h o m e   m a d e

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h o m e

When we moved into our home, the previous owners kindly left us several old cans of old paints and some nasty looking bottles of an unknown substance in our garage. I'd always intended to bring them to one of those "Hazardous Waste Roundups" you hear about on occasion, but for one reason or another, we never took care of it.

Well, just yesterday a knitting pal told me of the LA County SAFE Collection Center in El Segundo, which is open Saturdays and Sundays, 9am-3pm. Yes, that's every weekend. They don't take biological waste, ammunition, or tires, but they will accept pesticides and solvents, paint and computer equipment, batteries and medicines. Excellent!

So it goes like this: you drive up to the entrance, tell them your zip code and describe the kinds of stuff you're bringing in. They point you to the collection area (there's lots of clear signage) and you drive up your car into the fenced off collection space. Turn off your engine, hand over the goodies (or have them remove it--the signs instruct you to remain in your car), and you're done.

This is a great service, so do tell all your friends in the Los Angeles area about it. The more people get into the habit of disposing of hazardous waste properly, the less of it will end up in our oceans. It's free, it's convenient--what are you waiting for?

Garage Doors 102

After nearly a month, we finally got the call: our garage door was ready to install. At last, Ted and I would once again be able to provide our automobiles shelter, parking side by side and coming and going as we please... What an exciting day, indeed. Herman showed up with his mute assistant (whose name I never discovered). He was a friendly guy who'd been installing doors for 25 years. I learned that there were many garage door outfits out there which refused to install these types of doors; how Clopay doesn't package the parts and pieces for ease of installation; how he wanted to take his time and do the install right the first time (which was fine by me). First they deinstalled the old door, using their truck's metal frame to support the door as they removed its hardware. The door seemed so huge while installed, but once it was perched atop their little pick-up truck it didn't seem so large at all. Weird. Next it was time to install the side channels and rubber seal around the door frame, then preparing the panels by attaching their hardware. The individual door panels were then slid into the channel and joined together, as the door began to take shape. Finally, they hooked up our old garage door opener (which was not so old, actually, as we replaced the unit a year or two after we moved in). A bit of tidying up and loading up the truck, some testing and demonstrations, some question-and-answer, and they're all done. The door looks great and it's much quieter, too. I also love the fact that there's a rubber seal along the bottome of the door to help prevent leaves and dirt from blowing into the garage. I >heart< our garage door.

Garage Doors 101

So, after over a year of ignoring the signs, our garage door finally began to deteriorate to the point where we couldn't ignore it any longer. The board along the top center of the door finally cracked all the way through, and is being held together by an rusted bolt and sheer force of will on the door's part; it sags uncomfortably under its own weight when opened.

Having to replace a garage door sucks. It's big, expensive, and not the kind of thing I feel comfortable or qualified to build/fix/replace myself. It's also a huge architectural element, and while almost any new door would be an improvement at this point, if we're gonna dump this big a chunk of change into it I want it to look good. Ted and I settle on some basic issues (he doesn't want wood, I don't want one of those cheesy plastic-looking ones) and I settle in and do what any right-thinking American would: I turn to the Font of All Human Knowledge™.

One of the problems with doing this kind of research is that many businesses either don't keep their Web sites up-to-date, or choose not to list any kinds of prices--especially for big products like this. I, who had never purchased a garage door before, had absolutely no clue how much it would cost. $500? $5,000? And what about installation? A quick trip to the Home Depot down the street confirms their lines range from $1,000 to $6,500, AND they now carry Clopay Coachman doors (the kind I'd been looking at). We let things percolate for a while and decided to just go ahead with HD.

I get a picture in my head of how I'd like the door to look and draw out some diagrams, but Ted is dubious about the decorative diagonal trim, so I Photoshopped him this picture:

Proposed garage door ("artist's" rendition)

Now we're both cool with the design, and anxiously await installation...

Bob

Yep. It's official. Spring is here.

Falling water

So it's like this. It's Sunday night. I'm winding down, sitting at my computer, just kickin' it for a while when I begin to hear... water.

As a homeowner, you will learn to dread and fear this sound. Unless your house is currently in flames, nothing good comes from the sound of unexpected water. You can only hope that the water is coming from an accessible place which can be isolated from the rest of your plumbing system, and pray it doesn't involve the sewer line.

So I listen some more. I think: No, it's not the aquarium... I'm not doing laundry and neither is Ted... he's in his office....Did he start the dishwasher? huh. Better check it out. I follow the sound to the kitchen, fling open the cabinet doors, and am met with a spray of water shooting out from under the sink. ACK! "TED!!!" Where's it coming from? ACK! Make it stop make it stop make it stop "TED!!! TURN OFF THE WATER!!!" ... where is it coming from? Sh*t, I can't see anything... "TED!!!" ugh...bucket-yeah BUCKET get a BUCKET to catch the WATER "TURN OFF THE MAIN!" ok got a bucket ok ... ARRGHH it's spraying everywhere, this isn't working, sh*t....

And the water stops.

Fig. 1 Shutoff valve

An interesting thing happens to your brain when you're met with an unexpected displacement of water in your home for the first time. You see, the smart thing to do when met with a face full of water, as I was, would be to first try the shutoff valve. For example, the one that's right in front of me and clearly visible now that the water has stopped spraying me in the face (see Fig. 1). Ted reminds me of this when he returns to the kitchen after having turned off the main outside. Smart ass.

We turn off the shutoff valve (the water was cold, thank goodness), turn the water main back on, and start removing and drying the now soggy contents of the cabinet. After mopping up the remaining water, we begin to assess the situation. Ted's under the sink looking at the the pipes, and I whip out my copy of Time Life Books Complete Fix-It-Yourself Manual (god I love this book). Between the two of us, we determine that the likely cause is a leaky supply line, which seems to have corroded near the basin coupling nut.

I think, "Great! That sounds pretty easy to fix."

Ted thinks, "All plumbing is evil! We'll call a plumber tomorrow."

We go back and forth and he's still resistant, so I finally say that I'd like to try fixing it before calling a plumber, and if he could just be around to turn off the water main again if things go badly, that'd be great. At which point his testosterone begins to kick in, and he supposes we could try it, and hey, are we getting a new tool?

One trip to Home Depot and about 25 minutes later and we have a new basin wrench, a newly installed supply line, and the satisfaction of having done it ourselves. Although I didn't think it would be that hard to fix, even I didn't expect everything to go so flawlessly. Yay us!

They're gone

What an amazing week. It was just like one of those Nature shows: birth and death, raising offspring, learning to fly, reaching maturity and leaving the nest... the entire cycle of life in 9 days... Just amazing. Saturday, 23 August 2003

Day 8: First flight

When I went to check in on the nest today, I couldn't find the second chick. The smaller one died and is still in the nest, but the larger was nowhere to be seen. I gave up looking and was preparing to leave for work when I noticed that dove chick had made his way out of the nest, onto our doormat, and appeared to be taking his morning constitutional. He then took flight, crossing the driveway and into a nearby tree. Wow!

When I returned home that evening the chick was just hanging out on one of our front porch wicker chairs, with mom keeping a watchful eye from the hanging plant nest.

I know they'll be leaving the nest soon, and that makes me a little sad.

Day 7

Poor little chick :-(

Day 6

The smaller of the two chicks developed an infection near its beak--I noticed it on Day 3 and didn't think much about it, but that chick seems to have gotten progressively weaker over the last three days. I don't know if this one's going to make it. His larger sibling, however, continues to grow and develop. He is beginning to look more like a bird rather than a fluffy ball of feathers.

These photos are of mom and the larger chick; mom's sitting on the smaller one to keep him warm. Or suffocate him. We're really not sure.

Day 3

Feathers are are starting to fluff up...

Day 2

Mom keeps her babies warm.

Baby doves!!!

Four years after we moved in, we've finally got some dove babies! This. is. SO. exciting.

Over the years, the doves have chosen several different hanging baskets in which to nest. The one furthest away from our front door isn't very sheltered from the elements and I only saw one egg in that one; it disappeared within a week or two. When they tried nesting in the plant closest to the door, they got skittish every time we came and went. I think they may have abandoned the eggs, as I never saw chicks and later saw broken shells on the ground. This year when one of the plants near the center of the porch died, I decided to add some Spanish moss instead of replanting to encourage the doves to use that pot for nesting instead. It seemed to work (and later found the moss possessed the added benefit of serving as camoflauge for the young chicks).

These little guys are just so cute.

Did you know...

That dryer exhaust ducts which are half filled with water cause your dryer to work less effectively than a dryer connected to a water-free exhaust duct? It's true! This weekend we find our intrepid homeowner going back under the house to drain the duct, re-route it around a pipe, and seal everything back up. It's a thrill-a-minute extravaganza. Don't miss it! Saturday, 5 April 2003

Rosemary, Lavender, and Thyme

I've disliked the gigantic daisy bush in the front yard since the day we moved in. It had grown far too large for the narrow planter in which it grew, and when it wasn't blossoming it was just kind of ugly. I finally felled the beast, replacing it some trailing rosemary and lavender; lemon thyme is in the lower plot.

Before

After

Dove nest

Springtime

I can't believe I've had an example of one of my grammatical pet peeves (your vs. you're) on this page for over a year. How embarrassing.

In the past couple years, we've settled nicely into life at the homestead, and are discovering some of the wonders of having a yard with critters flitting about. A hanging basket of Kalenchoe in the front porch seems to attract nesting mourning doves. A pair of them have built loose nests of pine needles in its shelter twice now. Still haven't seen any baby birds, but have spied the small eggs and greeted the bird warming them as we come and go.

That great swath of ivy along one side of the house is now locked in battle with some wild Nasturtium. Several neighbors have Nasturtium bushes in their yards, and the seed must have found a hospitable home in ours. The flowers are looking quite lovely, actually, and I can't help but encourage them to choke out the ivy.

It's spring, and there are fat robins and squirrels, jays and wrens, hummingbirds and butterflies all frolicking out back. It's like a wildlife circus out there. The plum tree is growing heavy with young fruit; it'll be canning time before you know it.

Housewarming!

Rip it

Gearing up for All Hollow's Eve with some fairy lights and pumpkins to spruce up the place.

The cedar closet project is progressing nicely - I'm getting close to the point where all I have left to do is install planks that have been rip-cut to fit the remaining spots, finishing up with molding. I made an innocent inquiry with the fellows in the wood shop at work for suggestions of what kinds of tools are available for rip-cutting, and they went right to work, ending up with a new jigsaw table clamp. The hand jigsaw is attached, inverted, to a jig table, which is then clamped to a work surface. This enables one to run the board to be ripped along the flat jig table surface using either a fence or a drawn line as your guide. I'll give the setup a go this weekend and see where that gets me.

Snowfall through cedars

It's funny how little projects end up taking much, much longer than you ever anticipate (especially now that we have helpful feline assistants doing quality assurance...) Those DIY home renovation shows are truly fodder for fantasy: "Build a new sundeck in an hour!" "Install a wood floor in 20 minutes!" It's really more like, "Prune the four small bushes along the back fence in an entire afternoon!" >sigh<

My latest project has been the bedroom closet (how's that for prioritizing home improvement tasks?!). It started out innocently enough with a desire to line the closet with cedar. 80 sq. ft. and three weekends into the project, and I'm envisioning a new set of wire basket drawers, recessed lighting, shoji screen doors, chrome rod brackets, cedar shoe racks... it will be beautiful when I'm done, but the size of the snowball which resulted was unexpected.

Lost in translation

Ted went under the house yet again to lay ethernet cabling to my office and install a new phone jack in his room. Ted says I'm very funny when I help him in his under-house maneuvers. Part of our problem is that we express our spatial coordinates differently. Like my father, I use north/south/east/west. Ted tends to be more descriptive: towards the garage/towards the back yard/towards Lillian's house/towards Jane and Jerry's house. So when he's trying to find his way to a specific point in the wall of his office in order to drill a hole from below, our dialogue this time goes something like this:

"Honey, where am I?"

"You're about three feet from the east wall, and about 4 feet from the north."

pause.

"That doesn't tell me anything...I don't know which way north..."

"OK, the east wall butts up against the living room; Etan & Linda's is to the north."

At this point I should note that, based on a later discussion, we discovered we had two distinctly different views about this exchange. Me: "OK, now that he knows which way north is, he should be able to know what I mean when I use north/south/east/west." Him: "OK, now she knows I don't do north/south/east/west, she'll describe the directions to me in more relative terms."

He makes his way towards his intended target: 55 inches west (toward Lillian) of the east (living room) wall, inside the north (garage) wall. He commences drilling. The kitties and I watch intently. Suddenly, a spinning drill bit emerges from the pink carpet, surprising all of us.

"Whoa, wait, wait!"

"What?"

"You just drilled through the floor." I poke a pinky through the new hole for emphasis.

Hmmmm... general grumbling about how that could be possible, etc.

"So, where do I need to drill?"

"Two to three inches north, and about one inch west..."

In retrospect, we've decided that next time, we'll use a set of coordinates we *both* understand: "Two to three inches z, and about one inch -x..."

We emerged victorious, and now our intranet is up and running. Works great! And we even have a usable telephone in our hallway alcove.

Where the hell've we been this past month?

We last left our heroes entertaining an out-of-town visitor. On her last day, we took a trip to the Lange Foundation, a shelter devoted to rescuing companion animals from euthanization at our county's already over-crowded animal control facilities. We spent some time getting acquainted with the kitties warded there, and became quite attached to a pair of spirited kittens. We adopted the two, and this past month has been a period of adjustment for us all.

It was clear from day one that the cats would rule the roost. After a day of exploring and nosing around, they got settled into their routine of tearing around the house and playing with one another. Insatiably curious, every thing is a toy, every person a potential wrestling partner.

The little girl is BEM--a sci-fi fandom acronym for Bug-Eyed Monster--and the name truly suits this kitty. She has the most angelic face, round, with big yellow-green eyes. She has kind of a salt-and-pepper speckled coat that resembles tweed, decorated with stripes and spots. She came to us 13 weeks old, so she's now just over four months old. She is still a kitten, however, and therefore must have a paw in any and all activities.

The boy, Jackson, is part ragdoll siamese--he has the seal-point ears and tail--a pale beige coat with brown stripes and spots, and white chest, underbelly and spats on all four paws. His fur is incredibly silky, with green eyes in a permanently perplexed expression. Being a ragdoll, he is a liquid kitty who assumes the shape of his container. He is a bit akward - perhaps because he has recently gone through a growth spurt and is not accustomed to his body? In any case, he's one of the clumsier kitties I've encountered. He came to us about 5 months old, so he's ~6 months old now.

Being the big cat of the house, he is the one who instigates most of the fights with BEM. I will note, however, that *both* boys of the house now have BEM-inflicted scratches on their noses...

Jackson came home with the sniffles (which seem to have recurred lately), and Bem picked up some intestinal parasites, but we've completed their treatments and they're doing fine now - despite Jackson's ongoing sniffles. We'll need to get another check-up soon to make sure Bem's ok and figure out what's going on with Jackson's runny nose.

Other than the adoption, little has been going on at the house. Highlights include:

• Removed the heavy draperies in our bedroom and made a roman shade for the side window. It's a little ... uneven - I apparently can't sew straight lines very well - but it does the job for now. I'll revisit the shade later when we re-decorate the room in earnest.
• Ordered our new dining room table! We originally planned to purchase a table from the Pottery Barn (didn't hurt that we had accumulated several gift certificates to same), but after a month of phone calls and waiting, we were informed that the distributor had the table on back order and would not receive any until mid-December. Tack on at least 10 working days after that, and we're looking at sometime January 2000. Not happy about waiting that long, we went to Mark Friedman Furniture (on 4th between Santa Monica Blvd. and Broadway in Santa Monica), and they can get us the same table, in 4 weeks, for $200 less. Now to find chairs...
• Drafted plans for modifications to the laundry room: adding a folding table, pantry shelves, etc.
• Replaced the hallway light fixture with one which has adjustable lights to focus on hallway pictures
• Purchased Home Depot's "Kitchens and Baths" - a DIY tome of everything you need to know. Hoping to redo the kitchen next year, an ordeal which is certain to test the strength of our relationship. Figuring some studying up would be prudent.

Ted mows

OK, so maybe we're still doing a few odd jobs during her stay...

I replaced the back doorbell today, and Ted mowed the back 40 with our new lawnmower!

By the way, we just saw American Beauty this evening - hands down, an excellent film. Good script, terrific performances...well worth seeing.

Bethany!

We are taking the week off to play host to Ted's sister, Bethany, who is making her first visit to Los Angeles.

Color my world

The past week (and probably next week, too) has been more of the usual - fixing little things, unpacking boxes--essentially, getting ready for an upcoming visit from Ted's sister this coming Thursday. We've painted the entry and hallway Desert Tumbleweed, with the same Pearly Gates trim.

This is also day three of a string of unintended primary color references, starting Thursday at a screening of the newly digitally mastered version of Yellow Submarine. Friday, Ted and I dined at a local Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant, Red Moon (celebrating one month since closing!), and during our Saturday morning errand excursion, we ended up at a country café in Santa Monica: Blueberry. Piet Mondrian would be proud.

Breakfast with the birds

We have already identified our blue jays as Western Scrub Jays; still trying to figure out what the brownish birds are (long tail, light brown plumage, and they eat these small moth-like bugs). We also see some sort of sparrows (flying too quickly to identify), and a hummingbird.

A day of miscellaneous home chores: some tree pruning and raking, washing the car, wood-filling gouges and nicks in our front door and frame. Ted and I agree on a paint color for our entry and hallway.

We are invited by friends to join them at the movies. The film: Albert Brooks' The Muse, a good idea somewhat poorly executed. The film had its merits--notably, good casting with Sharon Stone as the Muse, a fine bit of dialogue and performance in a party scene where Brooks is (trying to) have a discussion with someone whose English is less than perfect, or some of the many celebrity cameos (others were strictly gratuitous and showed it)--but what could have been an exploration of an interesting premise ended up being all about Brooks and his whining, offering little else in the way of character or story development. The last act, where explanations are presented and the story turns to its conclusion, felt cheap; a quick and unsatisfying way to end the film. My suggestion is to wait for it on video.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Acquire and install decorative hardware in my office (switch-plates, door stops, sash locks, etc.); we shop for our new dining room table (on back order), and purchase a Los Angeles Bird Guide to help us determine the types of feathered friends visit our backyard. By the evening, it's a bit chilly, so we light our first fire in our fireplace. Ted makes a big boom with the gas starter; miraculously, his eyebrows remain intact. We probably need to clean out those gas jet holes... Sunday, 5 September 1999

We're walking... we're walking...

Spent the day with friends - an afternoon of dining and conversation, as well as a tour of the new house.

Supermom

Still feeling a little crappy today, so I take it slow. Spent today taping trim, scraping paint from the windows (all 24 panes), and painting the walls. It's looking good.

Mom visits, insists on cleaning our brass bathroom fixtures. Several hours of brass polish and elbow grease later, we have some attractive faucets! Fixtures I believed were beyond hope - encrusted in rust and unbelieveably ugly - are now making me re-think my no-brass stance. She's amazing.

Dinner is take-out from Planet China (a member of our local Chamber of Commerce, BTW - support your local businesses).

I think I'm coming down with something

My nose is starting to get stuffy, and my throat is tickling. I dose up on vitamins and drink some juice.

Painting

Finishing sanding, and two coats of Pearly Gates on the trim in my office.

And for anyone who cares to know, these multi-paned sash windows and garden door are pretty, but a real pain in the ass to paint.

>yawn<

Fabulous fabric find

I sew curtains for the front door, using fabric from an unused curtain panel I happened to still have. So glad it didn't get thrown out - it's perfect! Continue patching holes in my office, and move furniture and unpacked boxes to the center of the room. Tuesday, 31 August 1999

Water wrangling

A quiet night: I install a new shower head in the bath; Ted installs the water filter which connects to the refrigerator ice maker. The bulk of the evening is spent reading comics in bed :-)

Skippin' church

I skip practice this morning to run some errands, finding myself shopping on a Sunday morning. THIS is the time to be at Home Depot. The flirty guy who's mixing my paint confirms the observation. Monday through Saturday, they've got their regular customer base PLUS the contractors. Contractors don't work Sunday, and regular folks are generally sleeping in/going to church, etc. So before 10:00am or so, it's pleasantly empty. Make a mental note to try planning my Home Depot excursions before Sunday practice.

Bought a gallon of Baer paint. Color: Fendale (a shade darker than Herbivore) in an eggshell finish (easier to clean than flat, less glossy than satin).

Ted spends the day making many trips to/from B&B and Home Depot to acquire parts/tools to fix a faulty automatic sprinkler system valve. There's much fiddling and discussion about what appears to be wrong, how we can dismantle the valve, isolating what exactly needs replacement. It needs replacement washers to fix a small leak, and a replacement valve head to fix the broken one (part cracked, wires disconnected). I help (a little) with diagnostics and testing, but Ted does the hard labor. We determine which valves control which sprinklers, where our (apparently clogged) drip line connects, and devise a plan for how we can correct the faulty layout. Ted learns about water-proof wire nuts (they've got a bit of goop in them to keep out the moisture) and acquires a pipe wrench in the process: the right tool for the job makes a world of difference! We'll see if we can't get new drip lines set up this coming weekend.

We take the night off to dine with friends and see The Mystery Men - it's refreshing to actually get out of the house to see and talk to people. We'll need to do this more often...

Office worker

I work on setting up my office. Drilling cable/wire holes, installing a cord tray, wrangling all the computer cables and wires, ripping out TV cables and patching holes... much better. This weekend will be spent on prepping the room for painting (which I hope to do next week). The trim will be the same color as in the living/dining room, but with green walls.

Underfoot

I think Ted is beginning to enjoy crawling around underneath the house... his task was to track down a "mystery wire." After a period of hearing him scurry below, I hear his muffled voice. Our exchange was something like this:

"Honey, where am I?"

"You're under the house." ;-)

"No, I mean where under the house am I?"

"Keep talking, I'll find you... you sound like you're near the closet. Are you *here*?" RAP RAP RAP

"ow!...that's my ear you're pounding against, you know..."

So we now control all the phone lines--forget paying that 50-cent inside wiring fee every month!--and were able to re-wire everything so that lunabase runs off our data line and all the other outlets run off the voice line. Ted's quite pleased with himself; I am, too.

I continue to unpack boxes in the bedroom, segregating more stuff for charity and giving ourselves a bit more breathing room back there.

Rest.

Wednesday, 25 August 1999

An evening of firsts

We prepare our first home-cooked meal in our kitchen (for those who care, it's pasta with garlic/mushroom/basil marinara, tossed green salad, wine, and sorbet w/blackberries for dessert), as well as play host to our first visitor (Steve) and our first dinner guest (Lynne). Although we don't yet have a proper dining room table, meals in the backyard in front of the chiminea are sweet.

More to do

I install contact paper in the second bathroom cabinets and unpack some of the less-essential toiletries. My first shower reveals a defective shower head and a horrid sound coming from our ceiling vent motor; it also becomes clear that ants enjoy safe passage in through gaps in our grout and caulking. Add a few more lines to our growing to-do list.

R & R

A day of (some) rest. Spent the afternoon having a long lazy lunch with some friends who are now in escrow for their first home. We talk about inspections, paperwork, easements and liens, insurance and escrow agents... it's funny to be the seasoned veterans here. It's an exciting time for them - I hope it all goes well.

We assume control of our kitchen. We can now walk through without stepping over/weaving around boxes. With its seemingly original cabinetry and layout, the kitchen's flaws are now fully revealed - too few drawers, dead space in cabinets, not enough counter space. This is a definite target for remodeling...

The wonders of EXPO

We take a drive to EXPO, the new home-decorating superstore under the umbrella of Home Depot. What a strange trip that was. We have deduced that its core cleintele must be comprised of wealthy folk with no taste (or the home decorators who cater to same). We were bewildered. Gilt, scalloped bathroom sinks! Brass flamingo water spouts! Bronze drawer pulls shaped like moose heads! Copper elephant head shelf brackets! $350 life-size fruitwood and gilt pineapple-shaped drapery rod finials (replete with foliage)! A $2000+ gold and silver swirly abstract sculpted bath spout! Aisles upon aisles of home-decorating gee gaws and toss pillows to arrange on furniture to give your home that eclectic-yet-choreographed, casually precise, Architectural Digest feel. To top it off, a Seattle's Best Coffee had a micro cafe near the back of the store, and several player pianos tinkling out lite jazz throughout the place, which made me think I'd accidentally wandered into some gargantuan, garishly decorated, brightly lit piano bar. The humor value alone made the trip worthwhile.

To be fair, EXPO *does* have a large selection of stuff, not all of it as tacky as I make it out to be. It's just that the bad stuff is SO bad that it really outshines the things you'd actually consider buying. Point: among the peacock blue lamé and bronze/black leopard prints, Ted and I found some tasteful draperies we both liked, at a price which was competitive with the seven other stores I visited. Installed this very night - they look great!

It's not the heat, it's the humidity

During our inspection, we learned that our dryer duct was not connected properly under the house. As was to be expected, our first run of the clothes dryer turned our kitchen and laundry into a large sauna -- which some might consider a feature but what we felt was sure to attract termites and other various critters drawn by the moisture. Ted crawled underneath the house to investigate and remedy the matter with some well-placed strips of duct tape, the first time he'd actually used duct tape for its intended purpose. Several scrapes later, he also deduces that one should wear long sleeves while crawling under the house.

The living room is now box-free. Furniture is arranged, new switchplates installed, lamps plugged in... we can now both sit on a comfy piece of furniture and chat. It's actually starting to resemble a home.

Goodies

Still looking for living room curtains. I've been to seven different linen warehouse/home furnishing stores now, and their curtains are all beginning to look the same. Nothing seems quite right for a price I'm willing to pay.

Stopped in at Restoration Hardware during my travels; much salivation. Funny how much sexier this place becomes now that we're home-owners. Endless displays filled with possibility. Spying just the right doorbell, or Frank Lloyd Wright house numbers, or a wall-mounted match holder/striker that would be perfect for the fireplace... On the one hand, I feel like such yuppie scum, conspicuously consuming, materialistic, destined for a life "filthy with things." On the other, I just can't help feeling that wide-eyed thrill of a child seeing fireworks for the first time. It's all so new and wonderful and I want it I want it I want it. I think it's time to return to the backyard and watch the birds for a while, get a reality check from the newspaper.

But maybe just the doorbell, it's almost nothing, really, just a teensy doorbell, ok?

Dressing windows

Went out to look at and price window curtains and fabric; bought curtain rods. I was stunned to find that even for a simple style, it's actually cheaper to purchase a pre-fab panel rather than buy fabric and sew it yourself. Amazing. When did fabric get so expensive?

Mom's first visit

Spent much of the day lining kitchen shelves with contact paper. It's somewhat frustrating to be doing something so time-consuming, knowing that it's but a temporary solution to a problem which will eventually be solved by ripping out the cabinets entirely. Still, this means that we can begin unloading boxes and will soon have a workable kitchen once again.

My mother spends the day wiping down cabinets and raking leaves in our backyard. My protestations over her working too hard are patently ignored.

Meet the neighbors

Moved the remainder of our crap out of the old place, and cleaned it up for the new tenants.

I think alot about Neko, and get weepy - this is the first place I've moved to without her, and leaving our old place brings back many memories. I wish she could be here to play in our new backyard...

On the bright side, we're meeting some of our new neighbors. Jerry and Jane have lived in their house for 25 years (apparently we're the 6th set of owners of our new home); Steve and Kim down the street have a couple young boys; and Etan had recommendations about gardeners and our Neighborhood Watch situation. All warned us about the parking restrictions on street-cleaning days (Thursday and Friday mornings, for those who are curious). They all seem quite nice. We hope they will still be civil to us after our anticipated house-warming bash next month... :-)

We acquire rudimentary lawn equipment, as well as our first trash can. Everything's so clean and new, we truly feel like "the new kids on the block." Sorta like showing up on the first day of school wearing brand new sneakers.

The new appliances are here! The new appliances are here!

First breakfast at the new home: bagels and juice in the backyard on a Saturday morning. We are greeted by a neighborhood blue jay, a good sign.

Sears delivered our appliances today. Ironically, I received a notice in yesterday's mail stating that my application for increased credit at Sears--which was approved over the phone the night we purchased our appliances, mind you--had been denied because I hadn't lived in my current residence for long enough. Let's see them explain this one at the home office...

Ted putters about, replacing toggle switches and outlets, investigating our phone wire situation, mapping out plans for running Ethernet cabling under the house. We begin to make the first of what we're sure will be many trips to Home Depot.

Moving day

We chose Delancy Street Movers, a self-supporting organization devoted to rehabilitating ex-felons, drug abusers and prostitutes. Our team of guys did an expert job: they were prompt, friendly, took very good care of our belongings, and spoke well of the organization - according to the head mover, "Delancy Street saved my life." With their competitive rates and terrific service, I highly recommend them.

Painted the living room and dining room.

For those of you who can appreciate the irony, the interior trim color of the House of Sin is Pearly Gates.

Closing day!

Keys in hand, we're now the proud owners of our lovely abode. Now the real work begins.