Terror Firma

Today I tackled the yard... it has been mocking me for the past three weeks, and finally I decided that there was no point in waiting for a nice, cool day to do it.  Today was the day.  One of my favorite features of this house has been the yard.  It has really excellent and mature plantings, but it has been neglected for several seasons.  Apparently the yard is as great as I think, because many weeds have been competing with each other for real estate there. 

The biggest problem was the vines that were taking over the peony beds and the wrought iron fence.  As much as I hate weeds, I have to give vines their due.  They are incredibly clever and efficient, not to mention effective.  They follow existing plants, and then follow each other, so they can climb while hiding in something you actually want to keep.  Then, they become so engrossed in the plants that its hard to get rid of one without getting rid of both.  But, I managed to clear out the majority of the vines and weeds, and the yard looks so much better and more manicured.  I am pleased.  We celebrated with a grill feast for dinner. (Before/After)

Next project will be finishing up with spackling and sanding the office walls so I can get busy painting.  

For now, I am traveling for work a bunch, so I'll have to wait until I return.  Off to the flea market in the morning... I'll report back on any good finds. 

Last Weekend's Successes...

Hey ya'll... I know, I'm behind on my posting.  This has been a VERY busy week!  So here's a few updates... last weekend we had an awesome trip to Saturday's Market, and Tim picked up our new friend, Michael J. as pictured above.  He's quite the dapper gentleman.  In other taxidermy news, Tim also picked up the bat below at Jubilee Day; sorry, he refused not to be glaring in the photo. 

That bat was apparently a harbinger of events to come, because we have had a bat in the house three different times this week.  We knew there was a small pod of them in the attic, and I could accept them as the excellent bug-catchers that they are.  Now, they have overstepped their boundaries.  I do not need them to catch bugs for me down here in the living room.  No thanks.  It might just be that I'm a tiny bit afraid of bats.  They are so flappy and unpredictable.  And squeaky.  I am not the type to jump up on a chair if I see a creepy crawly thing, but flying creepy things is just another story... anyway... we have done a bunch of research and learned that they basically need to be "excluded" by waiting until they fly out at night and then blocking up any entrance-way that is a quarter of an inch or bigger.  In this house, there are few gaps that aren't at least a quarter of an inch!  However, compared to the VERY large price of paying a professional to exclude them, it looks like we need to think about doing it ourselves.  Yep, my skin is crawling.  I'll let you know how that goes, whenever we get up the nerve to do it. 

In other last weekend news, we made the first new-house trip to Ikea, and it was pretty successful.  I got some cute little plants and things... a few typical Ikea odds and ends, but also a new coffee table...

Some decor for my office...

a new table/desk for my office...

Cushions that totally redeem our flea market chairs...

Some new picture frames, which we put our excellent posters from our recent San Francisco trip in...

And a bunch of time spent like this...

I'm pretty pleased, though.  These pieces were really helpful in pulling things together.  I also picked up this Craigslist find, an awesome new desk chair, from an equally awesome couple.  Truly, one of the best parts of all of this Craigslisting has been the super folks that I have met along the way.  So good.  People are actually nice out there, despite my sometimes low expectations.  Hooray!

I also picked up this fantastic bar for the kitchen, a la Craigslist, that has really changed the feel of the kitchen.  I am so happy to have it!  It has resolved some of our counter-space issues, and will make it much more tolerable until we are able to re-do it the way we would really like it, complete with new cabinets and counter tops.  

Also, we (Tim) cut a hole in the basement door to allow the kitties access to their newly arranged "facilities."  We are all grateful that they now have their privacy.  Truly. 

It was a good weekend... then, we had an electrician come by and give us some estimates for replacing the knob and tube that we have running through the house.  Our house has old veins.  It is going to be a lot of cost to complete it all, but we can tackle it bit by bit, so it should be alright.  It isn't as much of an emergency as the plumbing work was, so that's a relief.  More update to follow... it has already been a busy weekend!

Super Flea Market Score Day

Every now and then, flea market magic just happens... this was one of those days. We were only there for about an hour before it started to rain like crazy and in that short hour we mega-scored.  Tim found the grinning cayman seen above to add to his collection.  We got this Pee-Wee Herman doll with flexible legs...

I got this stamp set that is pretty similar to one my sister and I used to play with at my grandparent's house.  My grandma had the best stuff to play with because she was a teacher... she had stacks of construction paper in all colors, including the manila with swirls.  Top notch.  The stamp set was one of the amazing things she had, and when I saw this one I felt like I had to have it.  Done.  It has the same smell as the one we used to play with.  I can't wait to stamp things with old-timey letters.

We got this trio of glass jars with cork stoppers.  I love them.  They will likely house some kind of tiny oddity... maybe a little blue scuba diver, or a yellow cow, or a chicken foot... it's so hard to say.  

 
Tim found this adorable little bell with a Pegasus on it (interesting... spell check just insisted that I capitalize Pegasus...)  She loves things that have a Pegasus on them... I hope she doesn't read this.  I also got an over-the-door shoe holder for $1.00!  I really needed one, so great.  

And finally, I got Rollfast!

 
I am very excited about this bike.  It is a single speed bike with coaster wheels and a leather seat... I was smitten right away.  We did a  lap of the flea market and when it was still there, as the first rain droops were landing, I pounced on it.  I will need to get new tires and tubes, more than likely, but still it was a great deal for such a cutie.  I can't wait to get it all cleaned up and pretty.  I am over the moon!

That's the story... amazing flea market success rate.  I am usually excited for one little thing that I find, but this was a bonanza.  All right, now back to the house...

Stangl has gone home

I did it!  Or more accurately, we did it, because without my mom's house this would have been an agonizingly long project with little to no joy.  But with her help, we got it all sorted, organized and put away! And it was fun.  Just to share why I love this stuff so much, here's a few added pictures of my dishes...

 
and these...

and these...

and these...

and the finished product really makes me smile because it means another room is sorted, about 12 more boxes are broken down, and it even prompted me to put away most of the remaining kitchen stuff.  

 
There is just one more box of utensils that is really taunting me in the kitchen.  How did we get so many utensils and do we really need them?  Probably not... some may not make the cut.  Someone's got to take the hit.

So this morning we are off to the flea market to find more stuff to put in our house.  I'll report back if there's anything great.  Also, hopefully today I will move on to taking stuff out of the office, to get ready to prepare for greatness. We'll see.  It's Sunday... anything could happen.

Goals and plans, plans and goals...

For the past 24 hours I have been thinking about plunging headlong into the first painting projects in the house, but I am slowing my roll... I still have all of the boxes to unpack in the kitchen and dining room that I had put on hold during the plumbing project.  So today's new concept is to finish unpacking the enormous Stangl collection, and maybe get to the paint store to buy supplies, and start painting tomorrow.  I REALLY want to get painting, but whoa lady, I should finish putting things away first.  

A brief note about Stangl... if you know me, you may know my rampant obsession with this amazing collection of dishes.  My grandma and great-aunt are really to blame, they started collecting this after they were each married and the love for it has spread to me.  I have probably 500+ pieces, which I ought to get around to cataloging, but mostly it it in boxes right now.  It can look like this...

Or this...

Or really any of hundreds of different patterns, and lucky for me as a collector it's easy to find locally at flea markets.  The thing is, I would never collect so much of something that wasn't useful; it is a totally great everyday type of dishware because it has a durable red clay base.  I love to have a party and roll it out instead of paper plates... I digress... I love the stuff and today's goal will be to get it out of those boxes and into those beautiful built-ins in the dining room.  Fingers crossed, it seems like a good Saturday project.  I will report back later with the results... 

Before I start the day's stuffs, I wanted to say happy anniversary to Black Thorn Gallery, the tattoo shop and art gallery owned by my boyfriend and his two partners... it was two years this week since they opened and I couldn't be happier for them.  We celebrated with thai food.  In those two years, one partner had a baby and another now has a baby on the way... one shop assistant got engaged and another was hired on.  So much growth in two years... here's to a million more.

Taaa-daaaaah!

That new shower curtain can mean only one thing; the upstairs bathroom is fixed!  There is nothing better than coming home from work to a plumbing project that was finished while I was gone for the day...It will need a ton of paint and a lot of elbow grease, but the plumbing is finished.  Now I need to decide just what to paint... I hate that faintly pink beige tile, but it currently matches the sink and tub, so maybe it stays and we just paint the walls above the tile...?   We will eventually, on some distant day, put in one of those futuristic glass-walled showers, but in the meantime, I just need to not hate it while I take my morning shower.

Meet our new door-knocker!  It sure beats the pineapple... I love it.  Another thrift score by Tim; this time Salvation Army.  Also, in front-door news, I peeled away the stick-on fake stained glass.  From the first time we looked at this house, I have looked forward to peeling that garbage off the transom.  Finally done.

This weekend, I hope to get the upstairs bathroom organized and sorted and such.  MAAAAYYYBEE even get started on thinking about doing  some painting.  Maybe.  I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.  Sorry the pictures are grainy... I'm going to try to sort that out.

Goodwill find...

 

Tomorrow the plumbers will finish installing our new toilet and shower in the upstairs bathroom... don't get too excited, it's only a temporary fix and not so much a glamorous bathroom redo, but I'm pretty excited nevertheless.  It will just be nice not to trek downstairs to take a shower... is that lazy?  I'm okay with that.  One of the reasons we were attracted to this house was that it had two bathrooms, and I intend to use them both.  In the meantime, I thought I'd show off the superb Goodwill snag Tim managed yesterday... 

 

Medeski is also apparently on board... here he is, showing us that it is an effective lounging surface.  Well done.  Tim is thinking about some excellent paint job to spruce it up.  I can't wait!  We also picked up a couple of cool light fixtures at the flea market over the weekend, and Tim has worked them over to make them much cooler... stay tuned for a new globe soon (and hopefully a better picture...)

 

Tragically, the one Tim bought for it broke when he was changing the light bulb.  Meh.

The hills are alive...

... with the internets!  I have been dying to update, and first there was no internets, and no mobile internets, and then I couldn't find the right cords... anyway, we all know how moving goes.  We are back in action at last!  So here's all the news that's fit to print.  First, there was the move, and things looked a lot like this for a while:

In fact, it looked even worse than that, because our movers were terrible and their interest in helping us to move did not extend to anything "upstairs", and ended with collecting way too much money from us.  I've never hired a mover, and I thought we would go for it and hire the pros for this move, but it was not even close to worth it... we still had to call in friends to help (Thank you Jarrod!) and we didn't finish until close to 2:00 in the morning last Friday/Saturday.  Not so great, and not at all what we had in mind.  But it's done!  It's over!  We are here.

Now things are slowly taking shape.  We have pretty much set up the living room, the kitchen, the movie room and the bedroom.  Not in their final configurations by any means, but at least it's in a livable state.  We keep looking around and thinking that we are really excited about being here, and excited for it all to come together.  I am finding the tough part (as with most areas in my life) is being patient to get everything done... I want to just tear through and get it all done now, but that's incredibly unrealistic.  Instead, I am finding joy in hanging flower baskets on the porch and emptying another box.  And another box...

The real project has been the plumbing.  As was predicted by the pieces of ceiling that were laying on the floor and the water dripping from the living room ceiling, we have had to do some major plumbing work.  It started with new plumbing to the downstairs bathroom, inclusive of new faucets and handles for the sink and shower.  We are learning that the bad winterization was so pervasive that it cracked the inner workings of the faucets.  If you ever need to winterize, HIRE SOMEONE REPUTABLE!  Fortunately they weren't on our dime, but unfortunately the damage that they caused is... The kitchen has also been re-plumbed and we got a new faucet and sprayer there as well.  It is nice to start out with new stuff, but I would have gladly traded that for working plumbing.

Now, the plumbers are moving on to the second floor... they are working on an all new main stack from the basement through to the second level, and new plumbing for our master bath.  The toilet literally shot off of the ring when the water was turned back on, again as a result of bad winterization.  The main stack was due more to age than anything else, so I feel a little less salty about that.  They are also going to put in a shower, since right now it is only a bath, and again, new faucet for out horrible dusty rose sink. 

We did get to see some additional glimpses of old wallpaper as a result of the exploratory plumbing going on... 

Once the plumbing is done, I am hoping that we can move on to some of the cosmetic stuff we want to do.  I am thinking that I'll start working on my office, so that it can stop looking like this.

I decided not to put all of my books away on the shelves before painting, because frankly it will be much easier to move this stuff out of the way while it is still in boxes, rather than a bit at a time.  I am thinking about going bold with matte black walls and nice clean creamy white trim, with lots of brightly colored accents.  Anyone have any other thoughts?  I'd be glad to hear them...


Alright, that's PLENTY o'blog to get me caught up.  I promise to be less of a stranger going forward.  All systems are go!