Uh oh

We only had the two color options when I ordered that daybed, the red/orange and the blue/gray... so of course being nuts I picked the red/orange. But now what? I'm color impaired. Well, here, how's this?


look, I'm at work and don't have photoshop so I had to use some really chinsy online editor, hence the crappy white artifacting around the daybed. DEAL.

The room is already that color and I already have that dark gray cabinet in there, stuffed full of crafting junk. So adding that rug? What do you think? I need to put in the fact that there is already a white desk and I intend to replace the room darkening period lighting with a brighter, whiter light fixture. Too dark? Clashing colors?

I'm lame. I like the rug, I want to make it work.

dwr sale!

We've been putting off organizing or furnishing the guest room/office/craft room, partially laziness and partially because the money that we would use was better used elsewhere at the time. In fact, it is the only room that still has a lot of unpacked boxes. However, with the sale, we decided to just go for it. So Saturday after class, (well, I went to class, Rob ditched) we head off to Fillmore St and bought ourselves a daybed.

We had always wanted the modern daybed from DWR, but with a $2100 price tag - uh no. So we considered this:


Which had more options in color, was actually more comfortable, and was cheaper. But it was still expensive, something we didn't want to just drop down and pay for if it wasn't necessary. It also had the metal legs, which made me sad.

So when we saw that the one from DWR was 50%, we decided to get it. No matter what. Even though it only comes in 2 colors, that's fine - we'll make a new slip cover ourselves. It's the style we wanted for less than the one we were going to settle for - so who could pass that up? It took us all of 5 minutes in dwr to sit down and do it.

Well. Again, it's not the most comfortable. It's stiff, which is actually fine for sitting after the initial butt-shock, but for sleeping...? We're going to buy a japanese futon to put on top of it when people come over. I mean, it's not like I want someone directly on the thing anyway - drooling and all that.


I guess this means if you were planning to stay over, be warned, our daybed is not soft.

Who are you anyway?

I've been gone. I know, it's been an up and down what with having NEARLY CUT OFF MY FINGER. It's gross, but it's decided to reattach and now the end just feels (and looks) a little strange. The nail is almost back to full length. Just another month and I think I will be able to get a very well deserved manicure for my abused hand. Oddly enough, the same week I nearly lost that finger, another friend of mine smooshed his into near oblivion. The same finger on the same hand! We were lame finger buddies.

In other news, I just finished the illustration for Mrs. Taffy. She was so patient with the move, and the painting, and the loss of my finger.... so I'm happy that it's finished and that she likes it! I'll post that as soon as I get home. :)

We also hired someone to put up wallpaper. We were going to do it ourselves until we realized the ceiling is so high right above the stairs, there was no way we could do it. Not without doing a crap job and breaking our necks, at least.



And I'm embarrassed that my entry way looks like this - although it doesn't anymore. We cleaned it and hung up the coat rack... but I'm all about being real. Here is my really nasty dirty entryway.


Next up, forcing Rob to buy me a new washer and dryer.

A Quick Fix.

I've been trying to work on my art, but things come up. We've had a non-stop stream of friends coming to stay with us, including tonight someone will be with us for the remainder of this month. That put my neurotic furniture arranging on hold (which Rob is really happy about) and made me instead turn to things that are quicker or easier to manage. Ok, so this wasn't quick or easy, really, but it was something that will tide me over until we get a full on remodel of the kitchen.


Ok, so the kitchen isn't horrendous.. it's showing it's age, it's not the best layout, and it's just kind of blah. I really didn't like the cabinet fronts, but really, that will get worked out as soon as we remodel. It wasn't worth a temporary cost to make it better until we take the sledgehammer to it.

Insert 1 ambitious friend, screwdrivers, and a husband out on an errand so that he couldn't stop us. Add some paint and some shelves and you have this:


Forgive the mess, we were just starting to arrange our kitchen wares and clean them after having been removed from the boxes. That's my excuse anyway.

It was a very fast makeover and it made a bit of difference. I can live with it... for now. But if said ambitious friend comes over one day when we have nothing better to do, maybe we'll take something else apart....

Ok, I don't have the best photos. But here is the general idea.

WC Before:

Black toilet of horror. Black tiles of horror. Just generally ugly water closet.

WC After:

note tampons. Normally hidden, but not today! Out in the open for EVERYONE TO SEE. Just in case you were questioning my being a woman.
We added the white wainscoting and painted the walls the palest purple. A new light was put in, not that you can see it, and the tiles are 1" hex tiles with light gray grout.

Bathroom Before:

This photo of Jen pretty much shows you what we were dealing with.
1. white ugly tiles all the way up the walls
2. nasty stall shower
3. black sink... that was REALLY HIGH. Seriously, the counter was boob height.
4. weird ugly light sconce things. Looks like elementary school project gone wrong.
5. Also had the nasty black tiles on the floor like the WC.

Bathroom After:



obviously pre-installation and paint

It's already a mess, we just moved in. But yay! Same pale purple walls, white wainscoting throughout, vintage corner sink with new faucet, cute clawfoot, and new tiles. I don't have a good photo of the tub... I'll deal with that later. It's a small space, so getting photos of it is very difficult. The new window is on order and should be installed some time next week.

Was it worth it? Yes. The bathroom is not a horrible monstrosity that I'm embarrassed to have in my house. I can only imagines guests panicking with the old weird black toilet that filled to the top before flushing. I definitely think the bathroom remodel and the secret window added more value than we spent, so overall a good decision. I'm sure a lot of people walked away from the property after seeing what they would have to deal with.

Next - the kitchen.

Flooring is nearly complete!

One of the things we decided to do right away was to do away with the floors in the bedrooms. At some point they put in really yucky carpet and it was so filthy if you walked on it, your feet turned black. So nasty.



floors with carpet of hidden grossness

So after ripping up the carpet, we discovered two things. One, the floors under the carpet were the original 1890's subfloor/floor and were large planks of soft wood. They were obviously set lower than the floors in the rest of the house, as those are hardwood from the 1920s or 1930s. We opted to just bite the bullet and have historically accurate, matching floors put in. That included nailing the boards, mitering the edges to follow the trim of the room, and all that wonderful business.



laid floors, no stain!

They already are worlds better than what was in there before. Not that I don't absolutely love nasty carpet, but we all have sacrifices to make!

One thing that does bother me about the floors that are being put in is that the wood has a lot more dark, deep grain than the rest of the house. And although the floor guy is constantly praising how perfect the stain is, I'm not sold. I can tell it's not exactly the same color, and in fact, not really that close. I admit I'm picky and being an artist, I can really tell the difference between colors and I notice the little things... like the grain. To me, it's a huge thing. To Rob, it's nothing.

Anyway, I dislike feeling like they are constantly trying to sell me on the job they are doing when I know it's not perfect or anywhere near perfect. I'd prefer them to be honest and say "this is as close as we can get it, and the wood does have a lot more grain, but it would be impossible to get the same kind of wood that was used on the original floors."

Honesty matters, I don't think I can handle one more "I AM SO AWESOME" from the floor guys.

Remodeling Update

Congratulations, we have a floor!
Well, at least in the toilet room. Like a lot of older San Francisco flats, we have a split bath. I'm totally ok with this as it's fairly common in Japan and I've been living in San Francisco for quite some time. We asked that the toilet room be completed ASAP as we still need to go in there and deal with our kitchen and continue to paint the rest of the house. Without a toilet, we can't do that, obviously. We're told we will have a toilet tomorrow morning, even though they don't work on Saturdays, they are taking pity on us.


This is the hole that all things will pass through.

It's much better than the black toilet of death we had earlier. The void that nearly filled to the top with water before flushing very slowly away. So black you couldn't see anything in it when you looked into the water. Was there pee? Who knows? Spiders ready to crawl up your butt? A mystery!

As much as I love surprises and mysteries, I don't want that anywhere near my bare bottom.

I feel like I've been riding a horse

We spent the entire weekend painting the house. We've still got a lot to do, but it's coming along really nicely. The kitchen is being taken apart slowly, we'll get around to finishing it over the next couple weeks. Somehow, even though we were just painting, my inner and back thighs are killing me. Don't ask me how, it just feels like I've been riding a horse all week.

The bathroom of horror was gutted today... and revealed this:

A window!! Who knew! It was a false wall with the shower tiles on it, which when broken down revealed the true wall with a window! Why would anyone cover a window with an ugly shower unit? Oh well.

Interesting finds during our bathroom remodel. I haven't heard anything about rotted wood or horrible other things, so I'm hoping that other than the window, there are no unexpected surprises!

Remodeling

It's been a long, horrible road to getting our new place, but we have the keys and are just days away from never having to talk to anyone that was involved in the deal ever again. I don't wish bad things on them (well, maybe some of them) but my life will be better without them. Seriously.

Rob and I hung out at the new place yesterday, painting, seeing contractors, preparing for a long 2-3 weeks of remodeling and stress. Rob and I plan on doing the kitchen remodel and the painting ourselves (except the really high ceiling above the stairs) but since the bathroom has to be done before August, we're going to hire professionals to just go for it.

Otherwise, in illustration news, I'm really happy I finished Spider's illustration. It was supposed to be done so much earlier, but because I have the world's worst luck I caught Mono and couldn't do much of anything for weeks. Seriously, who catches mono at my age?

We're almost there.

I'm starting this blog just to document my day to day, most likely of no interest to anyone but me, but it's good to have a record.

This week we're getting the keys to our new home. We'll be staying in our current unit in Lake Merritt, Oakland, until the end of the month when we finally pick everything up and cart it over the bay. We're retaining our unit in Oakland until the market is better, renting it out to a new couple in the mean time. We hope they like it, I know I'll miss it to death. I think it's actually good to keep it for me, I'll detach from it emotionally while living at my new place, but we won't have given it up officially yet. It's not yet "no longer our home" until we sell.

It's really heart breaking to leave, Rob and I planned our wedding, got our dogs, and got married while living in this house. We both learned a lot about ourselves and our lives changed greatly, but now it's time to move on. I'll miss it.

Memories of our place as, the way it looked while we lived here.



Bye old house.
Hello new house. I hope the puppies don't mind learning to poop in the city.