a few coverable buttons. Easy peasy. Right.

I hit Joann Fabrics over the weekend and found some awesome, toothy navy blue upholstery fabric and went to work Sunday afternoon thinking I could bang out the project in a couple hours. Instead, it took five. Here's a time lapse of the first few steps before I got burnt out and was cussing too much to stop and take pictures:

Staining the legs with walnut stain.

Piecing together some old and new pieces of foam for the cushion.

Covering the whole thing with batting. And yes, I got a blister from using the staple gun so much.

My little helper. Not really helping.

Covering in my snazzy fabric. Pardon all the cat hair...

After this, the wheels sort of fell off. Covering the buttons was harder than I thought it would be and actually installing the buttons was super hard because I'm not sure I had the right kind of needle. It's a good thing we don't have kids and a curse jar at our house because that thing would have been filled with dollar bills.

Once I got the buttons placed, I hot glued fabric to the bottom and installed the legs. I was quite proud of how it looked when I was finished. However, when I tried to sit on it lightly, the wood began to bow. It is possible to sit on the corner where the legs add strength, but trying to rest on the middle of it would likely snap it in half.

So it becomes another piece of art on the gallery wall. Fashion before function, my friends.

I know, I know. The corners need some work.

One more peek at the before:

And the after:

The room is so much more balanced now, don't you think?!