Monkee

Presto Change-O!

You will probably want to revisit this post about the “before” of this kitchen for a refresher.

One of the first things I noticed when we moved into this house was that the refrigerator end panel was missing.  This is the cabinet panel that covers the side of the refrigerator if it’s not enclosed by cabinetry or walls.  Its purpose is to keep dust from wandering behind the refrigerator through the exposed side and also to keep you from having to look at the ugly couple inch gap behind the refrigerator that’s collecting dust.  To me (and my OCD) this was important.  Since this panel is also cheap to replace – being particle board and veneer – we decided to replace the missing one immediately.  This, however, proved to be complicated.  As I mentioned before, I didn’t actually like the cabinetry in the kitchen all that much and intended to reface it at some point in the future, so when it came time to order the new end panel, I couldn’t figure out if I should order it to match what was currently there or if I should go ahead and get a panel to match what I knew I was going to reface the kitchen with later.  I waffled on this matter for a couple of weeks before I finally decided that the only way to solve my problem was to just go ahead and redo the kitchen now.  After all, there’s no sense in letting a perfectly good builder’s discount go to waste.  You gotta spend money to save money, you know?

Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I am not actually (entirely) insane, so we didn’t just go all out and gut the place.  The cabinets themselves were in perfectly fine shape so all we had to do to update them was replace the doors and hardware.  Because I’m very finicky about furniture and cabinetry having really clean lines, I chose a shaker style door and found sleek, long stainless pulls to go with them.  As for the finish, I knew I wanted the color to be more traditional plus I’m pretty into the dark wood finishes these days, so we went with cherry (because it has a really subtle grain) with a dark walnut stain. 

            There were preexisting fluorescent task lights under the upper cabinets, which was nice, but they were completely exposed which wasn’t.  We finished the job by putting up a light valance, which covered it all up nicely.

            Both the new and the old house had the same etched glass pantry door so we brought the matching laundry door we had bought for the old house with us so they could still match.  There’s something very pleasantly old timey about the look that I quite like.

            Also like the old house, this one’s kitchen faucet was designed so you could pull it out and switch it to spray.  Because I have pretty bad carpal tunnel that made that maneuver tricky for me and, more importantly, because an untreated small leak had caused the existing faucet to corrode in unpleasantly water supply contaminating ways, we replaced it with something that was both functional and wouldn’t give us scabbies.  So, you know, BONUS!

            Because I knew we would definitely be revamping the kitchen someday (HA!), I didn’t bother matching our refrigerator to the white appliances that were here when we arrived and did stainless instead.  When we then discovered that the microwave in the game room kitchenette was actually broken, we replaced it with the one from the kitchen and bought a stainless microwave as well.  Our appliances are now split fifty/fifty between white and stainless.  I’d like to think that I can pass it off as a look.

            For extra storage and counter space, my mother gave us a housewarming gift of a VERY large, free-standing kitchen island.  Once again combining modern and traditional it’s painted black with turned legs and cup pulls, but is topped with a stainless steel counter.  It is…yummy.

All in all, the kitchen update has been nothing short of liberating.  Even though I’ve always been pretty good about trying to make myself feel comfortable wherever I’m living, I have never lived anywhere where I have allowed myself so much license to tailor things to my liking.  I mean, I always new that it was helpful.  I always knew that settling in and customizing your digs was the key to really feeling relaxed and at home somewhere, but even I hadn’t realized how big a difference it can make.  Honestly, it’s literally the difference between a house and a home and is totally worth the effort.  I highly recommend it. 

Sumi Gallery

So, um, you know that post that I said I had written about the house?  The one I left at work and said that I would retrieve today?  Well, I forgot it again.  So, um, how ‘bout a little more baby of Zen?  You’d like that wouldn’t you?  Sure you would!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Changing Gear

So I had written another post about the house and put it on a thumb drive to bring home from work, but when I tried to open it, I discovered that through some error it had failed to copy.  Unfortunately, I don’t go back to work until Thursday and there’s no way in hell I’m writing it over again, so the house posting is just going to have to go on the back burner for now.  It did occur to me, however, that it’s been a pretty long time since I posted anything about the Baby of Zen and since that’s pretty bad in and of itself, it must be downright criminal that she also turned one a couple months ago and I didn’t even mention it.  Thus I’ve decided to dedicate the next couple of posts to catching up with the Baby of Zen.  Will be about her birthday party where gambling, gluttony, and greed reigned supreme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blame It On The Frames

I hung some pictures.  In frames.  Feel free to take a minute to let the gravity of that sink in.

You see, every now and then I blow things out of proportion.  I look at something that really isn’t that hard, that really isn’t that big of a deal and I make it so big, so insurmountably horrible, that I would do just about anything to avoid it.  Sometimes that thing is the only errand on a long weekend.  Sometimes it’s getting up to use the bathroom when I’m about to fall asleep.  Sometimes it’s changing the channel without the remote.  Whatever it is, given enough time and a strong enough lazy streak, I can make anything feel like the equivalent of being asked to dig my way to China.  (Can’t it wait a little bit?  China will still be there tomorrow.  Plus, I bruised my shoveling arm and for God’s sake, think of the children!)  Now, most of the things I tend to get overly sloth-like about are fairly common.  I mean, who hasn’t lain in the dark and weighed the very real possibility of wetting the bed against the crushing weight of gravity and decided to take their chances instead of getting up?  But some of these things are so tiny, so insignificantly small that avoiding them not only takes more effort than doing them, but even attempting to avoid them should be considered a serious sign of mental illness. 

            This is where the picture frames come in.

            I started college in the summer of 2000, just a scant few weeks after graduating from high school.  In order to prepare for my grand foray into the unknown, I bought a few things with which I might decorate my new digs.  Among those things was a large print of some Monet or other that I quite liked at the time.  About six months ago, seven years after I purchased said print, I decided I’d had enough of its accusatory presence lurking about in the closet and I finally pulled it out and donated it to the Salvation Army.  I am nothing if not a problem solver.

            In reality, of course, the problem lies much deeper than that.  I have a framing phobia.  Well, maybe not a full on phobia, but definitely some sort of framing aversion that prevents me from putting art and frame together without tears and bloodshed coming into play.  Not that I haven’t tried, because good GOD have I tried, but no matter how many frames are procured, no matter how much art is purchased with good intentions, I know that when my time is done and I show up at the pearly gates for an evaluation of my good deeds, there will be some serious questions to be answered about why I thought the needy needed so much art and exactly how benevolent unloading my psychological baggage on the underprivileged could be.

            Anyway (WOW, that was a long detour!), the point is that my mother got me some frames…there’s no need to get into when theses frames were given to me, we’ll just say it wasn’t this year, but she got me these frames you see and I FILLED THEM.  And!  AND hung them on the wall!!!

 

 

FRAMES!!

 

 

With PICTURES!!!

 

 

On the WALL!!!!

 

We’re not just talking about a couple of picture frames here people.  We are talking about twenty-four(!) pictures in fourteen frames.  Are you shocked?  Because I’m not going to lie to you – I know it’s hard to tell from my subtle and understated ways – but I’m a tiny bit surprised myself.  

The Redecorating Gene

One of the best and worst things about moving to this new house is getting another opportunity to decorate.  While I liked a lot of the things we did in the other house, I’m also one of those people who likes change and thinks it’s perfectly normal to spontaneously polka dot her walls or build elaborate play spaces for her cats.  I’m pretty sure I get this trait from both of my parents who have each been known to succumb to sudden redecorating urges that often end in near fatal structural anomalies or unfortunate knick knack situations.  Once, when I was seven or eight years old, I was having trouble sleeping and I got out of bed in the middle of the night to go peel back my mother’s eye lids and see if she was awake.  On my way to my parents’ bedroom, however, I passed through the family room where I found my mom had taken apart the whole room and was rearranging everything.  I snuggled on the slightly askew couch with my blanket and watched Mel Gibson in Hamlet till three o’clock in the morning while my mother scooted me around the room and debated the benefits of throw pillows.  Of course this all took place a few months after my dad had decided to replace the carpet in the same room and had instead redone all the carpet in the whole house, taken a sledgehammer to a wall and some columns that he deemed superfluous, and completely gutted and remodeled the kitchen.  Isn’t that how everybody redecorates?

Anyway, while I did like the things we did in the last house, I was definitely looking forward to the opportunity to try some new things and refine some of the old.  Many of the choices that I made during the decorating there were made so gradually that they fell short of achieving an intentional and cohesive look and I often allowed myself to simply wander off entirely and pursue a design based solely on my own curiosity or personal agenda rather than any particularly well thought out plan.  Take, for example the orange dining room, who’s sole purpose in the house was to remind me that somewhere there was such a season as fall. (Sigh.)  But which didn’t really match the rest of the house in any way.  Similarly off was the wall color in our bedroom.  While I loved the blue grey color we chose, it had an unfortunate habit of turning slightly tealish in the evenings and reminded me in a very unpleasant way of a New Jersey grandmother’s formal living room.  While I did eventually notice it and was willing to admit that I didn’t care for its evening shenanigans, I wasn’t so much willing to put the effort in to repainting it.  After all, the color was right on for the hour or two a week that I managed to be in that room during the daylight. 

This time around, we refined the color a little and managed to steer well clear of the lace doily set.  Not that I don’t like my fair share of the traditional, I just like it in small doses.  Which, as it turns out, is sort of becoming the theme of the new house.  I often like combining modern with traditional, using modern lines with traditional finishes, traditional colors in modern tones, or just simply putting a modern thing next to a traditional one.  See exhibit A: My nightstand.

 

 

This little grouping has become a beacon of hope for me.  A tiny glimpse of what I have planned for this whole place and a justification for our constant designing, building, refinishing, refacing, and decorating, which I have to believe is all for a good cause and not just an inherited home improvement hyperactivity disorder.  I’ll admit, there are times when I look at that pompous nightstand and think to myself, what this nightstand needs is a framed picture of itself because I’m childish and I need to take the edge off, but so far I’m resisting and, in my book, that spells progress.

Three for three!?! Must be all the meth...

The first house The Husband and I ever bought was an incredibly small, twelve hundred square foot, four-bedroom house with what may actually be the worst floorplan I’ve ever seen.  It was a poorly thought out mishmash of little rooms and long hallways that was always dark, always hot, and refused to accept any reasonable furniture arrangement.  On the other hand, it came standard with pleated fabric window shades.  So, you know, there’s that.  If we’d had to pay for said fancy-pants window shades, they would have cost about a hundred dollars a window and there were about nine hundred dollars worth in the house.  If we’d had to pay for them, however, then we would have picked something else, so the point is kind of moot and free blinds are free blinds so we got what we got.

 

A day or two after we moved in, we brought home six teeny kittens from my mother’s and released them to roam about the house like a herd of adorably snuggleable buffalo.  Within days there was a tear in every blind in the house and, since that might still be recoverable, for good measure they had also tunneled through the middle of one or two of them to create a perfectly circular hole in the center of the honeycombed fabric pleats.  Since that day, five years ago, we’ve fought a constant battle with the cats to find a practical and attractive way of covering the windows that wouldn’t ultimately be eaten or abused.  Besides tunneling through the pleated shades, they’ve climbed them, knocked the valances off the tops, chewed through pull chords on wooden blinds, and even swung from the verticals like George of the Jungle – with similar levels of success.  So it was with low spirits that The Husband and I set about deciding how to deal with the seven large windows, three double sliders, and two butted glass bays that faced us in this house.  All of the blinds and verticals here were the same as the ones that we had already tried and failed with before and we were tired of constantly wrapping up the chords on the wood blinds to keep the cats from severing them during one of their snack attacks.  To make matters worse, the sliders were each over twelve feet wide and the butted glass windows either need three separate window treatments each or something that could make a couple of thirty degree turns.  We were not optimistic.

 

Eventually however, we did manage to come up with a solution that was not only pretty attractive and fairly cat proof, but all kinds of cheap which is, as you know, AWESOME.  The winning idea was to use metal conduit from the hardware store and inexpensive curtain panels.  At two dollars for a ten foot stick of conduit and with the ability to be cut to size, coupled together with wooden dowels for the vast expanses of sliders, and bent to fit any angle, it was perfect.  Easy to install, easy to open and close, and most of all, unbreakable and completely washable; they might actually last a whole month!

 

 

 

 

 

Two posts in two days? It must be a bit blustery down in Hell today...

I am unreasonably thrilled to finally be finished with the California stuff and the house tour.  Somehow I had blown both of those kinds of posts up in my head to be so horrifically time consuming and painful that I would do just about anything to avoid them.  Finally, after weeks of catching up on every little thing at work, cleaning and organizing everything that wasn’t nailed down at home, and even spending hours lavishing attention on the cats, I ran out of excuses and was forced to sit down and face the music and I am just pleased as punch now to be able to move on.

This whole time that I’ve been so diligently avoiding the work of blogging, we’ve actually been diligently working on tons of little house projects that are just begging to be mentioned here.  For starters, I couldn’t stand the unpainted planter shelf in the family room and kitchen area, so we went ahead and painted it too and I can honestly say it totally makes the room.

 

Exhibit A: Before

Exhibit B: After

 

However, in order to ease my way back into the blogging schedule, I’ve decided to keep the posts short and sweet for a bit so I won’t get overwhelmed again.  So, with any luck, I’ll be back tomorrow to talk about curtains or art or something.  You never know with me; I’m just CRAZY like that!

 

Home Tour: Last Stop

Back on the house tour we abandoned a month or two ago, we were just getting ready to finish up with the last stops being the master bathroom and the game room.  The master bath is comically large, with his and her sinks, a separate water closet, an impossibly large (but curiously shallow) tub, and an oversized shower. 

 

 

 

 

At our old house, when anyone would take a shower, the cats would come pound on the door and holler like they were convinced that we were just in there eating tuna and rolling around in catnip.  At this house, there’s no shower door so they are free to pop around the corner and experience the unmitigated joy of being hosed down whenever they’d like.  They don’t like…Well, except Yabbi, who likes to saunter in and soak up a few gallons of water in his big hairy feet and then sog around the house for a while.

 

The last stop is the game room, which is sort of oddly located right off of the master bedroom, although you can also access it through the slider, which opens onto the courtyard.

 

 

The room has a very small three quarter bath and an odd little wet bar area with a sink and microwave, but no place for a mini fridge.  I guess it’s just for hot drinks…or cup o’noodles.

Day Eight: A Sad Goodbye

Editors Note: Day five and six from the last post were actually day six and seven respectively.  Sorry for the mislabeling.

 

On our last full day in California, The Husband and I decided to head back to the coast for one last longing look at the Pacific.  We went to Mendocino, which was the farthest north we had managed to make it during our trip and spent a casual day shopping, feeding the seagulls, and taking pictures of the coastline.  All that making for some pretty dry reading material, I’ll just let the pictures do the talking on this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In total, in the eight or so days that we were in California, The Husband and I drove for over sixty-three hours and covered nearly twenty-two hundred miles of asphalt.  We drove along jagged cliffs on winding mountain roads and, frankly through some really bad neighborhoods.  We were confronted with heavy winds, rain, snow, and fog as well as temperatures that fluctuated up to thirty degrees from day to day.  We barely slept, we often ate nothing but bread and cheese and frequently suffered from dehydration in the extremely dry climate…It was the best vacation I’ve ever had.

 

Day Five and Six: We Cannot Be Taught!

So, where was I?

 

On day five we decided to hang around San Francisco and do a little shopping and a lot of reminiscing.  We cleaned out the vast majority of Chinatown’s various wares,

 

 

stopped by my aunt’s old apartment,

 

 

ate way the hell too much at Gordo’s by UCSF,

 

 

and visited the sea lions at Pier 39

 

 

where we also spotted Alcatraz. 

 

 

None of this stuff is in anyway worth talking about plus I’m seriously behind, so we’ll just move along.

On day six we decided it had been WAY too long since we did something stupid and reckless so we headed toward Calaveras to see some big trees and, with any luck, to die needlessly and get eaten by a bear.  When we got to Calaveras, we were first intrigued to discover that it was a stimulating thirty degrees colder there than in Sonoma, where we were staying. 

 

 

And also, covered in three feet of snow…go figure.  (How, you may ask, do I know how deep the snow was?  We’ll get to that later.) 

 

 

Which is exactly why there seemed nothing more reasonable in the world to do than to go for a mile and a half hike…in our tennis shoes.  (And, in my case, plaid cotton pajama pants…Oh yeah, I’m stylish.)  We parked the car and set about bundling ourselves up in jackets and scarves and the like as a beige Lexus pulled up and out popped two 20ish city slicker types – a guy and girl.  She was completely decked out in brightly colored lycra and faux fur finished off with ugg boots and a large satchel adorned with several hundred pounds of oversized hardware.  As she swung her bag over her shoulder and fluffed her already over-fluffed hair, he took in the scene with a sweep of his disinterested head and announced that “These better be some big fucking trees.”  And off they went.

A few minutes later, while I continued to debate the benefits of multiple scarves versus the ability to turn my head, our intrepid duo reentered the parking lot, stomping and gesticulating wildly.  He barked something about “not signing up for this shit” and without another word they got into their car and left.  The Husband and I stood alone in the parking lot and gaped at each other, dumbstruck, before I spoke what I knew we were both thinking

“Amateurs!”  I exclaimed, attempting to tuck my pajama pants into my socks.  “That was so funny!  Did you see her outfit?  Where does she think she is!?!  You ready to go?”

The trail map was numbered one through twenty-five, with each number representing a point of interest and indicated on the trail by a wooden marker.  Of course, that was all moot as, at that moment we weren’t exactly able to locate the trail seeing as it was entirely covered with snow.  What we did find after a short interlude of wandering aimlessly was a dirty track that proved to be trail enough for us. 

 

 

Thus we journeyed on, stopping occasionally to take in the beauty of the woods and fail to capture its essence in pictures. 

 

 

And then we came across this:

 

 

This is a bench.  One of many provided along the route for visitors to stop and have a rest and the first indication that something may have been terribly wrong.

Sobered by the realization that we were not actually walking on the ground, I turned to The Husband and said, “That’s a bench…I guess that’s not going to do us any good!  I’ll take a picture.”  And we laughed. And the walking continued.

At one point, The Husband found a large tree with a hollow at the base where the snow had piled against it and, being a reasonable person, he did the only reasonable thing to do in such a situation.  He climbed in the hole and I took a picture.

 

 

“I hope there aren’t any bears in here!”  He shouted as he backed in, feet first.

 

“Probably not.”  I responded. “Smile!  I’m taking a picture.”

 

“Hey, my clothes are all wet now.”

 

The Husband extricated himself from his den and the hiking continued.  The ground was slippery where the snow had been packed down by previous hikers and it was becoming increasingly necessary to keep an eye on the path.  On either side of the dirty trail the snow was pocked with ruts and ravines that were getting to be difficult to avoid.

 

I carefully placed one foot directly in front of the other and observed.  “I think the path is getting narrower.”

 

He considered this for a moment before venturing.  “I guess fewer people made it this far.”

 

“Oh!  We’re doing really well then!”

 

And the sightseeing continued. 

 

 

 

Until…

 

 

There was a bridge.  One of several, as it would turn out, that lead over a winding creek that, itself, was oft shrouded beneath the drifts. 

 

 

Each was nearly topped off with snow that reduced the guardrail to nothing more than a path marker.  Starting to get concerned we pulled out the trail map to determine where we were and got our first dose of harsh reality.  We were approaching the halfway mark.  At this, a great debate ensued in which phrases like “short cut” and “Donner party”, and “the hibernation habits of large ravenous carnivores” were discussed with keen interest by both parties.  However, having still not managed to get a tight hold on the concept of self-preservation, we continued on.  Surely, the longer way with the narrower and less densely packed path was the way to go. And besides, “It’s snowing!  How cool is that!?!”

 

There were no more pictures after that.  It didn’t take long before we realized that this was officially no-man’s-land and that the only people who had continued on the trail at this point had been wearing snowshoes that all but obliterated the useful trail.  The only thing left to do was to walk the narrow stalk of snow that remained between the deep indentations that remained.  Essentially, an impossible feat.

First one person slipped, then the other.  Every time a foot left the tiny slither of dense snow, you’d find yourself buried up to the knee in the loose powder that flanked the trail.  After an intense struggle to right yourself without sinking further, you were forced to hurry along the path to avoid giving the snow beneath your feet the opportunity to weaken and fail you again.  It only took a couple of falls for shoes to fill with slush and feet to begin to freeze which turned out to be both a help and a hindrance as it did dull the aching arch pain although the numbness also made it harder to get a footing.

            Two and a half hours after we began, soaked from both the snowfall and falling in the snow, exhausted from the exertion of maintaining uprightness, and steadily succumbing to gangrene, we arrived back at the parking lot.

            Safely at the car and rapidly warming up, I hopped back out to snap a picture or two of the flurry that had punctuated the last leg of our hike and really helped conjure the desperate atmosphere of the deservedly damned.

 

 

 

As I sat back down and shut the door behind me, I turned to The Husband and sighed, “Well, we made it.”

 

“Yeah.”  He looked over the dash, past the snowy embankment and into the woods beyond.  “That was fun!”