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?

They Don't Call it "Hard"Wood Flooring for Nothing...

On the last episode of OMG This Remodel Is Taking Forever, we had just gotten the outside prepped for stucco and the inside covered in drywall:

Since then, we've made some sweet, sweet progress (smells like tears of joy and extra deodorant, doesn't it?):

After several days of plaster work on the inside—and a thousand pounds of dust on every surface in the house—the room was ready for paint. There may not be any S&M activity taking place in our household (at least none we'll admit to), but we definitely have a 50 Shades of Grey thing going on around here. Living room walls are light grey...kitchen walls are light grey...kitchen countertop and flooring are grey...bathroom tiles and vanity are grey...outside is greyish...Mr. W owns a lot of pairs of grey underwear. You get the picture.

So it seemed only natural for us to go with a soft grey in the bedroom. But we also wanted to do something different with color, so we decided to add a big fat gallery wall accent stripe to the wall our bed will face.

The hope is that it'll have this effect when we hang some of our favorite travel pictures on it: 

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Once the paint was on the walls, it was time to take on what became the most arduous task of the entire process (says the girl who did pretty much nothing to help with any of the construction at any point...): Installing the hardwood flooring. If you ever go on Youtube and watch a video of someone installing hardwoods, it looks super easy. Tongue, meet groove, nail, repeat. 

The reality of floor installation was that the nailgun dealie Mr. W bought would more times than not push some wood splinters out, making it impossible to get the tongue tightly in the groove—so he had to slice off the superfluous wood after putting in every nail. And there were approximately a bagillion nails.

What we thought would take about 3 days to install took close to 3 weeks. Needless to say, there was a lot of cursing involved.

But now the floors are all in:

We just have to find some kind soul to come sand them for us. It continues to baffle me how many contractors and craftsmen never return phone calls. It's a wonder they're able to keep their businesses going. Fingers crossed that we can get someone do to it for a reasonable price.

And then we will finally get to move out of the guest room. And not make visitors sleep on mattresses and aerobeds on the floor. And stop overloading every surface with clothes we can't find a place to put. And start working on the bathroom...which currently looks like this:

Wish us luck. We continue to need it every day.

What to Do When You and Your Husband Want to Give Each Other a Five-Fingered Hug Around the Neck

Remodeling might be one of the greatest tests of a marriage. That and errant hair removal. And traveling with your family. Anywhoo, needless to say, things have been a little tense around our house over the last few weeks.

Mr. W pretty much asked me for a trial separation last Tuesday. "I think you should go to LA for a few days," he said. To which I sat up taller and replied, "NO WAY." Someone has to stick around here to nag and make sure the house doesn't fall into a deeper abyss of disarray and dust.

Having a mattress in our living room and random crap from our bedroom shoved into every available crevice of the house is wearing on us both.

But in the midst of the chaos, I learned a really important lesson about how to break the tension in difficult times.

Mr. W was huffing around trying to get these drywall shim things installed before the contractors arrived the next day while I was wading through the detritus in the backyard, trying to clean up the chicken coop. There was an egg in the coop, so I set it inside the door of the remodel with the intention of putting it in the fridge when I was done outside.

Then I heard a loud, "Awwwwww," from inside our new bedroom.

Immediately, I knew what had happened.

Mr. W had stepped on the raw egg and now it was all over his foot and the floor.

And this, my friends, is what saved our marriage.

Because I couldn't help but laugh hysterically and let go of some of my anger over his hoarding of RC helicopter gear and 31 t-shirts on hangers that I had to squeeze into my closet. I don't know if he stopped being mad at me in that moment—I mean, I did just make him step on a raw egg—but I felt like things improved after that.

So the lesson here is that a little laughter can go a long way. Maybe next time I'll try a banana peel or a bottle of seltzer.

And now, without further adieu, here is an update on our add-on progress:

We're so close to the end. Well, sort of the end. The end of the contractor and mega mess phase. The laying of the floors and installation of the bathroom finishings will be their own animal. But likely not as draining as the hardcore construction.

And if they turn out to be as draining, I'm not going to worry. Because I know exactly where to find an endless supply of raw eggs.

...And On Top of It All, There Are Hairy, Half-Naked Men in My Backyard

There's a whole lot of disarray going on around these parts right now. Work trucks are parked on our law every day. Tools and wood are strewn all over the patio. There are empty Gatorade bottles in the ice plant. The joys of remodeling are abundant here.

But I think the sight I've found most entertaining during past couple weeks has been the unexpected parade of flesh I keep seeing through the sliding glass door. The first time I glimpsed it, it startled me. I felt like a stray bear or Bigfoot had wandered into our yard.

But nope, it was just our contractor, sans shirt. (Who, for the record, is a big teddy bear so it's all very fitting.)

He looked so free that his brother who is helping with construction soon joined him. I teased Mr. W and asked him if they called him over with a wave of the hand and "Come on in, the water's fine." He said they did not. But every day they're out there working on their tans while they work on our new bathroom.

It makes me feel a little shy. Like I might slip up and say, "That man nipple...err..I mean foundation looks really solid. Good work, guys."

Nudity aside, it's really fun to watch the progress of this project. It's happening so fast. Tomorrow the subfloors are going down and then the framing will start. And then...they'll be busting through the wall. Which is kind of terrifying. Just when I'd gotten the last of the dust cleaned from the kitchen and two bathroom remodels... I just hope the contractors are wearing their shirts when they come through the plaster.

It's so crazy to me that this is going to be an actual room soon.

Mr. W standing in "the shower" of our new master bath...wearing socks and flip-flops.
Because that's how we roll.

Even though this footing is getting buried, we thought it would be fun to leave our hand prints for posterity.

Half-Remodeling the Half Bathroom

 

There's nothing like impending houseguest visits to expedite a remodel, and thanks to a scheduled stopover from Mr. W's best buddy from Portland, our half bath revamp got put on the fast track. We spent the last days of 2014 plastering, sanding (I'm beginning to loathe that word), painting, and prettifying the little bathroom we'd turned upside-down.

Last time I showed it on the blog, it looked like this:

The toilet looked lovely in the shower, but it was even better sitting in the hallway for about 3 weeks. Thankfully neither of us is a sleepwalker—we might have ended up with a tragic accidental peeing-into-the-hallway-toilet episode.

Prior to moving the door from the laundry area/kitchen to the hallway, the bathroom looked like this:

Not terrible but not our ideal with the 80s oak cabinetry and grimey (no matter how much I scrubbed) linoleum flooring. Even worse, when we opened things up in the new kitchen layout, you could see right into the bathroom, and I don't know about you but I just don't want to look at a toilet when I'm making stir fry or taking a fritatta out of the oven...

So we moved the door into the hallway and reconfigured the half bath layout.

All was going well until our plumber accidentally cracked a tile during the toilet installation and we didn't have any extras. (Yes, everyone has lectured us on how you should never buy tiles at Costco because you won't be able to replace them if you break 'em.) Through some miracle, even though our tile was no longer available at Costco, Mr. W tracked down a tile display at one of the stores and was able to unglue a piece from it for us to use in our bathroom. Crisis averted.

Though we wanted to make this bathroom nicer, we also wanted to save some money so we made quite a few thrifty choices. We opted to recycle the sink cabinet and upgrade it with a new front panel and doors (courtesy of Mr. W's mad woodworking skillz) and extra hardware we had left from the kitchen. Eventually, Mr. W will build a concrete countertop for it and install the more modern sink and faucet we bought.

 

We also saved money by using the extra pendant lights we had left from the kitchen and turning them into shiny, black sconces. Stay tuned for a follow-up post on how we did it.

We were planning to reuse the old mirror that was in there but both Mr. W and I accidentally cracked the corners of it on two different occasions, so we had to buy a new one. He plans to make a sleeker new frame for this one in the coming weeks.

The one big thing we have left is to re-tile the shower. After the pain of doing our other bathroom's shower, Mr. W has vowed never to do bathroom re-tiling jobs again. We'll likely hire someone to do the tile (after we demo it) when we're working on the new bathroom add-on. The plan is to go for a look like this with white tiles and dark grey grout:

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We'll also be replacing the old crank-out window in there when we have new windows installed for the addition. So although it feels like a whole new room, we're really only about halfway done. Which is just fine by me. I look forward to having the hallway plaster dust-free for a few months!!

Kitchen Hits and Hurdles

When I was in about third grade, my girlfriends and I were obsessed with watching the making of Michael Jackson's Thriller video. There was something about going behind the scenes and learning about all the little details that we just couldn't get enough of. Maybe we just dug Michael. Maybe it made the spooky video less scary. Maybe we all had latent makeup artist dreams. I have no idea, but peeking at the process that led up to the final video was extremely satisfying for our little nine-year-old minds.

Although Mr. W's and my recent kitchen remodel wasn't as scary as the Thriller video (well, maybe as scary as the part with the dancing zombies...), I thought it might be fun to dive into some of the details and share some of the behind the scenes stories with you all.

When you see before-and-after pictures, it's easy to think that everything just fell into place perfectly but we had plenty of blips before getting to our lovely final product.

One of the first was with the hardware we ordered. Mr. W was extremely "particular" about the kind of hardware he wanted, so after spending literally hours researching options, we finally ordered these from Lowe's. And when they arrived, the orientation of them was not what it appeared to be in the picture so we sent them back. Then we ordered these from Home Depot. They had been discontinued, so we had to put in a special order to get the full number of pulls we needed. When they arrived we understood why they'd been discontinued. The quality was awful. So we sent them back... Finally we found these guys in chrome and we felt confident they'd fit well in our space. It's funny because we had talked about tab pulls in the very beginning—clearly we should have trusted our initial instincts.

Another snafu we encountered was with the pendant lights. Again, we did quite a bit of research to find products we liked that weren't a million dollars (like these, which I also loved). We finally settled on ordering three of these from Wayfair. Unfortunately one arrived with a dent in it, so we had to request a new one. The cost to ship back the dented one was high enough that Wayfair told us to just keep it—it wasn't worth the cost to return it. And then they proceeded to send us two replacement lights. Mr. W contacted them and they agreed we could send back one of the undamaged lights. But that left us with four lights....and we quickly decided we only wanted two (not three) in the kitchen. Doh. Thankfully, there's a project in the works at our house right now that involves turning the two extra lights into cool sconces for our smaller bathroom. Stay tuned on the details of that.

When Mr. W went to install the cabinets above the range section of counter, we had another doh moment—which are super interesting to navigate when you're married... I think engaged couples should have to attend weekend retreats where they remodel a room and if they still like each other when the weekend is over, they're cleared for marriage. Remodeling is like the ultimate team-building exercise and can very quickly become fertile ground for fighting if you don't keep the right attitude. So when Mr. W went to hang the cabinets and we realized that making them the same size/height as the range hood created unbalance in the entire room, we quickly had to work together to come up with a solution.

Enter: open shelving.

Yup, these little shelves were totally not planned but I love them and am so glad that our measurements were off so Mr. W could build them. He, of course, was also thrilled that I would have even more surface space for knickknacks...

Ignore the unfinished caulking around the cabinet. We're still working on the final touches in here.

So what did we get right in this room, you may be wondering?

Well, I love the Carrara marble subway tiles and the silestone countertop. I think they strike a nice balance between modern and classic looks.

I had no interest in helping choose a faucet (Mr. W investigated like 100 before finding one that fit his requirements) but I like the one we got a lot. It has a touch sensor which is a blessing and curse. So great to be able to just bump the water on and off when you're doing dishes—but sometimes I accidentally turn the water on my arm when I'm wiping up the sink... Not so much fun.

Another thing we love is the highly functional cabinet additions we ordered for our large, awkward corner cabinets. Before we remodeled, the corner cabinets were like black holes where one might lose a cast iron pot for months or discover a family of tarantulas living inside an infrequently used vase. But now, the lazy susan, slidey outey action makes everything very easily accessible.

Under the two drawer units on either side of the room are a couple more ultra cool space maximizers. These toe-kick drawers are the perfect size for cookie sheets, placemats, and pizza stones. Love that they make such great use of space that would have been wasted otherwise.

Although I really like everything in the new kitchen (boy was Mr. W right about the soft-close hinges) I think the most exciting addition was the pantry closet. When we first started designing the kitchen layout, we didn't have a pantry in the plan. This did not make me happy. After living with awkwardly spread out food for a year, I really, really wanted a pantry. Not sure why it took us so long to realize we could tuck one in the corner where the old hutch had been, but when Mr. W suggested it, I think I jumped up and down and then kissed his whole face off. It was the perfect spot for one and we have it so packed to the gills now, I don't know how we'd survive without it. I luuuurrve it.  

Now that I'm done with this post, I'm not sure it was nearly as thrilling as the making of Thriller. But given how often I dance around the new kitchen to old school Michael Jackson music, the tie-in seems very appropriate.