Week 50

Inching closer to the end!

The kitchen counter got its underside trim this week::

A final patch was put in under the cabinet in the bathroom:

And the garage was cleaned out of unused materials, tools, & stuff for the dump. They also kindly swept and scrubbed the floors. I spent most of Saturday putting shelves back where they belong, and taking things out of storage. It's looking great!

On Sunday, I tried my hand at repairing a patch of broken concrete in the back yard, using what Mr. Bunkport had taught me in Week 40, when I helped him make the bathroom counter, and a tip from my dad. 

Before:

After:

We tried to get Pickles' paw print in there, but unfortunately, with our warm weather today (sorry, New Englanders) it had already set up by the time that she got back from her walk.

Mr. Bunkport also spent time this week designing a rain catchment system for the back of the house, instead of regular gutters that feed into the storm drains. The goal is to be able to use captured rainwater for the garden, instead of having to draw from the tap every time the vegetables are thirsty. Drought, you know. Depending on when the vendor gets him what he needs, it could go up next week or the week after.

Other than that system, there are a couple tiny odds & ends he's addressing, but really that's it. THAT'S IT!

Keep those fingers crossed for us, please!

Week 49

Painting! Done!

Jury duty was spent entirely on-call, so the guys could be here all week painting the back of the house bright blue:

With light grey trim, to complement the white doors and windows:

Meanwhile, the monster rose bush that we moved in Week 4 is so happy that it's blooming:

Next week: Mr. Bunkport will be coming to do final detail work downstairs and in the kitchen. Cross your fingers for us that it all goes smoothly!

Week 48

I'm posting early this week because I just can't believe this. I just can't get over it. California is in the middle of an epic drought. One of the worst droughts on record. A drought that was declared a state of emergency by the governor a whole year ago. And yet our attempts to paint the house have now been rained out twice. Twice. The first time in December, and now this week. The painter came, spent a couple days prepping, and then had to pack up. What are the odds of this? *Sigh.*

Gutters can't go up until after painting is done, so that's on hold, as well. *Sigh.*

It's going to rain all weekend, so the extent of my projects this week will be tacking up the cord for the new landline phone. Safety first, everyone. *Sigh.*

Next week, I have jury duty, so that will determine if anything can proceed, or if everything has to wait until the following week. *Sigh.*

Week 47

Good news! The painter and Mr. Bunkport's final work have been scheduled for next week! This could really be it! Keep your fingers crossed that no one runs into any snags or unforeseen problems. We are so ready to have the garage and yard cleared out of construction materials.

Meanwhile, this week, two things happened:

First, I was at City Hall for something that took only a fraction as long as I thought it would, so I decided to spend some time in the Assessor's office researching previous ownership of the house. Mars is listed in the records as having been built in 1907 -- it may be older, but because City Hall burned down in the earthquake & fire of 1906, everything still standing after the disaster was listed as 1907 in the new city records, along with all the new houses that were going up as people rebuilt the city. I could only go back as far as 1919 in the Assessor's microfiche files, but I was surprised to find ten owners before us, including a Martin family, who sold the house in 1919, and a Portuguese family named Velludo (listed as Velvet in the 1940 census), who bought it in 1925. Interestingly, the house changed hands three times in 1925. The owner previous to us, Jackie, bought it in 1956 -- much earlier than I had thought, and interestingly, she seems to have taken title alone.

My guess that Mr. Davila, whose stuff I found in the old back part of the house during a clean out in 2012, was Jackie's husband was wrong -- he and his wife Mary were actually the owners before Jackie. They bought the house at the end of 1952, and Mr. Davila died in early 1956. His widow sold the house to Jackie in November, 1956. Interesting that she left his stuff down there the whole fifty-five years she lived here.

The other thing that happened this week is that I started the mural at the bottom of the outside stairs. My starting point is a repeating bamboo design I did in school ten years ago:

I sized it up 200% on a copier, and gridded out the space into 8-inch squares:

Then, I poked holes in the copy of the design, & used powdered charcoal and graphite to create outlines on the wall:

Now I just have to sketch the panda in somewhere, and I'll be ready to paint!

That's it for now. Hoping to have some exciting photos to post next week...