House Made

good bye blogger...hello house-made.com

2006-05-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Well it's finally happend. I've moved to my own url. Here it is:

Come visit the new place!

Temporary Blog Fix

2006-05-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

So as i dont really LIKE screwing around with CSS, this is a temporary fix to the annoying problem of posts and comments chopping off at the bottom. The annoying thing about this is that i cant figure out how you easily comment. I think you click on the number that's next to the title of the post. That number appears to be the number of comments. Lame.

Michigan Modern

2006-04-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

michagan_modern
Originally uploaded by merideth.

For those of you who are near Southfield, Michigan and can get to this event: I hate you. Or I'm so jealous i cant stand myself. Potato. Potahto.

The event describes itself as "AN EXPOSITION AND SALE OF 20TH CENTURY DESIGN

ART NOUVEAU, ART DECO, STREAMLINE, PRAIRIE SCHOOL, GREEK, EGYPTIAN AND GOTHIC REVIVAL, SURREALISM AND NEO-BAROQUE, ART & CRAFTS, INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, FIFTIES, SIXTIES, ART MODERNE, TRAMP ART AND MUCH MORE!" I'm not yelling, the caps are theirs and i didnt want to retype. But check that out!

So go! And tell me how awesome it was. And buy me a souvenir!

Here's the link

mud is mud...rain or shh...wait...rain or rain

2006-04-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

potato harvest
Originally uploaded by merideth.

And what's in the mud? Well in our backyard, potatoes are in the mud. And tonight when i went to make stew and found that i'd forgotten to buy potatoes, b. suggested that i go out and dig up one of the plants in the garden. Okay. Rootling around in the dirt OUTSIDE the house. That's almost like a house project. It's on the house property. I need a tool to do it. Close enough!

So check it out. All those potatoes came from one plant. It was like an easter egg hunt with dirt and tools! In other words, AWESOME.

And we have 2 more plants that we put in for the winter crop. So the fun hasnt ended.

Ok. Clearly i need this bullsh*t rain to stop so i can get on a real project. Pity me.

Really, REALLY...dont.

2006-03-31T13:45:00.000-08:00

You think you're tired of my writing about rain? You're one fifty zillionth as tired of it as I am. But i have to write about it because, folks, that is all that is happening. So, with no actual work going on at House Made, I decided that the next best thing i can do with my time is research. (Beth says i should have been a library sciences major with my love of the research. Oh that's just in case you had some doubt about just how big a dork i am.) Annnyyway. So i was poking around the Historic Chicago Initiative's website, wishing that the Bay Area had an equivalent when i came across this great list of dos and don'ts when restoring/rehabbing bungalows. It's a pretty common sensical little list but looking around my own neighborhood shows me that the sense is not, in fact, common. If you'd like to bury your head in your hands and cry "noooooo" to the computer, check out the first don't image under "front porch, entry ways, and doors." Now all of you, get out there and inform your neighbors! Question their trim choices! Point out shoddy pintucking! And mock the brochures full of characterless crap windows they want to install. It's for the good of all really.

Improvements pending

2006-03-17T13:10:00.000-08:00

bungalow next door
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Okay so picture those old water towers you see in small towns. Okay. Now picture one built right above your house and breaking open on top of your roof. Now make that happen for over a month. That pretty much sums up our weather and the reason for the dearth of resto work. Good news: sun is forecast for this weekend. Fingers crossed.

In other news, the little bungalow next door to us may soon be improved. It's languised for 8 years, abandoned and sad. Just last weekend though, I met the man who owns the property. He was walking around the house with a guy who was making sketches so I ran over and grilled him.

Turns out, he's had a long-term illness but is now preparing to fix up and improve the house. Hoo. Ray. Now we just have to hope he does it sensitively. Really though, a coat of paint would help markedly.

And yes, for some reason, the columns have been wrapped in vinyl siding. sigh.

You. Are. My shiiinnning star....

2006-02-17T08:49:00.000-08:00

restored, cleaned, and sealed
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Just a window? Just a window you say? HA! Not so, not so! This window is an awning window secured by hinges on the outside and is 2 stories up on a hill that makes it a bear to get to. But the real thing worth noting about this window (and its twin that's not shown)is that you can see THROUGH it. Its glass is shiny. Crystal clear even.

We got these 2 windows reinstalled after their rot fixing and reglazing overhaul just before the rain started back in november. Well last weekend the rain stopped briefly allowing us to take the window out and sand it a bit so that it opens easily. Beth then cleaned all the glazing compuound fingerprints that completely covered the pane (no seriously, it was like we had frosted windows) and painted the now-cured putty for waterproofedness.

As blog posts go, not so exciting. But in our world, worthy of celebration.

Stripping on the Pole

2006-02-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

stripped post
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Yeah so i got down to stripping the first pole on the front porch (see, it's not nearly as "Crazy Horse" as you might have thought by the title, dirty-mind) this weekend. I'm psyched by the pile of stucco-paint-child-of-satan shards that litter the porch floor but let me tell you what is not easy. It's this: removing random crap that someone has adhesed to your house. Not easy. See also "not fun."

On the upside, progress is being made and it looks like the posts are redwood. Rock on. In addition to it being cool that my california house is built largely of california redwood, i get a money-saving bonus. We have leftover redwood that can be used to creat the new moulding. A penny saved is a penny that can to go my nailgun fund my friends!

Now just have a look at this ridiculousness. No really. I need you to see this and ask yourself "wtf?!" in the same way i do.
Yeah. Left side. Paint. Right side. Stucco-ish stuff. Oh the craftsmanship.

And so it begins...again

2006-01-30T21:27:00.000-08:00

porch plan
Originally uploaded by merideth.

I never could have ignored the house projects without a lot of dedicated help. I'd like to thank my sofa-with-dog for being so cozy and welcoming; the holidays for offering baking and craft projects; the cold, wet, windy bay area winter for putting a stop to all outdoor projects; and last but not least the post-holiday bills for showing me the clear impossibility of putting cash anywhere but on the visa bill. Thanks to you all for your contributions to the great house-slack.

But now it's back to the drawing board. And in this case, that's literal. I broke out the pad and paper and went old skool with my drawing skills. (Everytime I wanted to erase a line, my brain went "ctrl+Z"...it's sad really. That's the computer command for "undo" for extra clarification.) I sketched out the plan for the stage 1 of the front porch reno. (Stage 2 involves tile but cannot be accomplished before major concrete work is addressed.)

Stage 1, however, will hopefully bring a little rustic charm to the front of the casa. Seriously, it can't get any worse than the weird spattering of spray can stucco that a previous owner applied like ceiling texture to 2 sides of each column. (wtf?!)

No reno beyond dragging the outside in

2005-12-12T18:43:00.000-08:00

softly glowing tree Click the tree photo to see the set with notes and comments.

Yup. Christmas crafting has become top priority and any house improvements have been pushed to the back burner until after the new year. Beth piled all the tools and project pieces in the dining room built-in and labeled each shelf so we'll know where to find stuff next year. For now, home projects including lighting, greenery, and baking. So merry christmas and we'll see you in the new year!

fireplace

exterior lights

exhausted christmas dog

Frah-JEE-LAY - The House on Cleveland Street

2005-12-11T18:57:00.000-08:00

Talk about a nostalgic house restoration: here's one! The classic craftsman house in that most awesome(for me) of all xmas movies, A Christmas Story sold on ebay this year. Here's the story .

Since its starring role in the 1983 movie, it's been remuddled with everyone's favorite: vinyl siding and new windows. Fortunately (I hope) the guy who bought it wants to restore it and turn it into a museum where he sells his kitschy (and oh how i want one) leg lamps. He's raising money from regular folks and corporate sponsors alike and i really hope he blogs his restoration progress. Check out his site for more info: www.achristmasstory.house.com

Naddafinga!!

Arival of...THE REALTOR

2005-11-29T17:33:00.000-08:00

So yeah. We had this lady we THINK we're going to hire as our realtor when we get ready to sell the house come over and look around last weekend. We basically wanted to know if we're putting our money in the right places from a house-as-investment perspective and if our list of proposed projects is properly prioritized (dig that alliteration). To our delight, not only did she love our house but confirmed that the punchlist is in good form and we are on track for creating a very saleable little restored bungalow. Mini wave in celebration of us! I did, however, have to stop beth from lunging from the top of the steps and throttling the woman when she arrived and announced that "the front yard's really not that bad." Granted, it's not looking its best as most everything is now brown and dormant, but after all the work we (beth) put into it this year we were (she was) in no mood for winter-based lack of vision on the part of Coldwell-Banker. The little casa will be ours for a few years more to be sure. Projects and loving restorations are yet to be completed. But the next house will be the ONE.

It's just not scary enough

2005-10-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

This weekend was spent doing odds and ends. We touched up paint. Puttyed and sanded holes. Caulked trim. You know that kind of crap that's always dangling at the end of every project. What we did NOT do, is decorate for halloween. And that sucks. I love halloween. Love it. This year i'm not decorating because adding spiderwebs, bats, tombstones and pumpkins to the bombsite that is currently our house would just make getting in and out of projects worse. And we'll be out of town for actual halloween so i'm actually trying to discourage trick or treaters from pre-selecting our house. Last year I created a giant spider web from fiberous packing tape that encapsulated our porch, had spooky lights, and 4 jacks o' lantern. This year, nuthin. Scrooge McDuck. Or whatever. BUT, most importantly, we pulled out and started fixing the LAST set of must-be-done-before-rain windows and may actually get them repaired and reinstalled before we leave in 2 weeks. I will do the Macarena all the way to the airport if we actually pull it off.

Ctrl and F5 beth says will work

2005-10-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

to make the whole page load. Stupid blogger.

It's like new, but OLD! But not crappy.

2005-09-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

look at that!!
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Okay so after like 3 weekends of working on the window repair (actually, it was 2 weekends...i've just been too swamped to blog it) TAAA DAAAAAAA! Dudes of the house-reno community (and i mean "Dudes" like Dudekind, so that includes Chicks) behold my magically created corner brought forth from thin air!!

Now, there are 9 photos on flickr that show you what i started with. So just go over there and have a look.

Click here to see why the angels sing! My comments and clarifying remarks are under the photos.

Second coat

2005-09-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

dixie with a second coat
Originally uploaded by merideth.

When you walk under the saw horses holding the freshly painted white window, you might end up with a second coat that does not match your original, furry one.

But you are not unhappy with the situation and you did retreive the squashed cherry tomato that had fallen there.

(Dont worry piece de resistance window to come.)

I know, I know...where have we been

2005-09-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

Trust me, I'm only helping you by not posting endless refrains of the following: "today we rot fixed, sculpted, sanded, stripped, primed, painted, repaired, reglazed windows" As truthfully that is ALL that's going on. It's not fun to do. It would not be fun to read about. BUT, by way of a teaser i will say that my piece de resistance of re-construction will be unvelied this weekend. I created a corner where there was NONE! None people. There was air where there should have been corner. Just you wait til you see the end result. Tune in next time for...ADVENTURES IN EXPOXY PUTTY!

...and then there's crazy

2005-08-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

Yeah. Some folks think were nuts for putting time, energy, sweat, money, sleepless nights, exhausting weekends blah, blah, blah into our ~~obsessions~~ houses. But at least we're not the folks i saw on Location, Location, Location on bbc america last night. A couple, with the wife 6 mos pregnant, were looking for an old country house in Suffolk. They wanted something they could put "their own mark on" ie a fixer. Their top choices were a. a huge medieval estate from the 1400s, b. a huge house that had been a pub from the 1300s (rejected because the kitchen was updated) and c. another huge estate from 1600s (among a few other properties which were rejected for various reasons). Now THAT, my friends, is crazy. (But the show is good.)

Spudapalooza

2005-07-31T18:03:00.000-07:00

BIG potatoes
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Okay so it's not strictly house-related but after puttying, sanding, and rot-fixing windows all day, I finished up the afternoon with these great finds.

All the joy of a freakin easter egg hunt was had. I felt like i won a prize every time i found a little guy so imagine my ecstasy over the BIG suckers!! I officially giggled and held them up to beth hollering "LOOK!" whenever i found something.

Best treasure hunt since looking for pirate gold in St. Mark's when i was little. Waaaaay better payoff.

One does need the occassional break from the drudgery that is window repair.

Early bronze age

2005-07-15T08:26:00.000-07:00

spring bronze
Originally uploaded by merideth.

So the spring bronze has arrived. For those of you not restoring windows all the live-long day and night, this is basically a strip of approx 1 3/8 inch wide metal that will (hopefully) make our old rattly windows a little more, how you say, "draft-free".

Draft free windows. At this point my vision gets all blurry as i fade into a dream seqence where the living room this winter is sans arctic blasts that confuse the fireplace draw and make me (and the dog) think someone with a tiny fist is tattooing the door.

Wow that was nice. Back in the now, it's supposed to be hot and non-stop sunny this weekend so i will not be concerned with the effectiveness of my fireplace. Upside: having a bunch of the windows out will help keep the litle chunkita cool. Check me out. Full time optomist available for sardonic cheerleading. Book now.

Is it beautiful just because it's finished?

2005-07-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

fence with trellis and gate
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Oh beautiful fence and arbor, how i would compose a song to thee. You conceal our garbage cans and add a little rustic charm to the house. The neighbor’s random pile of detritus is no longer visible from our windows. The front gate swings gently to and fro to allow passage of the recycling. The darty cat is contained if he escapes the back door. You are wonderful.

Yes, folks. We finished building the fence. It was fun and it sucked. Dear lord we’re tired. But we couldn’t be happier with the results. Beth applied her creativity to the front gate, adding little panes that mimic the divided lights on our windows. As heavy as the bloody thing is, it swings like a champ. The chop saw paid for itself and more and between it, the circular saw, and the table saw we’ve made more types of cuts than we thought we’d need for a fairly straightforward fence project. Added bonus: I think we have enough leftover wood to build a couple of outdoor chairs. We shall see.

click for larger
We have yet to stain the thing but I couldn’t face standing in line at H. Depot long enough to get my stain mixed. That chore will wait until next weekend. We’re shooting for a color close to what we have on the front door. Eventually the fence, the door, and the posts on the front porch should all sorta match. Oh and we got a wisteria to plant on the arbor as soon as the stain’s on. Whew! I’m so glad it’s finally done. Now back to the rivetingly exciting and ever-ongoing chore of restoring the windows.

tiny purple potatoes

2005-06-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

tiny purple potatoes
Originally uploaded by merideth.

So the second best reason for blowing off work on the house (getting married holds the no. 1 spot, mindy & teague) is having company. We had beth's mom with us for the weekend so we took the opportunity to lay off the projects and sit around. Oh sittin around. It feels so....wierd.

Slacking has wound us up for next weekend though and it looks like we might finally get started on the double-hung windows as the window book recommended by Jeanne finally arrived (amazon just lost its mind over that one and became incapable of getting the thing in the mail).

In vegetable news, beth pulled out a couple of the potato plants that were crowding my tomatoes (NOTHING may threaten the tomatoes, oh no, nothing) and they had the cutest little spuds attached. Yes, they are purple. Yes, that is a bottlecap. The potatoes are small. Small. So now i'm all excited for the rest of them to grow and get big. Big. I have great plans for purple french fries. Dude, that's just kewl.

Ich Bin Oklander

2005-06-07T13:44:00.000-07:00

behold the mighty auger
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Well it's not a wall we're putting up but a big ole fence just the same. Now this fence is not complex in design. It does not have recessed panels in the mission style. It does not have horizontal planking in a subtle nod to the modern. It is, in fact, a simple redwood fence, built by us, to do 2 jobs. 1. To hold in the dog and 2. to hide the garbage cans. So far, at holding in the dog it is an unqualified success.

We spent the weekend tearing down the rotted portion of the existing fence, digging all postholes, anchoring corners and gate-holder holes with cement, planting poles, hanging rails, skinning the first 35 feet, and building 1 gate. It is a simple, sturdy, and VERY pink new fence.

Still to come is the remaining 35 feet of railing and skinning, one gate, and one lovely arbor. It is this portion that will hide the garbage cans. Oh and yes i will be staining the whole shebang as i do not care for the pink of natural redwood. Where am i, Miami? No.

Things I love:
1.the new skil cordless drill/driver with 2 batteries that take only 1 hour each to recharge
2. The AUGER!! rent it.
3. the striped hammock from pottery barn
4. beth's new non-janky gate
5. the fence portion that no longer relies on a tomato cage to stay closed

Things i do NOT love:
1. The varying pink and salmon color of the redwood planks
2. The fact that home depot told us we needed twice as many heavy ass bags of concrete as we actually did forcing us to lode/unload them TWICE
3. That the hammock poles dug 3 feet into the ground and sunk in concrete STILL came out of the ground (oh yes, it will be remedied)
4. the bruise on my back from where i fell onto a pile of lumber

Window Rot - Or How I learned to stop worrying and love the heat gun...

2005-05-24T15:36:00.000-07:00

windowrot_2
Originally uploaded by merideth.

This weekend kicked off "rotpick-fest 2005"; meaning we started pulling out our windows and picking out the rotted areas on them and their corresponding window sills. Was it fun? Sorta. I mean, there's something entertaining about giving your windows what amounts to a big chemical peel.

And dear lord, the satisfaction of watching the paint bubble up into big soft blisters under the glare of the heatgun...dude that's just cool. (P.S. no matter how hard you try to avoid touching the hot part of the gun...no matter how many times you run the mantra "it's hot" through your head while working...you WILL burn yourself at least minorly, at least once...it does not reflect on your intelligence.)

We got 2 windows (of 14) started this weekend. We started with the push-out casement windows and will work our way around the house to the double-hungs. We're gouging, sealing, epoxy sculpting, painting, rehanging, weather-stripping, and hardware repairing. It will not be a small task but i'm so anxious to have house openings that actually open as the hot weather approaches.

I'm also psyched to have the wood stripped so it can be repainted sans annoying, sloppy glops. (Are we kidding with the drippy paint? Did 3rd graders paint our trim? and our windows shut for that matter?) That's right. We're stripping and REPAINTING. We like the white trim. blah blah gorgeous wood...i dont want to hear about it. It brightens the place up. And turns out, frequenly little budget bungalows werent done up in fine mahoganies and oaks but in mere paint grades. Our house is one of these. If the next h.o. wants to strip it off though, they owe us a box of krispy kremes for leaving them with substantially fewer layers of paint to slog through.

Cant wait to play more with that heat gun. You can bend PVC with it!!!!

Further adventures in homeowning

2005-05-02T21:00:00.000-07:00

So it turns out that not every weekend is devoted to the joys of house restoration. Some weekends...some friday mornings in fact...are devoted to cursing the kitchen faucet which can't possibley have decided to actually, physically break and no longer turn on water. but oh yes it can. Some freakin metal piece broke off. Broke right off. Fortunately beth is all feeling that the underside of the kitchen sink is her domain now. So after trying to repair the hateful faucet thing only to find that, despite new cartridge, O rings, grease, and sealant it preferred to spurt annoyingly from the base, she installed a brand new faucet and sprayer. The current one is certainly not the final one. Not the lovely goose-necked thing we'll install when we reno the kitchen counters and sink. But it IS a delight of basic chrome whose sprayer works beautifully, tap flows strongly, and yes, whose handle turns both on and off and AND hot and cold without one's throwing one's full body weight against it for torque.

Remember how i hate oil-based stain?

2005-04-28T13:34:00.000-07:00

somehow or another i totally jacked up this post...suffice it to say i finished staining the pergola with the hateful oil based stain and it looks good. jeebus.

So romantical...

2005-04-03T13:03:00.000-07:00

swing
Originally uploaded by merideth.

So this weekend we hung the porch swing that we put toghether a few weeks ago. Okay but here's why it's so romantical: beth got this porch swing for me as a Christmas present the first year we were together. On the back, she did this:

Could it be any cuter?!! No. No my friends. It could not. We've had it in storage since 2000 because, as we lived in san francisco in a 1920s converted store, we had no place for a porch swing.

I spent yesterday staining (officially hate oil-based stain) the stand so that it matches the swing. It was just raw pine and this photo does not capture how way better it looks now. (I hadnt yet trimmed the chains in this photo.)

cool black and purple iris

2005-03-26T16:32:00.000-08:00

cool black and purple iris
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Can we just discuss for a moment how cool these are? Black and purple iris. The photo doesnt do them justice and they're popping up all over the front yard. Beth promises that by next year they will have multiplied enough that i can clip some and bring them inside. Until then i drool lasciviously at them whenever i walk past.

Nothing photo-worthy

2005-03-09T08:46:00.000-08:00

It was all about the prep work this weekend so no shiney visuals to share: 1. Beth de-weeded the back yard and planted a few more flowers and plants which she bought on the way home from art class (yes, she has a problem) 2. I cleaned up all the detritus that had collected on the back porch from various adventures in planting, window installation, stucco work, roof repair etc. 3. Beth planted an angel's trumpet which i've been anxious to get as they are so cute and smell GREAT. And, it turns out, the reason they are so fragrant at night is because they're pollinated by bats! How cool is that? 4. Went to the paint store and got all the primer and paint for the outside trim and windows and wood stain for the pergola in the backyard. 5. Went to the lumber yard to price the materials for our fence repairs. And that's it. Boring visually? yes. Exciting in what it foretells? YES!

Valentine's day means no workin

2005-02-15T17:56:00.000-08:00

iris
Originally uploaded by merideth.

That's right. No workin'. Beth sent me these GORGEOUS irises...love how their architectural structure is complimented by the deco vase...my favorite. Who loves her baby?

And to celebrate we had a massage therapist come to the house and knead our cares away. It. Was. Awesome. I mean, the massage is always great, but let me tell you, it is heartily improved by not having to jump up, get dressed, and drive home.

Beth has decided that it's better than having a houskeeper. mmmm. happy fake holiday.

Front door is in!

2005-02-05T17:46:00.000-08:00

New front door Originally uploaded by merideth.

Okay, so remember when we bought this door? Like months ago? The amazing $200, solid doug fir, ebay door? Yeah, well it's even more amazing now that it's installed. I love the entry set so much i want to marry it. Except that i'm already married. To an actual person. Annnnnyyyway. The door is in but as yet unfinished. We went to Rockler (amazing store for all your woodworking needs) today and got loads of advice, instruction, and the correct products for getting the new door stained, varnished, and sealed. So maybe by next weekend we'll have a photo of the finshed product. But for now....man it looks good!

What comes after rock?

2005-01-28T17:08:00.000-08:00

Weed abatement fabric of course! scha. So last weekend beth rolled out and staked down the professional grade landscapers' fabric (she would have none of the standard, amateaur grade). After pulling out and poisoning all the oxalis, this fabric is our next line of defense so beth is not fooling around. After the fabric went down, she pulled out her color-coded plant map (phase1), laid out, and planted the first batch of plants.

She did all the heavy work on this...i was pretty much there in my capacity as lazy ass.

Okay i did trim all of our gorgeous and giant sage plants down to sad, bloomless spikeballs in preparation for replanting in the front.

Non-house-related

2005-01-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

Beth gets up for work around 5 a.m. every day because she works 4 10s. On Friday night, she worked until about 9 p.m. and got home exhausted. We went to bed and at 5 a.m. beth's alarm went off because she forgot to turn it off for the weekend. She sat bolt upright, looked around and asked "Is it saturday?" I said "yes" and her sleepy reply as she turned off the alarm was "that's better than my wedding day". She went back to sleep for 3.5 more hours. Just so you know, our wedding day was REALLY good.

Time for Fun

2004-12-10T15:23:00.000-08:00

Ha ha!!! Today is the last day of my current contract! Which means that my next 2 projects are ones i'll be working on out of my home studio. Which means...yah! I'll be home for the next FIVE weeks. (little jig with bad irish impression here) I'm so excited. I will, of course, be freezing while i work because we have no insulation and we cant just be turning on the heat willy nilly (what are we MADE of money?) but still...track pants. Working in track pants. And slippers. And maybe. Depending on how efficient i am. Extra time to work on the house. And certainly cook. Joy!

The cat sleeps on my face

2004-12-01T15:15:00.000-08:00

cat allll curled up
Originally uploaded by merideth.

That's right. On. My. Face. I have no new house news to report so this is what i'm discussing today.

So this is a brand new thing for him and here's how it goes: in the middle of the night, when i'm already sound asleep, he creeps over to my pillow, curls up in the tiniest ball like so and gets himself DIRECTLY on my face. No. like all the way. I sleep on my back and he is like some furry cowboy hat i've covered my face with to get me some shut eye.

So once he's balanced himself on me, my mouth gets full of fur and believe it or not ONLY THEN do i start to wake up. That's right, somehow he fully walks all over me with his little peg feet and gets settled before i start to reach consciousness. But then, the thing that actually wakes me up and makes me go "what the Ef?" Oh yeah. He SNORES. He takes a deep breath that ends with a tiny chirp. With every freakin breath. He snores on my face.

And it's happened the last 3 nights. I dont care for it.

Recovery

2004-11-04T10:18:00.000-08:00

The message of the day: watch out, ye of narrow mind. The best "buck up little camper" speech yet: Margaret Cho's blog (Scroll to the entry for 11/3 "Dont Despair, Act") Best Bitch-slap: Pete Coors and his "no to gay marriage" campaign in Colorado was officially handed the message to stick making swill. Most exciting dude: Barack Obama...thank God there are people like him in public service. The awesomest (you love it scott and brit) reminder of where we are: Quote sent to me by my friend Hal, The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice. Dr. Martin Luther King I'm strangely optomistic today. Oh yeah, and for those of you who just want to know about a little renovation,our house has a kitchen that's fast filling up with water as the early fall rains, and yes folks hail, continue to batter our roof. The stucco is progressing and looking great but i'm anxious to get it up so things can be made watertight.

Stick to the Edges (but watch out for Oregon)

2004-11-03T09:31:00.000-08:00

Turns out it's a good thing I left the South and Beth left the middle of the country. Narrow-mindedness reigns supreme there. Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, N. Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah and Mississippi all voted to support discrimination against gay marriage. You'd think at least the Southern states would say to themselves "hmmm, we looked like jackasses for making interracial marriage illegal, maybe we should be forward thinking..." but no. And 4 more years of bush. sigh. It's a dark day.

The Perfect Coffee Table, or why we are not like my sister and brother in law...

2004-10-30T13:27:00.000-07:00

new coffee table
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Because today we decided to go shopping for a new coffee table because our current one finally fell apart.

We'd been thinking about it. We'd done research. Beth wanted something lighter (as in less weighty) looking and less rustic than our current table. I also wanted something less rustic with a slight asian flair to it.

We've shopped catalogs. Shopped online. Shopped national chains. Today we went to the Wooden Duck--a cool store here in Berkeley that makes furniture from recycled wood.

We found exactly what we were looking for. We bought it. It's awesome. It meets all the criteria plus it's made from recycled California Douglas Fir taken from a demo'd building. And it was 30% off. Nice.

Here's the part where we arent like my sister and brother in law: it took one day. Even if they'd been looking for something specific, found it, LOVED it...it still would have been mmmmmm 3 months maybe? before they actually brought it home. I love them. But they are nutty.

Additional cool thing: it has a little drawer in the front just big enough to fit all the remotes and a few other random things.

Happy Anniversary Baaaybee, Got You on My Miiiiiiind

2004-10-20T10:43:00.000-07:00

wedding
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Yup! Today is our anniverary. We were married 3 years ago today in Glen Ellen in the lovely Sonoma Valley wine country. It was the best wedding i've ever been to with hands-down the best food and most deeelicious cake.

As year 3 is the year for leather gifts we got each other this neat leather vase and a suede finish chair (we faked the leather on that one because we knew the dog and cat would destroy the real thing).

I'm happier than i ever thought possible and look forward to a good 150 more years of bliss with my girl.

I'm a little worried

2004-10-20T10:38:00.000-07:00

ceiling_leak
Originally uploaded by merideth.

So the rains have come. They're only slightly early, but early nonetheless. And this is bad. It's bad because the house is still un-stuccoed, riddled with holes, and the roof has a big leak in the kitchen. We knew about the leak and even have the guy lined up to fix it but he cant start fixing until the stucco is on. And, as previously mentioned, the stucco is not on.

We love our stucco guy and have hung in there with him even though he's been so busy he's had to push our start date out. But beth called him on saturday, after the rain bucket on the kitchen counter was full, to see how things were looking. His response was "oh shit. i forgot about your roof." But now things have started moving. We picked out a color for the stucco top coat and the scaffolding guy came over yesterday to take measurements. The place might actually look good by the xmas season!

On the upside, in its current creepy, delapidated state, it's one big halloween decoration (according to beth).

Vote!

2004-10-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

suffrage demonstration 1917 Originally uploaded by merideth.

I just watched Iron Jawed Angels on HBO. Aside from the fact that it was a great movie and DAMN what those women went through for suffrage, it occured to me as i was watching it that the woman/women in the first family to live in our house had only been allowed to vote for 2 years and had not yet had the chance to vote for president. Holy Crap! Sometimes history just sneaks up on me when i'm least expecting it.

Further Humiliation for the Niners

2004-10-04T14:18:00.000-07:00

How can they suck so hard?

If it didnt rain so much, i'd move to seattle

2004-09-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

pioneer square Originally uploaded by merideth.

Once again no work progressed on the house this week. Beth and I took our one and only vacation of the year: a brief weekend to seattle. Normally we travel and camp all year long but this year we've done nothing as life has been all about the house. In fact, we started looking for a house this time last year and looked at our first house in Oakland on Nov. 1. Halloween is a good time to explore neighborhoods. Seeing who's decorated and how they've decorated lets you kind of gauge the personality of a neighborhood. After living in San Francisco for years and only decorating our flat's windows, i'm looking forward to decorating more maniacally this year. But anyway, Seattle. It was gorgeous. Perfect experience for beth's first and my second visit: weather was crisp but not too cold, colorful trees dropping leaves everywhere, nice people, a great view of the Sound, the Space Needle and Lake Washington from our room. Delicious food at every turn and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a cup of coffee in that town. Sadly, the 49ers humiliated themselves against the seahawks in the first shutout since 1977. Sigh. Now beth is out of town for 10 days and work is crazy so i doubt things will go much further around here for a while. And you know, i'm about to get crazy for halloween.

Land of Fruits...

2004-09-13T15:12:00.000-07:00

lime
Originally uploaded by merideth.

Sunday was more pleasant than Saturday. We bought 2 delightful little citrus trees to plant in the backyard: a Bears' Seedless Lime (the bartender's favorite) and a wonderful Meyer Lemon.

lemon
Originally uploaded by merideth.

They'll grow into little evergreen bushes that prouce lots of great fruit and fragrant flowers. I'm so excited for the Meyer lemon as I have tons of recipes to try that make use of the curious little fruit.

Dixie dug up one of the snail vines twice this weekend. She hates that vine.

Hot Tomatoes

2004-09-10T08:29:00.000-07:00

tomatoes
Originally uploaded by merideth.

I've wanted to grow my own tomatoes since i was a kid. Growing up, we frequently had veggie gardens and there is nothing NOTHING like a real home-grown tomato. Ours are coming in like gangbusters.

There is also nothing like a potato dug out of the garden and popped in the microwave for immediate consumption. Dixie, however, destroyed the potatoes her first weekend in the yard so we'll try those again when the tomatoes die back.

It's a freaking mailbox...not high art!

2004-09-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

mailbox Originally uploaded by merideth.

So why do the dang things cost one meeelion dollars? Everything beyond the standard fare you find at the likes of Home Depot seems to be ridiculously priced. Frequently, too, accompanied by some snotty description whose subtext is "surely you arent planning to hang this outside?! unguarded?! on your HOUSE!?" I even ran across one pompous blurb that explained how the mailbox in question was designed by an architect without consideration for how much it would cost to produce (or buy).

Ultimately though, we found this. Style appropriate? Yes. Lovely detail for the outside (that's right) of the house? Yes. One million dollars? No.

If you love it and want one too, it came from here.

dixie with shrek

2004-09-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

dixie with shrek Originally uploaded by merideth.

We did nothing to the house last night except wish that it had a/c. The bay area isnt prepped for hot weather (we only have about a week of it a year) so we had 2 fans pointed directly at us while we ate ice cream and tried not to let anything touch us. Here's a picture of our dog Dixie. She does not care about a/c.

I've Seen the Light

2004-09-03T15:53:00.000-07:00

new window Originally uploaded by merideth.

And it's name is "New Windows." I can barely work for wanting to come home and just look at our new windows. Not OUT our new windows. At them. Beth researched all over the place to get us the most reasonable combination of quality and value and we are thrilled with the results. They are Milgard double hung windows. They are double paned, uv coated, and they tilt inside for easy cleaning. They are beautiful. Not exactly period, but not wackily non-period either. We think they do nicely. As an added bonus, the window installer guys took off all the unnecessary burglar bars that were ugly and making the rooms that much darker. We just put them on the back of the house because we plan (fingers crossed) to actually restore the original divided light windows on the front of the house. But on the back, we just needed good solid windows with screens. (Bugs stay out, cat stays in.)

Day 1

2004-08-28T20:25:00.000-07:00

Well Day 1 wasnt documented. And i'm sad about it. Sad. We found the house. We loved the house. We bought the house. We did a dance of joy at our unbelievable good fortune in grabbing it up before someone else did. But i genuinely thought that our thrill at owning a 1922 bungalow fixer would diminish as the newness of the whole house-procurement experience wore off. I was wrong. I had no idea we would get so IN to our house. I mean, yes, we've had an HGTV addiction since the network first went on the air and yes, we're both creative types, and we have a love for early/mid century accoutrements, but I didnt think that would add up in a way that made our lives house-centric. Yet here we are. Hardcore. We've done a good bit of renovation/restoration already including some basic things like painting. But there is more, oh much more, to come. I want it documented. I want this freakin huge craft project of ours spelled out and illustrated. I'm aware that, in the end, it may serve as a dire warning of what never to do again.