Rose City Bungalow 1913

Bathroom Sale

2012-01-24T08:58:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to give you all a heads up that both Rejuvenation & Restoration Hardware are currently running up to 25% off bathroom sales.
We are in process of creating some art for our bathroom and I am hoping (but in doubt) that we can finish that up before Restoration Hardware's sale is over so that I can score some super plush towels on sale to match the new artwork...dare I say that I would like blue towels so bring a bit of blue in the house? I typically hate anything blue in our house for decorating, even though I usually love it in other people's homes.
From Rejuvenation, I need to go and pick up a couple polished nickel escutcheon plates for the toilet as well as sink. We currently have super cheap chrome ones that don't match the rest of our hardware and have gotten all rusty. They don't sell these plates online, but I have seen them in the store so I am hoping they are on sale.
***UPDATE: I just went to Rejuv this afternoon and I guess that everything is on sale because they will be discontinuing all of their bathroom things other than the light fixtures, towels bars, hooks, t.p. holders (that sort of stuff). Unsure about the bath tubs but it sounded like they will no longer be carrying sinks, toilets or all the plumbing line type stuff. Soooo, the sale will go on until everything is sold out.***

Woodworking class results

2012-01-17T07:51:00.000-08:00

My friend Sharon over at Laurelhurst Craftsman Restoration reminded me over a month ago that I had never posted pictures of the projects I finished while taking woodworking with her over at PCC.
Without further ado, here are a couple of the things that I was able to complete during the class.

Our first project was a cutting board. We did a cutting board because it was a quick and easy project that taught us how to use many of the tools in the shop. Of course, I didn't want just a plain ol' cutting board with a handle and had been eyeing the state shaped cutting boards on etsy, so I decided I would test my skills with a jigsaw. Success!
Some of the steps included planing the wood, gluing it up, more planing, tons of sanding and using the jigsaw before sanding it more. Mine is made from Dark Walnut and one other (maybe Beech? I can't recall). When all finished, I oiled it up with mineral oil. Not thinking about where I placed it, it has sat on the window sill just above the kitchen sink for around 4months. When I took this picture, I realized how many water splatters and therefore color alterations it already has. Guess it's time to sand it a bit with some 400 grit sand paper and oil it again.
I love the cutting board so much and got so many complements that I made a few more Oregon cutting boards as Christmas gifts (including a mini version that my friend Chris, who I always talk about, plans to turn into a book end) as well as a California cutting board for my friend Katie (it came out super skinny so I think it will more be a display piece or just for maybe a log of goat cheese).

And the big project that we did next was supposed to be a plant stand. However, I altered the size a bit so that we could have a side table for next to our living room couch. I have been looking for a table for a couple years now-it needed to be relatively narrow at just over a foot wide. And oak. And have a great place to hold a beer (ok, let's be honest, maybe two).
This project took a ton more work but I really enjoyed it.

via

I was delighted to learn that we would be joining all of the parts of the table (with the exception of the top) together with mortise and tenon joints-many arts & crafts pieces of furniture are joined this way. You basically use a router to cut out all of the pieces and then adjust sizing as needed to make the male and female parts fit accordingly. I had to use a file and chisel to make the male pieces quite a bit smaller but it all worked out. After many fittings and making sure everything was plumb and level, I glued it all together.

The only hardware consists of two screws and plates (can't recall the name but they basically are a bit loose and allow to wood to expand and contract easily without damaging the wood and keeping things study at the same time). The plates insert into little cuts in the frame of the wood (you can see the slits in the pix 3 above).

Another thing I like about the table is it is white oak-the same kind of oak that our dining room buffet is built out of.

1920s Heywood Wakefield living room chair detail

custom built dining room buffet detail

In addition, the lines of the table (the instructors had a pattern with these lines already made) match the lines of the buffet as well as our living room chairs.

After all the glue was dry and the piece was home, I finally got around to staining it between Christmas and New Years. That's when I attached the two pieces of hardware. Already loving it and Steve is using it to hold his beer as I type. Mission Accomplished.

I gave myself a big pat on the back last week when my brother in law was over and he commented on the nice new furniture piece (my table) that we got and how much he liked it. Woot! 10 points for me! And he has worked in carpentry :) He didn't even know I made it (with a ton of help from the teachers) but he also didn't look really closely and therefore wasn't able to see all of my mistakes. I was going to take the class again to build a built-in for our bathroom (the teachers agreed to help me if I brought in dimensions and a sketch), however, my dad offered to build it (as I talked about a few days ago) when my parents come to visit at the end of the month. Sounds like plan to me.

A quick bit of closet organization

2012-01-16T19:50:00.000-08:00

Within the last month or so, while perusing blogs (or was it pinterest?), I came across a handy little way to organize scarves.

Being that this is how my scarves looked, I thought it might be a good investment. Plus, my scarves were kept in Ben's room and I would rather not risk waking him up if he is napping in order to get a scarf.
And where do you get such a cool little organizer do you ask? Well, Ikea of course. The Komplement (luv the name) is just $7.99 and I am LOVING it.

After about 10 minutes time, I realized I had one scarf that had been shrunk to Ben size at some point and a couple others that I forgot I even had.

Now it looks like this and is easily accessible in my closet. I find myself wearing scarves much more these days :)
I suppose you could also use it for ties or belts. :)

Caulking the tub at last

2012-01-11T01:59:00.000-08:00

pre-caulk

I think it was last summer that I talked about still needing to caulk our tub after remodeling the bathroom, having new tile installed and having the tub resurfaced. Well, once again we got busy and although not having a smooth caulk line around the tub bothered us, we put the project on the back burner. We knew it was really bad when we had my brother and 5 of his friends visit for a week in November. We couldn't figure out why we all of the sudden had a leak somewhere in our newly plumbed house. Anyways, no leak, really, water had just been spilling out of the tub with 9 people bathing each day for a week and water had leaked into the basement from the areas between the tub and wall/floor into the basement.

purchased from Dal-Tile, sanded caulking, an exact color match to our grout

After the friends left, things quickly dried out so once again the project went on the back burner. Also, finding a time when no one needed to shower for around 36 hours is a little tough. Steve decided that this weekend was the weekend.

After we all showered up Saturday morning, he thoroughly scrubbed the tub and surrounding areas that needed caulking. The let it dry for close to 12 hours.

Finally, after it was all good and dry, he spent a couple hours closed off in the bano to caulk everywhere. Not only is everything all water tight now, it looks totally awesome.

And of course, then I realized that it would look so much nicer if the little gaps between the edge tiles and the molding were also filled in AND I was lucky enough that Steve was willing to go back and fill them in. Our bathroom is one step closer to being done. I would love to say it will be done by Ben's second birthday (we started the reno just a couple months before he was born) but I believe that would be a lie:)

Hardware sale

2012-01-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

I noticed a week or two ago that Restoration Hardware is having a sale and everything, yes everything that is full price is 20% off which got me thinking. (btw, the sale was extended a day and ends tonight) I also had a small store credit that I needed to use. Everything on sale is an extra 10% off so of course I had to buy a snow ball maker (I know, I'm a wimp but what's a So-Cal girl to do when her hands get all cold making snowballs? Well, get a snowball maker of course).

I was going to take Woodworking class again this winter in order to make a bathroom built-in, however decided against when my dad mentioned he was looking for projects when they visit at the end of the month.

Enter bathroom hardware. I figured that I would need 6 ball tip hinges and 3 latches. We (well my dad with Steve and I helping where we can) are building a cabinet that will be about 13" wide and deep and 9' tall. It will have 3 cabinet doors in order to break things up. Originally I wanted 2 cabinet doors as well as a drawer at the bottom but when Steve and I were talking it over, we decided against the drawer for a couple reasons. Sure, it would look nice, but do you really need a drawer for a cabinet that is only 13" deep? Also, being that the cabinet is right next to the door and the door swings into the bathroom, Steve imagined disaster the first time that someone tried to open the bathroom door while the drawer was open. Drawers are also a lot more work to build than a cabinet door.
Anyways, so that means that we need 2 hinges x3 doors=6 and 3 latches in Polished Nickel. Well, the hinges aren't too much cheaper than Rejuvenation, however the latches are much cheaper ($25 a piece at Rejuv or $11.50 + 20% off at Restoration Hardware), even after shipping, We decided to get one extra latch so that the latches on the cabinet match the one on the medicine cabinet.

A truly local shop: Schoolhouse Electric

2012-01-09T01:44:00.000-08:00

Did you hear that Rejuvenation sold out to Williams Sonoma? I know, sad. No longer a truly local Portland Company, however, I still love their stuff & really hope they keep the salvage dept. and the same feel.
Last weekend I convinced Steve that we should really start "shopping" for appliances in order to plan for our kitchen remodel, so we headed off to Basco appliances in the Pearl District of Portland (more on that later, but we bought nothing but it was a very worthwhile trip & I am delighted to say that Ben allowed us to stay and get info for almost 90 minutes without complaining:).

After Basco, Steve wanted to check out the new Schoolhouse Electric on Nikoli in the far NW part of Portland. I was shocked he wanted to go there because he typically has a 10 minute or less tolerance for shopping. However, Steve does enjoy shops like Schoolhouse electric, where there are eclectic and one of a kind, retro items.
We had heard it was cool inside, but WOW, it was super cool. A huge space with tons of room to grow. And of course, in Portland style, they had a Ristretto Roasters Coffee Shop inside so we had to each get an Americano and of course Ben deserved a cookie after all of his patience (oh yea, Ristretto is a local shop by us on Fremont & their pastries are made by a woman who just opened a brand new Bake Shop on Sandy and 54th-yummy (next to Case Study Coffee-yummy again)). They also had a cool flower shop on site. We heard that they are going to be leasing space to local artisans or maybe taking in stuff made by local artisans to sell.

little front area and coffee shop is just to left of tables

entrance area (coffee tables to left)

Well, of course I wanted pretty much everything. But I am really jones-ing for that restroom sign-I would love to put it on our basement bathroom door someday.

we thought it might be cool to recreate this light as a DIY project to go around our basement columns

love the industrial look-this could be such a fun play table for Ben

clocks-I love clocks

this is a total DIY project....thinking basement or you could make these as little stools to sit on, maybe Ben's room?

Rock It!

2012-01-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

We are fortunate enough to have my grandparents 1940s bedroom furniture. A whole matching set-we're so grown-up. And even felt more grown-up when we got a real bedframe a few years back.

Anyways, I thought our teeny tiny bedroom was looking about as good as it could look for a master bedroom of it's size until last January. I started watching my friend's daughter, Laurel, 2 days per week last January in exchange for her watching Ben while I work.

And that's when it got ugly. Laurel is lovely. I mean our bedroom got ugly. That when the pack n' play (a portable crib for those not familiar with all things baby) got set-up and stationed in our room. And there it lived until December when I decided to take back our room. Kinda weird that we have a crib in our room when Ben has never slept in our room.

We never put Laurel upstairs because we have no heat up there and I didn't think I would be able to hear her. I decided to see how the kiddos would do in the same room and they actually sleep wonderfully.

the throw was a $3? estate sale find

So why not take a 1940s chair from my other grandparents and add it to the mix? Well, that's what I did just this past weekend. And I really like it. It gives me a great place to pile up my clothes (as opposed to the floor or and of the bed). But really, it matches the other furniture very well. My grandma of almost 93 years still has the matching sitting chair but she says that someday it will ~~be all mine~~ reunited with it's rockin' mate. :)

A fun little update that makes the room look even more adult-ish and finished to me!

Wrap it up

2012-01-04T22:18:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012!  

getting serious over his first candy cane

While we were pretty darn lazy over our almost 10 days total of no work/time to together, we did manage a great trip to Los Angeles to visit my fam for x-mas as well a bit o' clean up around the casa. Steve decided to take on vacuuming out the entire attic area just after I finished packing up the Christmas decor. and boy did it need it!

gorgeous sunny LA

And of course, he then tackled the other two attic spaces we have. Which of course set me off on realizing what a beautiful disaster of stuff we had stuffed in the attic.

We pulled out some old crap that is not even worthy of Goodwill, 9 GIANT file boxes of Steve's dad's old files that now can be shredded since it's been 10 years (he was an attorney for people with disabilities so we had to keep 'em but are so glad to see them go-we started off with probably over 30 file boxes 4 years ago), and, of course, don't forget the worthless box of baseball cards from Steve's childhood that Steve is finally ready to give over to Goodwill. Next, working on him giving up his Garfield collection. I told him he could keep one. He already let me sell all the Garfield books to Powells-and we made enough to buy him a couple pairs of socks from there (naturally, I put them in his stocking). I parted with all but four (of 13-I know, excessive) of my Cabbage Patch Kids and found out that Oxy Clean is awesome at removing 25 year old dirt stains.

But I did come across my baby memory box and pulled out a cool plush carrot. Inside, there is a plush bunny family that my grandma made for me almost 30 years ago-still in perfect condition and Ben loves it! Also, found a picture (the kind that looks metal-ish-can't think of what they are called right now) from 1925 of my grandma and her family that I hope to frame soon.

Anywho, onto the real project...organizing the two tons of wrapping paper, ribbon and tissue that we had.

yup, that's allll wrapping supplies

I have been meaning to do this for awhile but saved it for when Steve was traveling. I wanted to be able to organize while catching up on juicy trash shows on TLC and avoid having Steve make fun of my episode choice the whole time.

an old theatre trunk

My friend Sarah told me that she used a storage trunk to organize all of her wrapping supplies.
Steve and I picked up the beauty to use as our coffee table (now used as our side table) several years back at an estate sale for $50. And I love it.

all decorated & personalized; it also has that old musty smell, not bad, just old

I think it belonged to John, a dancing comedian!

So after several hours of rotting my brain while catching up on Hoarders and the Kardashians, I was all set and ready to load up the trunk with all of my non-Christmas supplies. I even color coded the tissue into one ziplock!

the top portion has the ribbon & boxes & some super cool old fabric

the bottom section holds the tissue (note that color coding-boo-ya), bags and wrap paper

It feels so great to be getting organized and more cleared out in prep for the kitchen/stair remodel.
Tonight I wrangled all the Christmas supplies into one big box and plan to leave that in the attic.

And this is funny because I think that the pic below is the best we got of the three of us while we were at my parents, cross your fingers my sister got some better ones with her nice camera.

2011-12-25T07:56:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Hope that you are having a lovely holiday with the ones you love

May you have a very retro Christmas

2011-12-22T02:03:00.000-08:00

via

I had a little fun browsing some old Christmas images on google today and wanted to share a few with you. Some fun Christmas tree inspiration...guess I need to track down some icicles for next year!

Window shopping-if only displays were still so cool via

A Victorian Christmas via

via

I just love the little dresses via

there are tons of mid century Christmas photos on this site via

via

how fun would that be? all warm and cozy in an airstream while watching the snow fall via


via

And if you're really inspired & now want to get retro crafty....some free retro Christmas downloadable fonts....

via

O Christmas Tree!

2011-12-19T13:40:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas trees. The way they smell and the warm fuzzy childhood memories they bring back. I remember decorating our tree each year as a child and rocking out together as a family with the kiddos in their jammies and with Christmas music & snacks. We each had our own box of Ornaments that we got to put up.

While Ben didn't really show much interest in doing ornaments this year, he surely enjoys looking at our tree (lucky for us, it is only looking and he understands not to touch it).

Since we've been married and in our home, we have pretty much gotten an ornament each year to help us remember something big that has happened in our lives in that year

2006-a pine cone marks are move to Oregon, along with the purchase of our home & getting married! A big year!

2007-we got our beagle Porter

2008-a little Penguin to mark the crazy snow storm in Portland (this was nothing for any town that is used to snow but 18" shut down Portland for almost 2 weeks) that led to our flight to Los Angeles being cancelled and us deciding to pack up the car late at night and drive to Los Angeles in order to make it home for Christmas

2009-we don't have an ornament yet for 2009 but in '09 we found out that we were expecting a little man and we also took an amazing adventure to Peru

2010-Ben's arrival; a little owl as his room is decorated with owls

2011- [entire satire] a mouse to hallmark our battle to get them outta our house; not funny now & even kinda creeps me out but I hope I will look at this next year and be able to laugh

Next year I would love to figure out some fun, inexpensive ways to spice up our tree! I bet Ben will be creating all sorts of fun craft items to put on the tree by then :)

Stair research

2011-12-13T14:45:00.000-08:00

I am not fully committed to our new stair plans discussed here and here as of yet. Still really trying to find examples of straight (non-turning) staircases in historic homes that are part of a main living space (our dining room). I have found a couple pictures which sorta prove that this has been done, but 99% of the pictures show staircases that turn or have winders. Best case scenario would be us finding a way to have the staircase that goes upstairs start in the hallway and being able to adjust the rise and run to code (it appears that currently the rise is to code at ~7" but not the run (code is 9" and ours is 8").
Our staircase will also be pretty narrow at 34" so I feel like that may look strange. 36" is the current code but it looks like we may be able to get an exception. I am still a little confused on weather we really need a permit being that we will be rebuilding the stairs using the current space we have and not starting from total scratch. I will probably let the contractor we use figure that out.

Anyways, here are some pictures I have found of old, historic cases. If anyone has any other info on stair cases, please share.

I am unsure where this group of pictures came from as I collected them a long time ago.

these stairs turn but not for a long while, however they are quite wide & regal

a great example, in a main living space & straight the whole way up, however wide

these have a winder at the top but appear somewhat narrow, however they are tucked into the corner of a living space


this is a picture of Steve's cousin's stairs-they live in a Bungalow in Lincoln, NE; in their living room, my guess is they were rebuilt at some point; steep & straight up with a door

These old pictures are taken from Stickley publications dated to the turn of the century

as seen from the sketch, these stairs have winder but they are front and center in the living space and narrow

these stairs appear straight & narrow

more straight and narrow stairs, however they are just off the living space

these stairs wind right away but they are framed in the way that we would most likely frame ours

straight non winding stairs at house entrance, but they are tucked to the side

Lots of decisions to make, I was going to measure everything out during nap time today to see if it would work to put the stairs in the hallway but I couldn't find one a tape measure and now the kiddos are awake. Maybe tonight will be the lucky night.

It's the holiday season

2011-12-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

doop dee do, dip-er-y dot.....

We're in full holiday swing over here at our casa.

I love the holidays, especially the tree, decorations and time to just chill with family. Had fun decorating again this year and using all the pass me down decorations that we have gotten between our two families. Also added a few vintage Christmas ornament balls to the mix this year.

Dining Room

I took a hurricane from our wedding and a few cups/serving pieces to make our buffet decor

this cute little ceramic light was made by my friend Jason-he sells them too & now has multiple sizes

sweet Christmas luv birds

Isn't this little elf gnome the cutest little guy?

above our mantel is this awesome vintage jewerly tree-it lights up too!-got it for $3 at an estate sale and then embellished it with more jewels I found at another estate sale for $1....not bad for $4

And a cute little penguin in the kitchen

Zoo Lights
so many lights turn your pix allllll crazy like

this one's for you

and of course you gotta attend the winter ale fest in Portland...we always take free pictures at the lottery booth and this year's theme for the lottery is ugly sweaters-way too much fun dressin' up after a couple beers :)

Ranges

2011-12-06T15:05:00.000-08:00

This is another area in the kitchen research where I am hung up on what to do. There are many that I love but most would just shatter the budget. Part of me would love love love a vintage range, however, I think that I have moved past that for a number of reasons. However, there are some un-cool things about new.
Pros for new:
1. We have limited space so think a 30" range (most are 36"+ that are really old) would best fit our space, therefore, most of the ranges you will see are going to be 30"
2. I would just die for a self-cleaning oven (you should see mine now)
3. convection is not necessary but seems really cool
4. I can just imagine having easy to clean burners too
5. A locking oven is also not necessary but more child friendly
6. While yes, there are many vintage gas ranges to be found, they are harder to come by in Portland and therefore cost more money...we do want gas
7. the option of a timer to start and stop cooking is, again, not necessary but would be awesome for a gal on the go
8. I just would feel a lot safer leaving something cooking in the oven in a new oven vs. old if I had a quick errand to run, you know?

Pros for old:
1. old is just sexy
2. saving something old
3. less waste in the dump
4. less greenhouse gas emmited by using old instead of all that goes into shipping/manufacturing, etc.
5. the old ones last FOR-EV-ER

Enough of that. Some pictures of what I have found. Again, when trying to keep with 30" models, some of my options are limited. Please let me know if you have found any other great brands or options out there...my search has just begun. Also, I have yet to take reviews and consumer report ratings into account. More on that as we get closer.

Now really wanting stainless steel as we are trying to stay period appropriate, however, hard to find much else out there unless you want white or black with the plastic handles that often look so cheap to me. Just posted a couple stainless steel options but there are a million to choose from.

Most of the links are from AJ Madison Appliances as they have an awesome online search tool.

Big Chill $4200 Hefty price tag but really close to true vintage look; Now I LURV this one

Not so sure if I would use the double oven $2500 GE Cafe

Ikea $1000

Bertazzoni $3600 Red could be really fun but it's a big commitment, maybe bigger than I'm willing to make

Bertazzoni Heritage $4600 way above our budget but this is gorgeous and dead sexy

Five Star $3100 pricey again but a nice white option

Frigidaire Gallery $1600, at least the handles are stainless, less cheap looking

Heartland $5700 again, not in our budget

Verona Pro Series $3500 comes in red and black

Viking $3700 actually comes in white, red black

Elmira Stove Works Northstar $3800

Bluestar, no idea on price but comes in 190 colors!

Old House Journal Online has a nice link to information about different ranges to consider when purchasing for your bungalow kitchen.

In case you are looking to go old:

Restored Vintage Stoves
Retro Renovation has an awesome page about 26 places to buy restored vintage stoves

this stove is so gorgeous that it almost makes me forget all the reasons why I don't want an old range

Just found a business card for Classic Stove Sales & Restoration out of Los Angeles
Here is a nice link to Chambers stoves and all kinds of info about these stoves

Kitchen Layout

2011-11-28T20:07:00.000-08:00

Steve and I have been problem solving just how we will relocate our original dining room built-in to make room for new stairs to, well, upstairs, and then layout the kitchen. You can see in the previous post that we have been problem solving this little conundrum since way back before last February.

Right now, you enter the basement stairs right in the middle of the kitchen-this is no good because it basically destroys any change of putting cabinets on one wall. We only have Ben's play kitchen and a microwave cart on that wall.

Fun for Ben but not ideal in any way. The stairs to the attic area are way in the back of the house. We plan to have those be where the dining room built-in currently is; then we will have the basement stairs (they eat up all the space on that wall) go where the stairs to the attic are in the back of the house. But where does the built-in go? It goes on the wall to the left of the door to enter the kitchen like this drawing shows below from back in February.

My only worries about this is that the left side of the dining room will look really heavy with the buffet that we had built also there. I am just hoping that a brand new set of stained oak stairs with nice stained fir trim all around will help it all balance out. What do you think? Hopefully the window on the left side of the dining room will help as well.

We have played and played and played around with the kitchen layout. I really really really wanted to put a skinny row of cabinets about 12-15" deep all along the wall where Ben's play kitchen and the current stairs to the basement were. There would be lower cabinets and then a not deep counter (perfect to add more counter space) with tons for storage above, all the way to the ceiling. It would look awesome and totally allow more space to exit the back door.

However, the more we played around with the layout, we realized that there is no way we could make all the appliances fit with that arrangement. We needed to find a way to fit at least one appliance on that wall. We need to account for our current appliances (fridge (36") and range (new one will be 30") as well as a dishwasher. We will gain the funny pop out area -it was a chimney for our oil burning furnace that is no longer- behind the current range-with the remodel.

But we will have to bump into the kitchen about 8" (just on the wall where the range currently is) to account for moving the dining room built-in to the new wall. Does this make any sense?

the tape marks where the wall will bump out to

Enter new kitchen plan. We used the Ikea kitchen planner because it is free (and I am Mrs. Frugal) and it really allows you to pretty easily move around walls and put in standard cabinets as well as custom sized cabinets. Also gives appliance options. We don't plan to use Ikea cabinets but are thankful they provide this free planning tool to all. Now this plan is not by any means an end point but it IS a starting point and at least has the old gears rolling.

So there you have it. New layout. Sloppy and surely a rough draft. Pretty self-explanatory. No extra money to move a gas line because we still need to run one. We currently just have a T in the new line that was put in that is capped off so we can run it wherever. We will actually move the kitchen door entrance to the left about 15" to allot for the new layout. This will hopefully not cost a lot of extra money being that the wall will pretty much already be hacked apart with moving the built-in and putting in stairs.
You can see that we plan to put the range on the wall where the basement stairs and Ben's play kitchen currently lie (and where I was dead set on having my skinny cabinets). Putting the range on this wall was Steve's idea at first and of course I immediately gave a thumb's down (or got all pouty and mad) because I thought I was giving up all hope of my skinny cabinets.
But alas, there is hope. I decided I should try and be an adult and take in the option (we have yet to figure out another arrangement that would work). Then as I thought about it and the need to still try and find a place for my skinny cabinets, what about the wall that the back door is on?

This wall might just even be better. It allows several great things:
1.) I get skinny cabinets! woot! woot!
2.) when looking into the kitchen (like the view above), I will get to gaze at the skinny cabinets instead of an ugly fridge or (probably dirty) range. We would have put the range on that wall but currently code mandates at least 18" of counter space on either side of a range. And the wall is not long enough to accommodate a 30" range and 36" more of counter space. Makes sense. Especially when it is by a door and you have kids (or tend to trip a lot) **UPDATE** apparently there is no code in Portland (at least that we can find) that makes you have counter-space on each side of the range but it seems like a smart choice if possible
3.) It also frees up some space so there will be a bigger opening between cabinets to get to the back door (and also the area that will have the basement stairs)

Anyways, we are getting excited about it and, as seen in a previous post, I am starting to research appliances (kinda fun) and contractors (not so fun). So if you know of a good contractor to do stairs and move a precious built-in, send them our way. Also looking for a great kitchen cabinet maker. Not decided on custom or big box store yet but we would like as nice as we can get and reasonable in cost-a lot to ask for but I know we will find someone great. I also pine for flush cabinet doors and, as far as I know, that pretty much only comes custom.

Happy Turkey Day

2011-11-23T18:05:00.000-08:00

While we are not hosting thanksgiving this year, I am hoping to help my brother and sister-in-law decorate their table for the big chow down and thanks. We have a lot to be thankful for and feel so blessed. I may also add some pretty pieces of paper and nice pens to have people write their thanks on the paper and then they can put them in a nice basket or jar so that we can read them before we eat.

I found some gorgeous and simple and quick ideas for table decorations online that would also be cost free and just use things that you already have around the house.

Country Living has a number of quick pretty ideas

one of my favorite ideas, bring the outdoors in and pick leaves of all different fall colors...you could write people's names on them with a pretty gold pen

show your thanks with pictures of those you care about... I would tie the names around the tip of the pear with twine so that they would not go bad if we couldn't eat the pears in the next day or so

love the berries and the leaf with the name written on it

A great use of berries....so simple and pretty

Pumpkins

Such a pretty touch of soft green...would go so well with green kitchen tile :)

Napkins
you could use ribbon or scraps of fabric cut really thin

You could use these nuts for decor and then eat them during the holiday season...my mom always had out nuts and nutcrackers over the Christmas season while I was growing up...I deleted this link, oops!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

What we've done, what worried me

2011-11-22T09:30:00.000-08:00

**** I started this post before our re-fi went through in October but never finished it so it may seem a bit choppy****

There were a lot of little things that I accomplished over the summer, and also some big projects that we accomplished. There are a LOAD that we have accomplished since we last refinanced. Challenging myself to complete projects as well as the looming appraisal of our home for our refinance (yes, it went through!) got me, let's say, off the pot. However, there were still lots of things that ~~are unfinished~~ ~~in the middle of being finished~~ really needed to get done that I worried about for the appraisal. Fortunately, we put a pretty decent down payment on our house and we have done tons of work, so we didn't have a huge concern about whether we would qualify for the refinance, however, I still wanted to get some things wrapped up.

Here are a few of the things that I got done the week before the appraisal on our house:

siding painted after 4 years lag, but check out that sorry window

progress, it's primed (ran out with the baby monitor during naps to get the paint stripped, sand and prime) and already lookin' better

heat gun out and in action-there were all kinds of tarps below and then we vacuumed the dirt (crazy, eh?) with a shop vac just to be sure all the paint was gone-probably some of it is lead

the bottom board (and one up from there too) is so rotted (too much dirt pushed up on the side of the house) that we will need to eventually replace or figure something else out

ooooo, paint, pretty

painted and drying-our neighbors (this side of the garage lines their driveway) are singing praise or more like have finally stopped cursing us (just kidding, we have the best neighbors)

another goal: lightly sand and paint the extremely faded south side of the house

nail a board up so that the hideous insulation is hidden & the frame at least looks better, although it is only a temporary solution as the whole door needs a new frame (think a good kick or tug to open the door)

hey, check it out, let there be light!, Steve put a light in our basement "toilet"...literally a toilet with curtains stapled around it

Dexter style basement bathroom

here is a picture of our basement bathroom "walls"

another pix of that light-better than the camping lantern we used to use


sand and stain old pressure treated posts for our small gate that goes between the driveway & backyard

Steve accidentally broke the middle lower pane of glass last year and there has just been a piece of plastic there...took a trip to Coast Glass and had the glass back in in about 10 mins-just nailed the wood pieces to hold the glass back in place

nice reflection

put back in the little wood strips that hold the window in place-these have been out for 5 years now and sitting on the ledge, ready to go

more of the strips added back in for a finished look

more of the south side of the house-where the heck is that piece of trim that goes below the window? it's gone missing for 4 years now...we have since hung this board but I haven't had a chance to take a picture

And don't forget that this summer Steve has managed to strip all the paint on the back of the house and I repainted it, install an awesome ~~driveway fence & gate~~ Ben Pen and is in the process of finishing up stripping paint off the eaves and repainting.
Since our last re-fi (April 2009-just before I got knocked up : & we went to Peru), we have rebuilt our front porch and stairs to the front porch, landscaped our front yard, tiled our living room fireplace, re-plumbed the house, almost finished the bathroom remodel, plumbed out for another bathroom (basement-there is only a toilet in there and no walls), added trim in the dining & living rooms, had leaded glass made for our living and dining room built-ins, had the floors refinished and added a backyard brick patio and added a laundry chute. I know that there are a million other little things we have finished but can't really think of them right now. Not too shabby being that since that time (almost 2.5 years ago), we took a fancy trip to Peru (Inca trail & rainforest), lots of little side trips, and oh yea, baked and had Mr. Ben.

at the Portland Children's museum last month in the dig pit

How do I recall all that? Well, I suppose I could reference this handy blog here but I cheated and just looked at pictures from our last appraisal report. Boy, I forget how we used to live-amazing that it is so much better now but we still have sooooo far to go. Deck anyone? Dishwasher? Garbage disposal? No holes in our attic walls? hmmmmm....lots to do

Things that worried me...

However, we are fortunate because the re-fi went through without a hitch (despite the depressing value that the appraiser assigned to our home) and we are at it again. Hopefully we will never have to re-fi again and can refocus our energies on projects...however, who knows as it is the holiday season and while I am greatly enjoying all the holiday coffee drinks (Can anyone say pumpkin spiced latte? Peppermint mocha?), I am disgusted by the Christmas stuff that is already for sale. But have to say that we bought a living social type deal for a toy store and used it this past weekend so Ben is done for Christmas-woopty woo!

Kitchen inspiration

2011-11-21T13:02:00.000-08:00

I have a million pictures of kitchens that I love but I still research bungalow kitchen pix on a regular basis. Here are some great ones (to me at least) that came up in my latest google search.

These ones are just randoms I found online:

via Luvin the green tile on white Wood floors


more green with white The clear glass cabinets are gorgeous and I love how some run down to touch the counter via

These kitchens below I clipped and saved ages ago and am sorry that I do not have the links to them. One appears to be the front cover of an old rejuvenation catalogue

I love that some of the cabinets have glass fronts and that the sink is all framed. Also green tile again. Pretty wood floors

hidden dishwasher-probably elaborate to replicate drawers on other side of sink

love the glass cabinet doors

another view of kitchen 2 pix above

1913 kitchen. So gorgeous. I like how the cabinets under the sink are set-in. I have never seen this before

These pictures of old kitchens below all come from 1912 bungalow (we have a 1913 bungalow). Thanks for all the leg work!

Love the glass cabinets with wood uppers cabinets that flank the kitchen window

we plan to do a not very deep row of cabinets like the one above just to the wall right of our sink...also a great pull out flour bin-maybe put faux hinges on the bottom of our dishwasher to emulate this?

more glass cabinets with wood upper cabinets around windows

And some reader pic from Rejuvenation's website

glass cabinets around kitchen window & dishwasher panel

nice wall cabinet and way to hide toaster, mixer, blender, etc

green tile

Brrr, baby it's cold outside

2011-11-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

I mean inside, inside the fridge. Speaking of, it really is cold outside. High of 39 expected in P-town today. Light up the fire, babe, we're staying in tonight.
I have no idea what to do about our refrigerator. No clue which one will get a lucky ~~resting~~ working spot in our hopefully ~~soon to be~~ in the next year new kitchen. While I love, love, love the look of reproduction/vintage inspired fridges like the ones below (my sister owns and loves the Big Chill in white-you can see a little post I did a long while back about her kitchen I know, the fridge is not pictured in my post), I am not in love for my own new kitchen. I really really like the idea of a side by side fridge. Really would love a counter depth fridge as well. Energy Star is a requirement. So many decisions. But still want to keep with the historic integrity of our home which we have tried so hard to maintain with the rest of our home restoration/remodel.

The Big Chill Fridge
$1700 for an undermount-$3400 for a lower freezer full-sized option. Love all the colors and the awesome 1940s/50s styling. So much fun and what a great way to make a bold color statement in your kitchen

Elmira Stove Works Northstar
$2195 (small unit), $3000 (small unit with draft system-now isn't that awesomely awesome? $3200 (upper freezer), $4200 (lower freezer)

Elmira Stove Works Antique
$400-$5200 plus additional for options such as metal panels and ice maker

AGA Appliances
Like I said in my previous post about dishwashers, I had never heard of this appliance line until it popped up in a google search. But the refrigerator line would be especially useful to people with big 'ol kitchens that could accommodate big 'ol fancy fridges for all different uses. Like one for wines, one for sodas, one for ice. Keep 'em all separate, you know. But I'm not jealous or anything. But these fridges are so pretty and would be so awesome if you had the room and even more so the muula for them.
Anyways, I love these and would love to splurge just for the fridge (it's counter-depth which is a capital H-U-G-E to me but it has a drawer freezer which is a huge downer). However, Steve does not like it's angled lines at all.

Counter Depth Fridge ($4300)

Undercounter options $1600 (basic)-$3200 (dual drawer)

I was not able to find prices easily for the wine fridge or ice maker but stopped looking being that my kitchen is smaller than most people's closets. Ok, not that small but surely has no room for mini task specific fridges.

Smeg $1500
these little fridges are adorable and come in a million colors. Bu the price is hefty for only 9.22 cubic feet

Panel Style
Now I really like the idea of panel fridges as you can just integrate them into your cabinetry. I have spent a pretty decent amount of time looking for a cabinet-depth, panel-accepting, side-by-side, no ice maker/water on the outside fridge (yes, that is a lot of requirements) and have yet to find one. For some reason I just really like the side-by-side fridges, guess that is because it is what I grew up with. I have a bottom drawer freezer right now and pretty much hate it. I hate bending down and basically needing to empty the whole fridge to find just one item. And I feel like it is full when nothing is in there. Let me know if you find one.
I have found some fully integrated panel accepting fridges but they are way above what I want to spend on like, the whole kitchen (which I realize is not realistic for a whole kitchen overhaul, but hey, a girl can dream) at $7K and up.

Found some decent options that have the the ice maker/water on the outside but at that point, I feel like it doesn't look integrated and you may as well just stick with a white fridge. And they cost more (the one above is $2700 for just the fridge and then you need to pay for custom panels to be made). IT may not look so obvious if you put on white panels. So that is where I am leaning.

One other panel option that I may look into more is a counter-depth french door refrigerator. There are many options that do accept panels, you can supply your own door handles, therefore making the fridge really look integrated. Would be able to loose the ice maker/water on the outside of the fridge (it is still inside) but have to put up with a lower freezer. This kitchenaid model is $2500 but I bet you could find it on sale.

White fridges
This is where I think we are headed. In order to get a side by side fridge that is counter-depth, it looks like you need to be willing to deal with on door -style water and ice dispenser. Not the end of the world, but not luvin it. However, I do agree that it would be super handy to have. Margarita on the rocks anyone? You also need to be ready to pay more.
I have found a bunch of nice ones. Here are a few below. But they are pretty standard and easy to find at any big box store. Of course, I have seen none in person (well, only the outside of the ikea fridge) so Steve and I will need to take a trip to check them out as we get closer to remodeling the kitchen.

Ikea Nutid 23 $1600
Love the metal handles on this fridge. The white panel is also super sleek instead of the bumpy cheap plastic that other fridges seem to have. Wonder how it would handle fingerprints? From the pictures it appears that the ice maker takes up most of the door of the freezer and that is no good.

Whirlpool $2100

Frigidaire $899 on sale (usually $1200)

Bosch $2500
The panel on this one also looks super sleek but would need to see it in person. Nice metal handles

Also, another great idea. This person took car paint and painted a stainless steel fridge so that it would be retro 50s colorful and be nice and sleek. What a great idea.

A pix of a hardcore old skool fridge panel, ice box style. This person makes them to order

Appliances: Wash it babe, wash it

2011-11-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

So I have been cooking a wee bit more than normal these past couple weeks, but don't think that means anything elaborate. Means I have just been cooking full meals more nights than not. Usually I do half-A** meals many nights (read Trader Joes already half-way done meals) or one pot meals. Anyways, that always gets me dreaming kitchens. Dreaming oven that actually keeps an accurate temperature and cleans itself. A dishwasher that comes in form of machine, not person. A sink that is under-mount and therefore drains water correctly. A garbage disposal (although I do love our new composting in Portland and that majorly reduces my need for a disposal).
So I have started research again for our kitchen. Husband even came up with a new kitchen plan that involves moving over our doorway to enter the kitchen but is a much better layout that seems to allow everything (such as all the appliances, including a bigger fridge and a dishwasher) to fit. I was having major issues with it at first but now I am beginning to like it. More on that soon.
So here are some pix of some period-appropriate (as if there is a thing for dishwashers)/retro-inspired appliances that I have found. I think that we will be using all new appliances as I really really want the perks of modern (as in self-cleaning and energy star) appliances but would love to have the retro/vintage/old skool look as much as possible.

Dishwasher:

There are some awesome retro reproduction diswashers with panels on them. I think that I want to go with a dishwasher that just has a wood panel on the front that totally hides the dishwasher and makes it blend seamlessly in with the cabinetry (we are just starting to look into cabinet makers). May purchase the ikea dishwasher (~$600) and have whomever makes our cabinets (not ikea), make us a panel to fit. For some reason, every company thinks that they can charge more for dishwashers that need a panel-a dishwasher that they don't have to put a front on. Go figure? Maybe because the whole control panel is hidden on the top on dishwasher instead of built into the face? Just know that this will be less than the options I put below and I believe look better as well. From the research I have done, it appears that Whirlpool makes appliances for ikea and they are well rated by consumer reports.

Here are some other great dishwashers if you want people to be able to SEE your dishwasher or are adding a dishwasher to your otherwise original kitchen

The big Chill Dishwasher comes in so many cool colors.
$1700 for the full unit or $525 for just the panel

Aga Dishwasher (~$2000) I have never heard of this company but their products look really nice

Elmira stoveworks makes several different lines of dishwashers:

The turn of the century antique line ~$400 plus $175-$300 for all metal face

and the Northstar 1952 vintage line ~$400

Closet Pocket

2011-11-16T08:28:00.000-08:00

After reading through some of my outdated issues of THIS OLD HOUSE yesterday, I found a couple great, quick ideas to spruce up the house. One of the ideas I put into action QUICK. Feeling the need to organize and needed a project that showed some major results and could be accomplished during a nap.
Enter mission organize hall closet=teeny tiny not deep closet that must fit among other things: towels, meds, batteries, dog blankets & more. Now, a couple weeks ago, after having 6 guests for a week and not even using half of our towels, I realized it was time to purge towels. I got rid of a huge bag of towels and donated to my work (I work for a nonprofit in pediatric therapy and we are always in need of towels, especially washcloths and hand towels).
Then I was left with a horrifically hot mess of batteries, old cameras, phone books (they still print those??? also donated to my work-when duct taped, they make great foot rests) and endless meds, paint killers, etc.

I found that I was able to toss about 1/4 of the batteries after testing them to find out they were dead or nearly dead. Don't worry, I plan to properly recycle them.
And I was able to consolidate a lot of the meds/pain killers, etc. into smaller boxes or completely remove them from the boxes.

Then I hung up this handy shoe organize on the hall closet door. I found it for about $8 at target.

if I really love this, I will probably break down and drill some holes (gasp) in the stained door to permanently hang the organizer as right now the hanger hooks show on the outside of the door and that is no bueno

then I emptied all the contents of the upper shelf onto the dining room table and went to work. When I was done, I felt accomplished and happy, however, while I could sort of see through the pockets, I wanted a ~~husband proof~~ fool proof system so that there is no mistaking where things are and where they should return once used. Plus, I love to label. So I just grabbed some blue paper I had hanging out upstairs, cut it with my cutter and wrote labels with a sharpie. Then I just clipped them on with paper clips so I could rearrange as needed.

To be kiddo safe, all the items on the lower part of the organizer have safety proof lids or are not baby dangers (i.e. cotton swabs). We also have a knob on the door which Ben has yet to figure out. I can always lock the door as well if needed.

Pacific NW Fall

2011-11-14T19:47:00.000-08:00

I love the fall in the Pacific Northwest. Makes leaving the year-round 70 degree temps, constant sunshine and gorgeous beaches of SoCal so worthwhile. I especially love (if you can love driving to work) my drives over the 205 bridge into Vancouver in the fall. The sun is just rising, all the leaves are turning and the view of Mt. Hood is to die for.

sorry, I am not able to find the link to this

Another favorite, jumping in the piles of leaves and feeling them crunch under your feet-to die for. Pure bliss and happiness. No worries. Carefree.

Also, can't beat Forest Park & the Japanese Gardens.

via

or the view from Mt. Tabor of the river and downtown

via

I really just love going on walks around our neighborhood

The plants in our yard

The view from our windows

Or enjoying our first fire of the year

Love watching Ben play in the leaves this weekend as we were cleaning up leaves at a rental home that we manage. He loved it and was such a good helper.

Life continues to be super busy and big house projects have slowed temporarily. We have become, once again, overwhelmed by the "stuff" in our home and are focusing and clearing out and organizing more of it. Hopefully we can make some progress soon and feel up to gettin' down and dirty in some home restoration/renovations soon. Hope you have had some time to enjoy fall as we have.

BOO! EEK! OOOO!

2011-10-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures of this year's decorations and festivities! I love halloween! Enjoy your day!

the bats are just bats cut out from construction paper and taped inside the shade

I got the crow & black tree from dollar store & the bronze pumpkin from Home Goods last year but the rest of the decor are pass me downs from my mom (you should see her stash)

I just made this pillow and I cost me under $7-super easy. idea from Pinterest

I also found a couple fun ideas on Pinterest....forgot to take pictures but here are the pictures from Pinterest:

link

at the pumpkin patch last weekend riding the hay trailer

Ben couldn't take his eyes off the tractor that was pulling us out to the pumpkin patch

the girls riding out to the patch

why the heck am I sitting on an orange thing in the middle of a field?

ok, this could be fun!

And then there was pumpkin carving last weekend at our friends' Chris & Jason's house...sadly my owl pumpkin did not survive the week....I found all melted on the front porch yesterday :(

my owl. idea from Pinterest (can you tell I'm obsessed with this website?)

Our little lion trying on one of his costumes...this was a pass me down from his cousins Will& Henry-thanks!

and we hosted a little pumpkin carving gathering at our place on Saturday-here are some of the results: E.T. won best pumpkin! Steve carved the puss n boots and snoopy. He takes his carvin' seriously. It was funny to see a bunch of guys drinkin' and carvin' the night away

And our costumes for the year-made by yours truly...while I bought my dress, I made the my head scarf, borrowed the hats, and got the swords form the dollar store. I made boot covers (can't really see at all) from a chalk-board type material they sell at Jo-anns...just wrapped some newspaper around Steve & Ben's legs to make a pattern and sewed a couple lines. I made Steve's vest by buying 2 yards of cheap brown fabric and using one of his dress shirts as a template. Steve's shirt is a woman's dress shirt from value village that I bought for a few bucks and stained with coffee so that it was not bright white. The rest of the costumes are fashioned from things we have, such as taking a tuxedo vest of Ben's (a pass me down, I know, ridiculous that an 18 month old has a tuxedo) and turning it inside out and sewing on some gold buttons. I had all the red and black & white stripped fabric from costume's past. What a blast for less than $30 total!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

We've had quite a bit going on in the house these past weeks, including a week long visit from my brother and 5 of his good friends-we can't believe that we had room for all 6 of them and that we survived for a week! Anyways, more posts soon on house updates but we just wanted to wish you a

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

these are some pictures and a video of our "haunted porch" from last year!

yet another reason to love our porch!

Fall is in the air

2011-10-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Had to have a little fun this past weekend as I love fall! And it's October so must mean it's time to to do a few fall craft projects.

First I planted a few fall mums as our summer flowers were dying. At just a $1 a plant from Home Depot, they add a nice fall spruce-up to our front porch

In addition, I also decided that I wanted to do a free little fall craft. I had two hurricanes left from our wedding 5 years ago (Happy Anniversary Honey..it's later this week) and a bunch of little fall craft pumpkins and fake insects. I simply layered them in the hurricane and viola-all fallish (that's a word, right?)! and free! I need to get a better dripless candle for one of them before I light it but otherwise, good to go! One for the dining room table and one for the front porch.

Also, we sneaked in one last camping trip 2 weekends ago with our good friends in Seattle. It was Benj's 30th birthday. We camped just two hours east of Seattle (more precisely 30 miles west of Leavenworth, for those who are familiar with Washington). It was a blast and inspired us to find a little off-the-beaten path camping site near Portland. Happy to report that the weather was clear, crisp and gorgeous until Saturday night.

Megan (who I've known for 20+ years), Benj (the birthday boy) & baby Evan

Megan, Melissa (Megan's sister) & me with all our little munchkins

Ben's "smile face" which I can't get enough of

dirty man

Steve and Porter cooking some dutch oven breakfast

a dutch oven birthday cake-pineapple upside down

look mom!

A truly dry basement-fixing from the outside

2011-10-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

One reason (there are not many right now) that we like our basement is that it is pretty dry.

ugh, what an unfinished mess

There is just one spot where the water just pours in (well, not really pours but there is definitely a pool of water after a heavy rain). It has really been buggin Steve. So, last night he decided to tackle it. You know, rainy season here comin' real soon for those folks who don't live in these parts.

it's dry right now but this is our not dry spot...right at the bottom of the stairs and near the washer/dryer...can't tell you how many times my socks have gotten wet as a result of rain pouring in

Steve pretty much figured out that the rain is coming in from right below our back door threshold. We don't need a permanent solution as we plan on replacing the deck next summer....it's truly horrid.

area that needs some sort of weather protection

project manager

SO we decided that adding some flashing might help repel the water away from the house & basement.

1. Steve first used a skil saw to cut down the wood just in front of the threshold so that he could insert the flashing there

2. He then played around with several different pieces of flashing that we had on hand to figure out what would best repel water away

Steve used tin snips to cut the flashing to size...he used several different pieces to stretch the width of the deck as it was too difficult to bend and fit on an `8' piece...he overlapped the pieces when he installed. We may add some caulking for extra protection later just before we put the deck board back on

3. Steve then bent the flashing so that he would be able to put the deck board back on later. He used some blunt nose pliers for this part

aren't you done yet? I'm bored.

4. Then found out that he bent it the wrong way-oops! and not fun, so rewind and restart

5. Used some roofing nails we had on hand to attach the flashing

Tonight we need to rip down the deck board a bit using a table saw so that it can fit back in place and accommodate the new flashing. It is just sort of resting in place right now (So Porter can get out his doggie door which is just to the left of the back door).

The basement was dry this morning after some night rain!

Woodworking 101

2011-09-29T17:13:00.000-07:00

When I read about Sharon over at Laurelhurst Craftsman Restoration taking a woodworking class, I e-mailed here about joining. We had our first class (through Portland Community College) last night at Franklin High School.
The class cost helps to benefit the Landers Bree Foundation, a foundation that was set up to help support the woodworking shop at Franklin High School as well as teach students (many with disabilities) trade skills.
We ~~learned to use~~ became familiar with several tools at the class including a chop saw and a table saw (I already have used these a bit at home) as well as a jointer and planer-pretty cool tools and a little intimidating.
We will get to make a paddle board (he said that could be used for food prep or old school whalloping). cutting board, box with lid & dovetail joints as well as a plant stand. I hope that I can sort of adjust the guide of the plant stand to make a side table instead.

jointer & planer

perfect piece of wood that I created

wouldn't it be cool if I could make this? um, yea

Mr with his hoard of animals

Refinancing our home

2011-09-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

We have been keeping busy with any number of things recently. Another thing that we decided to add to our list (and weren't planning on or even thinking about) was to refinance our home. We were browsing rates and were shocked at how low the rates have gotten.

After doing some calculations, we found out that we were able to refinance our place for a 15 year loan and pay less than $100 more than our initial rate that we got when we bought our home 5 years ago. We refi'd just about 1 1/2 years ago so will be paying more than what we currently pay by a few hundred as the new refi rate is for 15 years and our previous loans were 30 year terms.

We have found an amazing refinance lady in the Portland area-Ann Hays with NW Mortgage (phone: 503-439-9191)-she makes the process pretty much painless and we have been able to do the whole process by phone and e-mail which is awesome for us. Lugging a toddler to an office is not our idea of fun.

It basically takes a 10 minute or so phone call to talk with Ann (or whomever you are working with) and figure out if the numbers all make sense. She then e-mails a check list of things (W-2s, paystubs, bank statements) that she needs to process it all (I just downloaded statements or scanned them in and e-mailed them off) and if you give the ok, she will lock in a low low rate for you.

Then, you pretty much pay an appraiser a bunch of money (I believe it is about $400) to come assign a value to your home (we are currently trying to feverishly finish up projects before the appraiser comes sometime this week or next). If the appraisal goes along with what you owe on the home (you'll know after a few days), then you wait for all the paperwork to be processed and meet to sign final documents. Then you get to skip a month on your mortgage before starting with the new mortgage.

I wonder who will "buy" our home this time? It's cute and well loved, I promise.

Here are a few websites that look pretty decent for info on refinancing your home. many of them have refi calculators that help you figure out how much you will save if you refi.

DO IT...NOW! You'll be glad you did!

Eeek! There's a mouse in the house

2011-09-26T13:29:00.000-07:00

I have to say I am a little embarrassed to admit, but we have a serious mouse issue in our house. Not talking Hoarders serious, but any mouse is serious to me. PS, Are you obsessed with any Hoarders show like me....can't get myself to stop watching even though it is just completely gruesome. But it does put me in the mood to purge, clean and organize my own house so let's call it therapy of sorts-for free!
Wish I could say this post was about finding an original version of the mouse trap game...remember that game, by the time you put it together, you were exhausted and didn't even want to play the game?

via

Anyways, I digress.
So we really do have a serious mouse issue. My mom first said that she heard something in our walls when visiting last spring, which of course I ignored and thought to myself, we couldn't possibly have mice. Well, it took us finding there droppings and lots of snacks eaten before we believed it. Then I thought, it could REALLY only be ONE because we're not THOSE people. Turns out we are.

Old Skool trap via

SO the first mouse was easy. It was coming into the kitchen through our junk drawer and eating some old easter candy or something like that-not even good chocolate so it was all cool. Just dropped an old skool trap at the back and he was caught that night, however not dead as it trapped on his leg and Steve had to take him outside to put him out of misery.
And I haven't mentioned that I am deathly afraid of dead mice. I have been known to crouch in the corner and cover my eyes when Steve is carrying one out and I really hate finding them dead-eek! Live ones are ok-not in love but ok. I had a pet mouse named Ellen when I was a kid-she was cool. Trained and all and we would just chill together.
Anyways, fast forward 6ish months and we thought, after catching nearly a dozen mice (nasty, I know) and we thought they were gone. We found them in the attic, basement and kitchen. We boxed all of our food (what a treat-it feels like we are unpacking from just moving or something, having to go into plastic tubs everytime we want to eat something that is in a cardboard box or plastic bag) or put it into cool old glass jars (that is neat and was on my to-do list anyways).

However, we came home almost 2 weeks ago from camping and I noticed that the peanut butter was gone from our kitchen pantry trap but there was no mouse and no trap activation. Looks like we still had a mouse and that it had gotten so hot that the metal on most of our traps had warped so therefore the traps no longer worked. Then comes this past Sunday night when Steve saw the little bugger scamper across our living room (3 nights in a row) and then we heard it in our bedroom while we were in bed-true nastiness.
So last Monday came and I went trap crazy. Went to the hardware store and bought 12 new old skool traps, 4 sticky traps (which our friends who lived in NYC and had a true mouse problem (12 in one day) swear by) as well as bait. They (the traps) are everywhere that the dog and kiddos can't reach.
One week later and still no mice.

Last night Steve saw the mouse in question run right under the living room chair and under the built-in by our tv-there is a drawer there so therefore a handy little place for a mouse to scurry and get access to the basement. So up went the traps. Two sticky and one old skool. And this morning, mouse caught. Who knows if we have more, but I will rest a a little better tonight knowing that we are getting closer. Just in time for cold weather again and more mice to need a warm little bungalow to nestle in for the winter.

BUT HOW DO YOU TRAP MICE:
I did some extensive research and let me tell you, you can spend a lot of money. There are all kinds of options. We opted for the old skool option, and just when I started to go crazy last week, added the posion (conceled to prevent animals & kiddos from reaching) as well as the sticky traps.
You can do:

old skool
poison pellets or poison conceled to keep from pets & kids eating
via
electric traps (these are supposed to be quite effective but seemed a bit much at $20+ a pop
via
sticky traps
electronic noise transmitters that are supposed to scare them off
via
home-made traps with a bucket
via

But basically you will have the most luck by setting out multiple traps along the walls where you have seen mice, one website recommended a trap every 3-4'. We read the baiting them up with peanut butter is best (you can also add some bird seed or crushed cereal if you want the bait to be extra enticing).
It also helps to block all exterior holes in your home. Mice can get in through as small as a 1/4" hole in the wall. It is recommended that if you are not going to permanently seal with a plastic material, wood or caulking, that you use steel wool-mice can easily eat through something like cardboard or insulation. Unfortunately, we pretty much feel like it would be impossible to close all the holes in our home being it's age but we are trying.
I hope this post is of no use to you because that would mean you don't have mice. :)

Paint, paint, paint

2011-09-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Now that we are back in town, we are quickly realizing that the days are getting shorter and this awesome summer will soon come to an end. and we still have a lot to check off our lists as far as outdoor projects go. Would be outside painting right now but both the little ones are napping and not sure if one baby monitor will pick up both of them. I did make a quick trip outside to do a few minutes of sanding on the garage and slapped some primer on the places I sanded. I think I can sneak out one more time to put the first coat of green over that primer since it should be dry soon. Just no time to start the whole second coat of paint.
Over the weekend, Steve finished all the little touch ups on the back of the house and then I did the first coat of green Saturday morning (completing the last strokes just as the sun went up over head and painting needed to stop) and the second Sunday morning. Also got super motivated and decided that it was high time to put some green paint up on the south side of our garage (if you recall from the spring, Steve removed all the old yellow paint and primed it). This is the part of our garage we never see as it basically comes up to the neighbor's driveway and planter bed. Sorry, neighbors, we love you and apologize for being such slackers and this taking so long. Just sort of put it out of our minds and left you with some ugly.

After First coat:

All finished with the exception of some trim painting, fixing some paint on the back door and updating/fixing the electrical switch for the back deck light

guess we might want to put the dog door back together now

wow does the deck stick out like a dangerous eye sore

And some pix of the garage with boards in place to glue a couple pieces of the lap board siding back together and with the first coat of paint up

the bottom wood rotted as soil was pushed up against it. we obviously moved the soil away but still need to figure out a way to keep the soil away from now on

And the project Steve started, or began again, after a 4 year siesta....stripping the paint from the front and rear rafters and painting them. We don't think there will be time to start the back of the boards (which are virtually unseen), but Steve at least hopes to get the front visible portions complete before fall (and RAIN) officially begins. This project is no fun, hence the four year siesta. Four years? Four summers ago (our first summer in our home as we got the keys Sept 1, 2006) we spent the ENTIRE summer stripping all the paint off the lap board siding of the house and hand nailing all new shingles as the old ones had rotted under the aluminum siding. At some point I will try to post more pictures of our process to remove the aluminum siding, strip paint and hang shingles.

And Ben on Saturday morning...because I like him and he makes me happy :)

A little vaca done the Wright way

2011-09-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

I have been missing from the whole blogging world for a bit because we took a family vacation to the Midwest last week. I know, crazy, why waste a few of the last beautiful summer days in the Pacific Northwest to go on vacation in Nebraska and Kansas? Well, we went to celebrate Steve's cousin's, Angie's, wedding to her partner Mindy. They had their legal ceremony in Iowa the Friday before Labor Day weekend and then had their marriage celebration and reception on a beautiful garden farm property Saturday. We were so thankful to be there and it was awesome to see Steve's family.

Ben was a hoot at the wedding, getting his dance on in the side gazebo. I caught a little video of it but am so sad to say that it somehow and I really have no clue how, got erased from our camera. The rest of the pictures were taken by my sister-in-law so I have nothing else to show for the night

While in Lincoln, Nebraska we took some time to visit a couple local parks and drive the neighborhoods. It is an adorable little town/city and there are some gorgeous old homes. Steve's grandparents lived in Lincoln and raised Steve's dad there.

Steve has many fond memories from visits with his grandparents there. We also stayed in Omaha for a night as that is where we flew in (way cheaper). We visited the Omaha zoo which is pretty awesome, Hay street market area which has awesome old buildings and brick streets and is on the water. Our hotel also had a water parks of sorts (more like a water features and two little slides) which was like Disneyland for Ben.

After Lincoln, Steve flew home (to bring home the bacon, you know), and I met up with my friend, Kelly in Wichita. She moved there a couple years ago as her husband is doing his medical residency there. They have a precious four month old little laddie named Bram.
While hanging outs looks slightly different from grad school days (girls nights, bars and more to burping and walks), Ben & I had an awesome little visit and it was so so good to see Kelly and her fam. Ben's first flight last year was at just 3.5 weeks old-we flew to Vegas for their wedding. We did get in a little day trip to the Wichita Zoo.

playing at Bram's place and breaking in his toys

this pix cracks me up-Ben has developed a new fear of large animals and I couldn't keep myself from laughing

Kelly with Ben & Bram

and on one of our walks through College Park in Wichita, we were just walking, walking, walking and I was checking out all the awesome gorgeous old homes. more like drooling over them and their prices (compared to Portland and Los Angeles where I grew up), and I am looking at this one and thinking that it reminds me of a Frank Lloyd Wright. and then Kelly is like, oh yea, that's a Frank Lloyd Wright and I was like "stop in your tracks" drool. stop. (break out my iphone, asking Kelly a million questions) drool more. "Kelly, does someone live here?" Kelly: "I don't know. They never have cars parked in their driveway. That driveway is blocked. Sometimes they have cars parked on their grass. The blinds are always pulled closed." drool again. Wipe drool with a million burp cloths packed. A million thoughts run through my mind. Tell Kelly that probably block driveway to maintain original concrete and probably pull blinds because Wright often built furniture to go with house and may be protecting it.

side view

side front

historical marker plaque

driveway to left of front house

view to left of driveway, visitors park on the grass

Another house in the neighborhood:

Anywho, of course I google "Frank Lloyd Wright Wichita" that night and I found out that it is the 1915 Allen-Lambe Frank Lloyd Wright and now it's a museum. But (bring out the violin) you have to make a private tour reservation 10 days in advance. Next time I visit Wichita I am so going on a tour.

here are some pix from the link above:

And us on our way home after a long vacation....Ben was a dream on the first flight and during our layover, the second flight (where we were in the last row by the window with the lady in front of us reclining her seat) was a different story-let's just say I ordered a beer half way through. :) but we made it and it was a great vacation but we're so glad to be home!

Bought a gate pull

2011-09-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

After scouring many of the local vintage shops as well as hardware and salvage stores here in Portland, I decided it was high time to turn to the interwebs again (this is what Steve calls them). I wanted to find a gate pull stat. Nothing was found on etsy. but ebay had a few options. I came across this rusty brother. Perfect size at 9" tall and asking to be hung proud (just realized this is bit phalic but totally unintentional). Figured that I could sand and spray him if he was too rusty. Not too ugly of a design either. And just $14.33 after shipping- I paid an extra few pennies to get priority mail instead of the super slow mail.
Couldn't get a picture to download so either click on the link or see this similar one found here

only mine is no reproduction newbie.

Now that we really do (gosh, I hope) have all of our gate hardware, we just need to find some time to get it all in.

Sat & Sun, the last 2 days

2011-08-29T10:09:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a productive day as the weather gods were kind to us (As they were not to most of the east coast and we have had you all in our thoughts) as it never got too hot to be outside. In attempt to once again avoid sanding and working on the house siding (I was also on Ben watch), Ben and I turned to the north side of our house which is just a mess of a forest. Anyways, we pulled out most of the weeds and then Steve finished up later. He also took out an old tree stump while he was at it.

Late in the afternoon, Steve talked me into a quick trip to wood waste management to picked up a 1/2 yard of hemlock mulch (we like the dark color and especially like that it is splinter free) in exchange for happy hour at McMennamins Kennedy School. Steve went to town spreading mulch as soon as I got home. We like the results! What a difference about 45 minutes of work does. We still need to figure out if we want to keep all the used bricks (from our chimney and a past dumpster diving trip)...I am opting to let them go (at least most of them) in attempt to clean out the casa. Long term we plan to extend the back yard gate further out in the side yard.

Saturday I also patched and glued the rest (or so I thought) of the siding on the back of the house.
Sunday morning we sanded a ton and then Steve found a bunch of spots that I forgot to glue (oops). We decided to not finish gluing and instead prime the wood...well, we got halfway through priming and we hope to finish up the priming during evenings this week.

Day 12

2011-08-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

and I promise that my last day for counting and this challenge will be Sunday, day 14. I think it has almost gone on long enough and I am now in the mood to work on this old casa and get it looking ~~shiny new~~ ~~back to the early 1900s~~ just how we want it

So today, I got a babysitter in the am (I know, gasp, what a splurge) because shopping (the browsing and thinking about how it would work in your house type of shopping) just doesn't go hand in hand with a 16 month-old. He's cute and all and maybe could help me score a discount (just so they can get me out the door so as to not risk the babe breaking their precious goods), but no fun. So I hit up one yard sale that I just happened upon after hitting up a terrible (and I mean terrible) estate (year right, more like yard) sale.

While I still came home empty-handed as far as bathroom adornment goes, I did find a couple fun items and enjoyed myself immensely.

some fun vintage faux-wood bangles for $3

Initially I was thinking that maybe I would spray paint them white and put them upstairs in the guest room to add a fun twist. At only $2 for the owls, I didn't mind playing with some paint. But then I realized that being solid brass and ~7" tall with a nice patina going on, they might work well in the living room. I also love how the lines in the table are similar to the lines formed under the crossing of the branches. I used to have a plant under our little living room side table. However, the plant was not fond of no light and baby hands pulling at it. I have wanted to find a replacement item for the little shelf but could not think of something baby proof. My only worry is that this could possibly hurt some toes if it fell being that it is pretty heavy. Ben is pretty good at understanding "no" right now and knows that table is off limits.

Well, those are my finds. I will spare you pictures of the little plastic tractors I found for Ben for $.50 a piece. And, yes, I promised pix of the fun metal chairs from 1979 (you can see the engraving of 79 on the side and underneath the chairs, written in sharpie is Burbank Ward 7/79) that I scored yesterday on Hawthorne while in a vintage store.

Days 10&11-Weds & Thurs

2011-08-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

and I'm behind and quickly forgetting what I did when so hopefully I will get caught up. The hardest days to blog (they all seem hard with a million house project and a little one running around) are Monday and Tuesday because I have two kiddos under my wing (although I often get in some hard core blog time during naps). So really those are probably the easiest days for me to blog.
Let's try this again. The hardest days are actually Wednesday (yesterday) and Thursday (today). Have you all heard that obnoxious song about how After Wednesday comes Thursday-cracks me up BUT at least I have a song to refer to when I forget the song about the days of the week that I learned in preschool. or wait, didn't I also learn it in Spanish class (can hear it now... lunes, martes...)?

anyways, terrible but cracks me up at the same time.

Soooo, because Wednesday comes first, that is where I will begin.

But back up to Tuesday as Steve also worked more on sanding on Tuesday night while I sorta putzed around outside trying to come up with excuses as to why I could not part-take in helping to fix the siding or sand. I ended up hanging up the little $.50 yard art that I bought at that garage sale last weekend and also glued some more boards together.

sorta cheesy but better than the deteriorating fence

OK, so on Wednesday (drum roll please) we did absolutely nothing. Except share some delicious homemade lasagna and a bottle of vino. How fantastic. Steve's bro had to cancel our hoard fest so we just cancelled work all together for the evening.

Ben beating the heat Weds night

Thursday: I put in my time hunting for the perfect little adornment for our stark and plain bathroom wall. I went to quite a few local thrift shops including lounge lizard, a 60s/70s shop on 20th-ish & hawthorne, ReRun on 7th and Fremont and Seek the Unique on SE 6th & Taylor. It's right near Rejuvenation. Also went to a cool little Store on ne 33rd-ish & hawthorne and bought some sweet kid's metal folding chairs. I will need to post a pic soon as they are in the car and need to come into their new home. They were a screaming deal on sale for $5 a piece, marked down from $10. These things could withstand a nuclear bomb they are so sturdy. Ben is still a little small for them but can't wait to put them by an equally cool (and sturdy) little table someday.
Here are a couple cool finds (did not purchase) at Seek the Unique. I forgot to take pix in the rest of the stores-got too excited at the prospect of shopping without little man by my side.

lure the spirits?

jewelry? bills?

and Thursday night I blogged and tidied the house while Steve did some more sanding outside. He hopes to have the back all primed and ready for some Green paint by Saturday evening.

doesn't look too different from last week but we promise that it is gettin' there

Week 2 of Challenge

2011-08-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

It's already been a week and I managed to work on at least a project a day-enter pat on back. If you recall back to 8 days ago, I challenged myself to work on a house project for at least a few minutes a day to get myself back in the mood of working on the house and get some of those little projects crossed off the list.

this wall above the toilet is screaming "adorn me"

Day 8: nothing, remember, I told myself I only needed to get things done 5/7 days. ok, well I should say nothing to show. I have been wanting to get some art for above the toilet in the bathroom and have wanted to pull some blue (gasp!-I generally use no blue in my house and have pretty much avoided it at all costs to this day) into the bano. I am thinking something peacock-y and have been doin' some lookin' on etsy and ebay. Have some ideas in mind but would like to hit up some local shops first-I will keep you updated. Hope to get blue towels to match. Mix it up a bit. Add in something unexpected. Our home is a bit to predictable at the moment.

Day 9: Tuesday. My friend Chris, lighting extraordinaire came by and helped me hang the awesome light that I bought off of him last month when we were selling things together at a little antique/salvage rummage sale in front of Old Portland Hardware here in Portland.

Well, I love the light, but it has a few issues and most will be able to be fixed pretty easily.

laundry chute

another view of laundry chute

hangs so low that Steve, being 6'2", almost hits his head on it each time he walks by

move hideous make-shift "bathroom" cabinet. This requires building a built-in to go in front of the laundry chute in the bathroom-hopefully will get this done in the next 6 months, that will be almost 2 years since we started the bathroom remodel. Timely, right? (enter sarcasm, which I try to use often)
raise up light several inches and adjust wiring accordingly. Chris is able to help with this but needs to bring over the right tool to do so
get 40 watt bulbs, easy, just a trip up the street to the local home do-it store. All I had at home was 60 watt and I need sunglasses to use the light right now...got some! way better
possibly get new shades for the light. The ones on there were free from Chris and are pretty but not quite my style. Thinking of getting ones to match the ones in the bathroom. Harmony is bliss.
this is the tricky part, it appears that this fixture still has knob and tube wiring and is therefore whonky as is the bathroom light. Needs a new box and wiring. This project will have to wait until we demo our upstairs.

But none-the-less, I heart this light and really think it is pretty. I hope to re-use the previous light upstairs at some point...maybe in the stairwell. However, I don't think the stairwell is equipped to handle any sort of light fixture right now, do you?

light fixture that previously hung in the hallway and below the shade, ignore dust, I will blame it on constant construction instead of lack of dusting :)

looking up our stairs to the attic. check out the hot ceiling work and lovely 80s wallpaper

more hotness

from Rejuvenation

Also, I love how the new light in our hallway goes so well with the one in our bathroom (yes, feel free to scroll up to check out the way the new light looks again:). It will look even better once it has square shades to go along with the other square shades.

Days 6 & 7

2011-08-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

and got a bit done.

Sat am we walked to breakfast at Bumblekiss on Fremont and sat on their patio and enjoyed a yummy breakfast with perfect weather. On the way home, I picked up this ~14"x14" decorative grate for $.50 at a garage sale we happened upon and plan to nail it up on our backyard fence sometime soon-that fence is hideous so can use any help.

Steve and I spent a couple hours working on the back of the house. The lapboard siding paint has flaked horribly-we think it is do to the wood sitting for several months without being painted (we stripped the paint 4 years ago in the spring but did not get it painted until early fall) and getting tons of sun and heat during the long summer days. The shingles part of the siding is just fine. We are trying to re-prep it for a new coat of paint by the end of the summer. We also used flat paint on the siding which is probably contributing to the demise of it.
Steve stripped (with a heat gun). scraped the paint with a 4" scraper and sanded (combo of 60 grit paper and orbital sander) the chipping paint while I glued back together some of the boards that have splintered badly.

The splintered boards were previously covered be a HUGE (and that is an understatement) deck built by the previous home owners that stretched the width of the house and covered 2/3 of the backyard, making a less of 10' area of useable ground. We hated it being that a. it was ugle b. it was up high so you felt like you were on a perch and anyone walking on the street behind could see you c. we had virtually no grass d. it was ugly. I digress. Steve uncovered the lowest two boards a couple years back in a frantic rage of needed to deconstruct something mindlessly. While this can be good and has led to our awesome brick patio, it has left ugly siding and a truly hideous deck. Anyways, hoping to have the siding prettier by the end of the summer.
For gluing, I used a very scientific method to get out the slightly hardened (yet new unopened bottle) of Gorilla glue, the I wet the wood I wanted to glue per the directions, squeezed glue onto nail using scientific method and smeared on wood. The we pushed wood together by either nailing below using a finish nail (easy to go back and patch as most areas glued would not accept a clamp) or clamped the wood. Last I scraped off the extra glue using some old cardboard and then we waited for the magic to happen.

used a dental pic (from the Hoard which Steve's dad used for model planes) to take out any extra paint flakes in the cracks; monitor is vital as the babe was sleeping and we were takin advantage of the precious time sans babe

think it needs help? Think there used to be stairs here?

scientific method

spreading glue-this is actually time consuming

removing extra glue to cut down on sanding

There is still quite a bit of sanding that needs to get done and I need to glue the other side (to the left of our back door) of the siding

Day 5-Friday

2011-08-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

Friday marked day 5 and yes, it was a success! Steve took the day off work as he had to travel to San Fran for the day Thursday and it ended up being a day that lasted from 4:30am Th to 1am Fri do to a super delayed flight. Anyways, he slept in while I snuck in a couple house projects.

we still need to caulk around the tub (and yes, it's been a year since we had it reglazed), so I cleaned the grouted areas really well and hope to get that finished up this weekend

Also, fixed up a few things in the babe's room. Took down the adorably cute handmade mobile as I realized this week that Ben could totally grab it (for some reason I guess he hasn't realized yet that he could) and then it would be a potential strangulation hazard. you should have seen me standing on the crib rail trying to reach up to the 9' ceiling to take it down.

and re-hung the Audubon print that some how fell down (and thankfully landed in a pile of pillows, therefore not shattering) a couple weeks ago. Yes, I realize that one of the prints fell down in the frame but I hesitate to add any adhesive to the back of the print because it is part of an antique collection and I do not know if it has value. Any ideas on how to fix it? I have tried putting paper behind in and some foam but it does not seem to work. Maybe I need larger foam or some cardboard.

Also finally hung the Rejuvenation Copper No Soliciting sign that we have had sitting in our front entry way with a drill and drill bits for the last month. I realize that this is a total splurge at $37 but I justified it being that I found no other pretty signs after searching for several years and I hate solicitors. My friend suggested that we just try making one but first of all, do I have the time? NO. and I figured that by the time a got a custom cut piece of copper and all the supplies, I wouldn't save much money. Also, we have spent drillions of hours working on the outside of our home and tons of money and dag nabbit, I want a pretty sign that tells annoying strangers to stay the bleep away and not bother us. :) Anyways, got a 20% coupon for one item at Rejuvenation a month or so ago and since we had nothing else we needed at the time, I decided to go for it. AND we luv it! Totally worth the cost.

After doing that, we took a quick trip to Winks hardware (they are only open M-F) to return the fence gate latch that did not work with our small gate between our driveway Ben pen and backyard (yes, nice gate hardware that works with our setup is apparently a bitch to find) and bought a new latch for our large Ben pen gate (and no, sadly, our the hardware we ordered for the front gate did not work either). I luv winks, those people are so helpful and they seem to have it all.

new Ben Pen gate hardware

While we were at it, I wanted new Black (and yes, they cost too much) stoppers for the door stopper we plan to put on our bathroom door to keep the glass doorknob from hitting our little cabinet by the sink each time we open the door.

After all that, we took off to Sauvie Island beach for the afternoon and went blueberry picking as well. The weather could not have been better and we had a blast. If you are going to Sauvie Island beach, I highly recommend driving all the way past Collins Beach (unless u are into nude beaches and want to just stop there) to the little area a mile or so further down the road. The beach is gorgeous and the water is shallow and warm.

Days 3 & 4 & already slackin'

2011-08-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

I'll admit that I actually started slacking night 2. I posted on night two that I was about to put the second coat of paint on the chipping front porch areas. Well, after gettin' cozy on the couch and having a glass of vino, that plan went out the window really quickly.

Day 3: Last night we had our weekly (which recently has not been weekly) hoard fest. What is hoard fest? Well, once a week we try to have Steve's brother and his wife over and I cook dinner. Then we retreat (sounds so pleasant doesn't it?) to the basement where we go through stuff. Stuff? Yes, stuff that belonged to Steve's parents. I call it the hoard. We sold their house in 2008 and brought about 3000sq feet of their "stuff" to our basement. Anyways, there is lots more to the story but I would really really like to finish going through the stuff as do the boys and Greg's wife, Amber. I feel like we can't start our major dormer addition/upstairs remodel until we go through everything. And it is a chapter in our lives that we would like to close. And we are SOOOO CLOSE! Seriously not too much left, but it's the hard stuff, like photos and papers. and collections. Anyways, I will count hoard fest as my Day 3 project. Got rid of several large boxes of trash/recycle and need to take a load to Goodwill.

Day 4: finished coat two for the front porch. woo-hoo! caught up from day 2
Then I discovered (much to my delight) that Steve had attached all but one (I guess it's missing?) of the post caps to the new fence! Yea, wanted to do that this weekend but it's done. That tricky boy, got one past me.
So onto a couple other little projects that drive me nuts on a daily basis.

Doors: we had our wood floors refinished in Oct. 2009-yup, almost 2 years ago. had to remove the doors to our closet bedrooms "(as well as hall closet door and bedroom doors). At the same time I took advantage of the opportunity to strip the hinges for all the doors. Well, we of course rehung the doors but ever since then both of the closet doors have failed to close all of the way. Didn't used to bother me too much. But now it does. Daily.

luv this 6 in 1 screwdriver that was under $5 from Home Depot-keep it in our built-in desk for easy access

Why? because we have a little munchkin who loves to open & close doors as well as hide in dark spaces (which includes closets). Yes, adorable BUT not lovely when he starts pulling out the shoes you just put away or dumps the toys you are trying to keep put. And you can't close the door. Well, I currently can get it to stick shut but that is just bothersome.
So, how to fix it? I tried to tighten the screws on Ben's door just before he went to bed but that did not help. Will maybe need engineer (translation: husband) 's ideas tomorrow on how to fix.
Bedroom door fortunately just required tightening the screws but now the strike plate does not line up correctly so I have another project for the list.

strike plate is too high-no clue what happened here

Befuddles me how these things work just fine til you take them down. Maybe it was the hardware stripping that did it.

Mini Project 2: Toilet bolts
We put in our new toilet a year ago March now. all in, all secure, but no bolt caps. And it's just ugly if you ask me. and a pet peeve. especially since we have such a pretty toilet. So I took care of it and it took me less than 10 minutes. and I only broke one saw blade. Just need a little adhesive to fully attach them now.

What our bathroom looks like with those ugly bolts showing all the time. Sans the tools. actually that is a lie because I would not find it weird to walk into our bathroom and find tools in there. Would probably think nothing of it. I heart home restoration. Note folded toilet paper-this make me laugh and I promise, just did it for the picture, we are surely not tidy like that. Nor do we have a maid.

Enter deco hex bolt cap. Purchased from Rejuvenation. I think that they were around 6 bucks a piece, maybe 4. A far cry from the plastic crap they sell at the big box stores. But of course I got them on sale-I am frugal and I rarely buy things full price. However, they only appear to sell these in stores and not online. Speaking of Rejuvenation, they are having a bath sale right now but I believe it ends in the next few days so stock up if you have a bano remodel coming up.


Cap doesn't fit, expected this

So I broke off the first little bit with pliers but then had to saw the rest off

broke the blade sawing the second side but still was able to finish-yea team Skye!

doesn't it look sooo much better? I think so. and that fun little vintage metal can-an estate sale find for a few bucks that I got several years ago. Still can't decide if I should spray it a new color but how I luv it so.

Day 2

2011-08-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

this day has been a success! The kiddos were easy going this morning and I was actually able to vacuum and mop before their naps as well as fold a load of laundry! I laid out painting supplies just before their naps and then I was off! speedy like the horse races. This included the primer, black (actually not pure black but close enough) paint, green porch paint, teeny tiny brush, paint stick and paint can opener). I was able to do all of my black painting (front and back door thresholds as well as the black risers by our front stairs. I also primed all the spots I sanded last night on the front porch and staircases. Nap 2 allowed me to put on the first coat of paint but not without first burning my feet a bit due to the heat today-close to 85 right now and I am luvin it! sans that whole feet burning of course. I plan to put on the second coat after Laurel (the little lady I watch two days per week) goes home tonight and Ben is off to ni-ni land. Might even have the energy to fit in another project-or at least get started. This self challenge has really got me motivated!

needs a little paint touch up-when our contractor fixed the stairs last year to allow for better water run-off, the paint was rubbed off and it was something that we just haven't gotten to

the white is actually a sticker that I just haven't been able to remove as well as other spots where the paint has worn off-not so welcoming

back door threshold with old ugly brown paint; check out that sexy kitchen vinyl while you're at it-complete with paint sploches

nice and cleaned up and black-that 5 min project makes me feel soooo good!

front door threshold good as new

yes, just a few spots that needed priming and painting

first coat on-bad pix-sorry!

paint we used-would have liked to use oil based because it is more durable but we could not because there was already water based paint on the porch; supposedly high gloss is the most durable

Get 'Er Done!

2011-08-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

So I have been a major slacker on house projects as of late. Why? It's summer and in summer you have fun and Steve and I have talked about never really taking the time to enjoy Pacific Northwest summers. Our first summer in OR we were getting ready for our wedding and house hunting, summer 2 consisted of taking off our siding and replacing it all by hand, summer 3 was (hmmm, what was it?) just working on random outside projects including landscaping and the front pathway, and oh yea, we got preggo, summer 4 was the year of little man and we even fit in a brick patio and a couple little things and this brings us to summer 5-We're toast! however, we really wanted to finish a bunch of outdoor projects. We have the big one done (the is the fence, aka Ben Pen) all done with the exception of attaching the copper post caps and fence hardware-locks.

The last few weekends have kept us busy with Sunday Parkways (biking all over NW Portland when the City closes down the roads and has entertainment in the local park), a trip to the coast and camping.

enjoying the beach, Gearhart, OR

Ben discovering the art of hiding in empty cabinets in the rental beach house

getting ready for "boating" while camping at Frog Lake

hiking around Frog Lake

Mt. Hood in the background

Frog Lake camping summer 2010

Anyways, on to Get 'Er Done. I have decided to challenge myself a bit and get myself out of the whole don't do any house projects trend. how? my challenge to myself is quite do-able. Just complete one project a day. Ok, well 5/7 days as I know all too well that things come up and weekends should have some sort of fun involved. These projects can range from something that takes 5 minutes and has been on my to-do list for months to something that takes hours from my day. I hope to do this for at least a week, maybe 2. Oh yea and can't cheat by counting two projects that I did in one day as one for another day.

So day one, get butt in gear. Rev your engines. I decided that I would take on the front porch. The first place that people see when they come to our home. Our dirty front porch, our dirty front porch that has chipped paint all over the place. Our front porch that needs a good scrub-a-dub-dub, a little sanding action and some good old primer and paint. Well, can't say I got it all done today. BUT I did get the sanding and scrub-a-dub-dub part done tonight.
I sanded the peeling parts of the porch with 120 grit paper and scrubbed it done by first sweeping, then spraying with a hose, then scrubbing with an old soft brush and then spraying off one more time. Now it's drying for tonight. Forgot to mention that I first removed all the furniture and do-dads that had piled up.


exhibit one, one part of peeling paint on front porch, this is a yearly fix-it project-happens with an old lady porch-she is almost 100 years old

wet porch

a where's waldo of sorts, can you find the cleaning brush?

a clean, wet, clutter free porch

Also started cooking up the multitudes of produce tonight coming from our little garden. Hope to have some pictures soon. Used home grown zuchs and basil to make zucchini patties (recipe from www.allrecipes.com) and then some more zuchs to make some oh so delicious chocolate chip zucchini bread with orange zest-also from all recipes.

Oregonian Archives

2011-08-01T16:08:00.000-07:00

My friend, Chris, who I mentioned in my previous post, e-mailed me some old postings of our house from the Oregonian this past weekend.


Sept. 1948

this clip and the one below are form the same article

Mrs. Hardwick owned our home in the 1960s

Pretty cool, huh?

Live in Oregon? Would you be interested in finding out if your house was ever in the Oregonian? Here is how...it is really quite easy.

go to this site: Multnomah County Library (you need to have a Multnomah county library card); then go to The Oregonian Historical archive after putting in your card info. From there, just type in your address (be sure to put it in quotations and you probably want to leave out the ave or street part of the address) to see if anything pops up! Don't forget that you can also find your historic address (I found ours under the historic permits tab) on Portland Maps and enter that to see if any really old info comes up...none did for ours-booo :(

Chris, lighting extraordinaire!

2011-07-26T02:07:00.000-07:00

I think that I have mentioned my awesome friend Chris before but not sure. Anyways, I lived with Chris when I first moved to Oregon 5 years ago. I had just finished grad-school and needed a place to live just before Steve and I got married (he moved up before me and was living in his bro's already full house (it was a gorgeous bungalow on 12th and Taylor in SE that Sally Struthers lived in way back when--just picture all original stain, and Englenook and need for lots of TLC by non-renters)).
Steve's brother had this friend Chris who wanted a short-term roomie and, well, it just worked. So I arrived and Chris happened to be at Steve and his bro's house and that's how we met. Been friends ever since. Lived with him until our (Steve & mine) house closed one month before Steve and I got married.
And Chris loves old houses and all things old ~~just as much~~ more than I. In fact, he worked at Rejuvenation for years and quit just when I met him in order to start his own business. While Chris primarily sells on ebay (look him up-Hard to Find Houseparts), he also does house consults and will look for hard to find things if you need it. He has done pretty much all of our house lighting and then some for us and he is A-Mazing! He also has his own little blog about old photos.
I swear I have a point in this blog post.
Well, last Saturday was the Division Street Street Fair. In conjunction, Bret from Old Portland Hardware on 40th and Division (you should totally check this place out if you haven't because it is truly awesome & also houses the store Portland Vintage Plumbing) put on a salvage & vintage parking lot sale. Well, Chris, my sis-in-law and friend and me shared a booth. I was able to sell a few vintage wares that I just have not used (yea-more things purged). Chris sold tons of super cool things (I should have taken pictures) but I fell in love with a really cool craftsman light that he had. I texted Steve a picture despite pretty much already buying it.
The light fixture came re-wired with cloth wire by Chris himself and ready to hang bare (bulbed that is). However, he agreed to find me some cool fitters and shades and I hope to put it up in our hallway, replacing our currently pretty cool but not as cool as I'd like halophane (sp?) shade light. Here's the terrible pix of it that I texted Steve on Saturday but hopefully there will be some better pix of it all hung up soon :)

I realize that this light is all square and the rest of the lights in our home are circular but I love it none-the-less and had to have it & P.S. don't u just love hate that creepy velvet painting of the cat-ish thing on the bottom left?-ha! makes me laugh and want to run in fear all at the same time)

I hope to post soon about some of the cool lights he has put together for us.

Stain

2011-07-25T14:06:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've posted but all for good reason. We took a little vacation to Cali to enjoy my family and some beach time

Ben with his great grandma who is amazing at 92; of course he visited with all his uncles, auntie and grandma and grandpa as well

think he likes the beach?

Steve loves diggin holes

and Ben loves standing in them

and have been actually trying to enjoy the awesome summers in the Pacific NW. This weekend we did some house work but also hit up the Division Street Fair on Saturday, hit up some local parks, took part in biking Sunday Parkways NW (Ben is so into riding in the bike trailer these days) and spent some time letting Ben romp in the water and climb the falls at Jameson park in the Pearl. It was awesome! We were going to go berry picking as well but that will just have to wait a bit.

Anyways, enough of our lovely summer and Ben cuteness and onto house work-sigh!

While Ben and I went down to Cali a few days before Ben (you know, someone needs to bring home the bacon), Steve spent pretty much a whole weekend staining and I plan to sort of detail the steps and extremely time-consuming yet worthwhile (coming from the mouth of someone who only put in about 2 hours of labor BUT Steve thinks it was worthwhile as well).

We decided on using a product recommended by Custom Cedar Products where we purchased our fencing wood. We liked the product because it was environmentally friendly, lasts 4 years before needing a re-coat, protects the wood and the Timber Tek UV store on Burnside and 22nd gives free color samples which is a plus. Plus (again), we also got contractor pricing because we had bought our cedar from custom cedar products. They did the math for us an figured that we needed 3 gallons which was pretty much precise with us having about 1/16 of a 3 gallon bucket left over after putting 2 coats on all the cedar except the lattice.

1. wash with clean and brite. Also a product sold at the same store. We used just a 1/2 gallon and were able to sell the other half to our friends who are about to stain their new cedar fence. This product was awesome as there was already many water stains and a lot of dirt on our fence. We also had a small amount of mildew which came right off. In addition, it helps brighten the wood a bit (that is remove mild greying of the wood which we were already beginning to see after just a couple months). You follow the directions on the can which basically tell you to dilute the product, scrub it on (Steve used a hard bristle scrub brush) and rinse. This took a good portion of Steve's Saturday after he had taken us to the airport and went to buy the cleaner and stain.

2. allow to dry well

3. Start the staining process. We opted for Walnut color after sampling 4 different colors (wish I had a pix of the samples color board we created). Steve informed me that this step takes a great deal of time (as in he worked from 9-9 on Sunday to put two coats on pretty much every thing except the lattice). What a trooper! For him, he found that the process was a little bit harder with just one person. He switched between rolling on the stain with a regular old paint roller and brushing it out with a large brush and spraying it on with an old spray bottle and brushing it out. He opted not to use a hose sprayer due to the mess it would have created and that it may have stained our concrete as well as gotten all over our organic veggie garden. Not much to report on which was easier for him. You let the first coat dry and then apply the second.

as you can see, the temp needs to be just right, bot too cold or too hot-the product (as with all stains) will get sticky if it is too hot and sunny out

The process got a bit harrier with the lattice. Yes, we love the lattice but it was a pain in the butt to stain. This is where I actually helped out. We decided not to spray on the stain as it is super messy and would have involved one person holding up a board or cardboard to block the stain from getting everywhere and the other person spraying and the spreading with a paint brush. Just decided that did not seem to be the best use of ~~man~~ person power.

partially stained...the large vertical boards stained

It involved taking sponge brushes and just dabbing it on-we got the first coat on (doesn't seem to need a second as water is beading just fine) in a couple hours of both of us working. Here is a terrible video of what it entailed. You also had to make sure that you did not get any stain on the other side of the fence as you would have to run around the fence and spread that blob out so it did not leave a big spot of darker stain later on.

4. Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!

we love the darker, non-orange color and how it repels water

the upfront side is stained but not the back side-can you see the greying on the back side?

Bamboo

2011-07-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

We got some bamboo! and we really like it! We are friend's with the couple over at Swanky & Chiang and after reading my post about researching bamboo, she e-mailed to say that they had loads (literally, over a truck load) of bamboo that they were looking to get rid of (or trying to off load on others). So a couple weekends ago, Steve went off to their house (I stayed home as Ben was napping and boy, was a sad to miss that project) and helped Joe dig out all their short bamboo from the backyard as well as a portion of their tall bamboo from the front. Wish I could tell you the variety but I have no idea, however, they are both clumping varieties, work for us and for the price of free-ninety-nine, the price is definitely right. Well, Joe & Steve ended up having to saw-zaw the roots of the tall bamboo out while hacking at it with a shovel. They got it out and Steve and I got to hack at a little more to fit the clumps into our pots (we decided that pots would work well just in case the bamboo decided that it wanted to take over our yard. And, then we can move it around if we decide we don't care for it.

the rig all loaded with bamboo coming back from the Swanky-Chiang house

pot placement in the back of the house-also provides a little window privacy & the window above happens to belong to Steve and my bedroom

I think this needs some compost to help out that fill dirt

again the area just below our window-Steve transplants some ferns from the side of our house here too; they are happy here with the exception of our Porter pup trampling them often

upside down, oops! the other side of the deck-Steve sifting rocks out of the dirt in prep to put in the pots

south side of the deck

north side

leaning-gotta prop that up somehow


some of this bamboo does not look too happy but we'll see what happens-can you tell what Steve is working on-paint stripping!!!! o so fun!

short bamboo in the new Ben Pen on the south side of the house

camping at Timothy Lake last weekend

happy man gettin to work with his hammer!

happy 4th of July!

And the Ben Pen is in action!

2011-06-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

Steve spent father's day whippin' out the remainder of the fence and man, does it look awesome!

But this did not start before we hit up Pine State Biscuits on Alberta for breakfast sammies-yum! and of course, Steve had to open his father's day gift which included several 22oz craft beers, a super power weeder (have I ever mentioned that Steve LOVES to pick weeds?), and a handmade card with Ben scribbles inside.

We just have a few last projects to be 100% done.
     1. put on gate hardware (it's on it's way to our casa as I type)
     2. stain this puppy-we have no clue what color to do so I need some help-anyone have any suggestions?
     3. put on copper caps with construction bond-this also entails making all the 4x4s the same height
     4. getting stronger springs for the wheels
     5. pouring concrete where the wheels hit as right now they go over the dirt (there are some      concrete and quartzite chunks in place for now.

Wondering why we didn't just make life easier by having the gate open from the other side? I thought that it would look better to have the gate hardware on the south side (side where the neighbor's and our driveway connect) and we usually have all of our trash cans on the other side by the chimney so I foresaw the future and getting quite frustrated each time I needed to move trash cans in order to go in and out of the gate. Also, Steve rides his bike to/from work daily and usually comes up the south side of the driveway so it made sense to have it open from the south side.
It is supposed to be 85 tomorrow and I can't wait to test out the new set up.

Mini gate goes in

2011-06-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

One advantage of Steve's work place is getting to take half day Fridays during the summer (that is if he puts in his hours earlier in the week), so today he was home by two! He got right to work (and I joined in once Ben went down for his nap) piecing together what he could on the large gate, finishing up the small fence area next to the chimney

and then taking on the tedious task of figuring out which pieces of wood that we have we still needed to use and what we needed to purchase. We are hoping that this will be our last trudge out to Custom Cedar Products.
Anyways, a few pix of the progress this afternoon/tonight! A well deserved glass of wine up next!

old gate removed, turned on side and acting as temporary dog barrier...we considered replacing the 4x4s but they are in concrete and that task just seemed like a little too much to take on right now-plus not worth messing with it since it is so close to the foundation of the casa

measuring the wire, marking with sharpie and then saw-sawing it up

hinges just about done (we picked these up from Mr Plywood today-nothin' special but they'll do the trick and are black like the rest of the hardware

We set up the gate to swing out towards the driveway and side of house and plan to figure out some sort of inconspicuous latch the we can use to keep it open when we want full access between the backyard and driveway. It is temporarily bungeed shut to keep the pup in until the new latch arrives.

you can see the old gate in this pix-yuck!

Fence Gate Hardware

2011-06-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

I headed off to Winks hardware on SE Stark today to find some gate hardware for our fence since I was not so fond of what they offered at Home Depot. I was so proud of myself for finding what I thought was an awesome latch (with the help of the staff, of course, who are so friendly and helpful). What I found was an American made (score 2 extra points, right?) latch by Acorn company like the one below.

Acorn Thumb Latch Bean

However, when Steve got to looking at the latch tonight, he discovered that it would not work because it was not deep enough to go through our 4x4s.

Back to the drawing board. Finding a good latch that was under $30 was too easy, right?

After hunting around the internet tonight, I found several latches that I really liked but spending over $75 (+ s and h) on a latch seems a little steep being that this fence is costing a ton (due to the clear cedar) and $75 seemed like too much to spend after finding a perfectly decent $25 latch. Here is an example of a really nice arts and crafts-ish (but somehow a bit southwestern at the same time) latch that I found for $79 + $5 for the extra length needed to fit a 4x4 at Wild West Hardware

But then we came across this Suffolk Latch from Hinge and Latch:

not exactly the latch but very similar

We decided on this because it accommodates a 4x4 and will work nicely with the black hinges and post brackets. And it was just $29. I was also able to purchase an extra latch only piece for $15 that we will use when we rebuild the small gate that goes between the garage and house (we don't want Ben to have constant free reign of the driveway area and backyard). So all together (after s+h), I spent $57 for two different latches instead of around $100 for just one. Excited for it to arrive and get this fence finished!