House guest

Last weekend, we had a house guest: the one and only StarrhillGirl, who AJ has known for 30 years, and who is a follower and frequent commenter on this blog.

Pickles, as usual, did her best to be a good host. For example, after the bed was made, she immediately swooped in to perform turndown service:

Thanks, Pickles!

We spent the weekend relaxing and enjoying the warm weather. While StarrhillGirl and AJ read and napped on Sunday, I got some work done on the mural:

Meanwhile, Pickles made sure that her spot on the deck didn't get neglected:

It was a great visit, but so short! We can't wait until she returns for more fun!

This week, it's going to rain all weekend, so there will be no work on the mural. That's just as well -- I have a paper due on Tuesday, so I really should be focusing on that anyway. I think another couple of weekends of work and the mural should finally be done, though -- can't wait to get back to it!

Spring has sprung!

We had some warm weather this past week, so we got to go outside for some long overdue projects.

AJ took some pots and pans and baking sheets down to the antique stove, to make a final decision about whether she wants to cook on it. If the decision is yes, we will seriously look into restoring it; if the decision is no, then will just use it as a piece of furniture, as originally planned.

The decision is yes! We'll start making some phone calls and get a restorer out to take a look at it.

On a related note, in the course of researching the stove, we found out that this thing isn't for burning wood, it's a trash burner:

We also found out that the stove is likely from the 20's, based on the shape of the legs.

The front yard also got some much needed attention. I took care of the weeding, and The Mars Estate Head Gardener moved some plants that were getting too big:

Some of them made their way upstairs, into these planters:

Others were moved to the back yard.

Here is the end result, after taming the wilderness:

On Easter Sunday, the Easter Bunny left a basket on our front steps:

It was full of scones, croissant egg nests, and prosciutto egg nests -- all still warm!

What a nice thing to wake up to. Thank you Jon Easter Bunny!

Believe it or not, I also got back to the bamboo mural this week. I finished getting the chalk outlines up:

And started painting the leaf shapes white, as a base coat for the bright green:

Lastly, with the heavy rain more or less done for the season, the hammock made a triumphant return to the yard. Here is the view from the hammock:

Next up: we found a really nice, but huge china cabinet that we like for the kitchen. We just need to figure out if we can actually get it in the house. And then we need to start looking at sinks!

Week 104, Part 2

In addition to getting the paperwork completed this week, we also were able to squeeze into Mr. Bunkport's schedule and get some final gutter work done in between rain storms.

Here is Mr. Bunkport, on the new neighbor's (the one who gave us the orchids) roof, fixing some downed vinyl siding and putting up a new gutter:

A thing of beauty!

And here he is, putting up a gutter outside of AJ's office:

Another thing of beauty!

And another task for my to-do list: removing a piece of the washing machine vent to make room for the gutter left a little white strip above the window that I need to touch up with the blue at some point.

Of course, it's unusual (and ill advised) to run a gutter and downspout toward the house instead of away from it, but I asked him to do it so that I could put together a small rain catchment system. I put it together on Sunday, using copper fittings (to match the copper water line below the window, and the copper downspout on the back of the house) and PVC pipe. 

Here's where it joins on to Mr. Bunkport's downspout:

Then it runs through the steps:

To a 50-gallon square rain barrel under the stairs:

The barrel is about 30 inches wide, 30 inches deep, and 26 inches high. Perfect size for this spot, and if I decide later that I want to collect more than 50 gallons, I can attach a second one to it in just a few minutes.

It's such a great feeling to have this massive project really & truly done. Especially as we are now getting serious about this year's project: the kitchen. We are shooting for a June start date, so that gives us three months to assemble materials and furniture. That doesn't feel like a lot of time when we really only have weekends to spend hunting for the right pieces, but we think we already found a decent hutch, so we're off to a good start!

Week 104: Construction Complete!

Today, 104 weeks from when we started the big renovation project (almost exactly two years -- the first construction post on this blog was on March 16, 2014), we finally can call the project totally and completely done: the last of the nightmare of city paperwork is now officially complete.

We are DONE!

Updates & Kitchen Kickoff!

I don't know how it's happened, but it's already February. Between work and school, the year is already getting away from me. Pickles has let me know just what she thinks about that:

Here are a few updates from the past six weeks.

1. More tidying and decluttering!

2. A new neighbor moved in and brought us this beautiful orchid:

3. Momma Arave sent us an exciting & accurate interpretation of our lives here on Mars, made out of horseshoe crab egg pod things that wash up on the beach in Virginia. It features AJ on the taiko drum, and me at the DuserHaus counter, with beer glasses:

And complete with a mouse behind the cabinet:

Thank you, Momma Arave!

4. We have decided to redo the kitchen this summer! And we're planning to do most of the work ourselves.

As everyone knows by now, the floor under the current kitchen cabinets has gaps that cold air & inquisitive mice sneak through. After we tear out the cabinets, we will have Mr. Bunkport seal and level those parts of the floor. Then, we will retile those spots ourselves (maybe).

Instead of installing a slick new set of cabinets, which is expensive and a ton of work, we are going to go for an older style, where the furniture is a collection of freestanding pieces (which we plan to get from flea markets, etc. and refinish over the next few months). In addition to saving us a lot of money, the end result will be a better fit with the eclectic style we have throughout the house.

We're still working through the details of the layout, but to keep costs down and keep the time to completion as short as possible, we're not planning to move the stove or sink. We're also hoping to be able to reuse some of the existing upper cabinets.

Here are some drawings (from Ikea's Home Planner tool) that show what we're currently thinking, featuring:

• sets of drawers and an armoire of some sort for pantry space on the left (but probably not that tall)
• existing freestanding bookcase next to the fridge
• some kind of wheelie cart next to the stove (but wooden)
• the addition of a vent hood above the stove (we don't have one now -- we have to open the windows anytime AJ fries something, which is annoying when it rains)
• a break in the currently L-shaped counter between the stove and sink to enable full use of the three feet to the right of the stove (right now the whole back corner is barely reachable)
• replacement of some of the upper cabinets with open shelving

Something along those lines, maybe. Susie has already improved the design with some ideas. If anyone else has thoughts on what might work well, we're all ears!

We also bought our first piece of furniture for the project last week. AJ happened to see this 1930's-era Occidental stove in a Salvation Army last Saturday, and, happily, it was still there when we went to check it out on Wednesday:

It's just over 4 feet long and 4 feet tall. That's a five gallon bucket to the right, to give some scale. Showing the dog for scale isn't as helpful, because not everyone reading this knows how big Pickles is, but it's cute, so here she is:

Getting it home was an adventure. We expected it to be heavy, but when it took four guys at the store to get it into the pickup truck we had rented, we knew we were in trouble. Luckily, two of our burliest (& kindest) friends were able to come over after work and help us get it off the truck and into the garage. It must weigh 200 pounds. It was made in a foundry, as it turns out, so...yeah.

Thank you Joe & Frank!

Our original idea was that it would just be one of the pieces of furniture that we would use instead of built-in cabinets. We may still do that, but it's in such good condition that we're considering having it restored and actually using it for cooking. It would require a substantial change to the floor plan, however, reducing the counter space next to the stove, so it might not really be doable with how AJ likes to cook. We'll see how it goes. There is plenty of time to figure this out. Although, looking at how fast the first six weeks have gone, I suppose we'll be starting the project before we know it!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

It's been a very busy month here on Mars!

A friend from work, Masha, returned from a trip to Russia, and brought back a new little (about a foot tall) resident for Mars. This is Kuzya:

 

In Russian homes, Kuzya keeps an eye on things, helping to prevent catastrophes and assorted bad things from happening. Masha thought that Mars could use a little help in this department. Indeed. Thank you, Masha!

We also did some more tidying & decluttering this month. I tackled the kitchen Junk Drawer, which really should have been called the Drawer of A Thousand Pens:

How did that happen? I would blame Kuzya (who is apparently also responsible for low-level mischief around the house), but I know this happened before he came to stay.

We got rid of a medium-sized box of old kitchen utensils and mugs and things, as well. Progress!

Our friend Jon has been taking a pottery class, and offered us some of his beautiful work. I have been wanting something to display some marbles and pieces of broken ceramics that came up out of the excavation under the house, as well as my grandmother's wedding ring, a couple rings of Jack's, and Jack's father's ring. This bowl works perfectly:

Thank you, Jon!

The week or so before Christmas, we finally got around to some decorating. First, we put up our stockings, and some cutouts of reindeer that we made in previous years:

I made a stocking for Pickles, as well as one for Joan the mouse, and one for her friend Hunca Munca (as it turns out, Hunca Munca is actually the most appropriate name for a house mouse, per AJ & Beatrix Potter).

I subsequently caught both Joan and Hunca Munca, and returned them to the wild.

Anyway, as usual, Pickles helped us decorate with her characteristic holiday cheer and enthusiasm:
 

Here's what we did for a tree this year:

One string of purple Christmas lights, with assorted festive paper things as ornaments, and more cutouts at the bottom. Here it is at night:

On Christmas, Brian, Susie, and Paul came over for food and movies (Denzel Washington marathon this year) and good times. I totally forgot to take pictures of everything except Brian's famous homemade cherry and chocolate rugelach, and his cranberry nut bread:

That was breakfast. We also had mushroom spinach strata for lunch, and cioppino (San Francisco seafood stew) for dinner. Salted honey pie with homemade crust for dessert. It as a wonderful, relaxing day.

And now it's New Year's Eve, and AJ, Pickles, and I are in Sonoma with Amanda, watching Miami Vice and looking out over this view, glass of champagne in hand:

This certainly bodes well for 2016.

In the meantime, Happy New Year to everyone from the four of us!

Tidying like crazy

We are on a massive tidying and decluttering rampage.

The house isn't overstuffed with junk, but we both have had it in mind for a while to go through our stuff and get rid of things that we aren't using anymore. Recently, we learned about Marie Kondo, a Japanese cleaning consultant, and her method. Essentially, the idea is to only keep things around you that you really like, and instead of going through the house room by room, work through specific categories of items across the whole house because most of us have stuff in each category scattered in various rooms (ex. books, jackets, mice). Pulling everything in a category out into one central room for sorting helps you see just how much you have (she says most people who hire her are surprised to see that they have twice as much as they think they do) and helps you get through the process faster. Her book is short & practical, and is actually a little bit deep -- her method is ultimately about changing your relationship to your things.

After reading the book last month, we unleashed a whirlwind on the house. As she instructs, we went through easier categories first (it gives you a chance to hone your decision-making skills) over the past several weeks, & by this weekend, we were ready to tackle one of our largest & most difficult categories: nonfiction books. After bringing them all into the dining room, the pile was daunting:

There are something like 400 books here. We cranked through it in only a couple hours, though, getting rid of five paper grocery bags full of books.

We're only about halfway through all the categories, and have already filled up the 32-gallon recycling bin three times and assembled this 5'x5' monster donation pile:

Just as predicted, we can't believe how big this pile is & how much paper clutter there was in the house. The closets aren't bursting open and the cabinets aren't jammed full, but yet look at all this. Where did it all come from?

As usual, Pickles has helped our efforts by making sure to stay squarely in the sunshine all afternoon:

On Sunday, while parked in this spot, she got the rare opportunity to actually chase Joan across the floor, instead of just having to settle for barking at scritching noises behind a bookshelf. Luckily for all of us, she's slower than Joan.

All this tidying and the airy feeling it brings to the house also inspires decoration.

We have been compiling a photo wall in the living room, and AJ recently had a dozen photos printed to add to the collection. Last week, we finally got them up along the top of the wall:

She also decided it was time to trim her ancient ivy plant. Here is the end of the vine:

And here is the beginning -- that's AJ standing on the couch at the front of the house, holding it up:

I did some things with photos, as well. I picked out photos of my grandparents, Jack, and Dad, and pinned them up on two pieces of redwood board left from the fence replacement a couple years ago, and put them up. Here's the first one, in the newly dubbed "Rumination Room" (thank you Daddy-o Johnstone & Amanda for the help with naming this room!):

And here is the second one, in the dining room:

Next weekend, we're going to borrow a car and take all of the stuff in the monster pile out of the house. And then on to more tidying!