The Projects Continue...

/
The Projects Continue...

After months of dust flying in the air, the sound of saws and hammers, eating out of a garage, when it was mostly finally done we took a break...then school started and client work picked up, and I got a little unmotivated to keep going. There's some things purposely left unfinished. We plan to build shelves across the entire span of the fireplace wall to house our hundreds of books, small works of art, records, plants, tchotchkes and collected beach matter. I haven't figured out how I want to execute that, so we wait, and pop a temporary bookshelf in there for now. There are some things that will take me an afternoon to finish, like reupholstering the dining chairs. And there are some other things that are weighing on me that have to get done, so I'm outing myself to the interwebs to make it happen. Here we go...

Read More

Small Space Entryway

/
Small Space Entryway

I think the thing that bothered me most about our house, the thing that brought me down about it and made me question why we bought it in the first place was the entryway. The front door opened directly into the hallway that flanks the staircase, there was nowhere go but downstairs to the boys rooms or down the narrow hallway to all the living room. There was nowhere to put my purse down, let alone house a piece of furniture or even a wall hook for my coat. The interior garage door entrance was on one wall, a single paned etched glass floor length window flanked the front door. I knew that we couldn't bump the wall out very far if we wanted to stay under the existing roofline, but I knew there must be a way to make the space slightly bigger and more useful, to give it a focal point and a purpose,  and to make me smile when I walked into our home.  

Read More

Reconstructing Home

/
Reconstructing Home

OH MY GOSH, are you still there? I had to take a BIG break during construction, and then we went on a lazy summer road trip across Oregon. The last thing I showed you was the completion of demo, and the beginning of drywall which seems like a million years and 50 projects ago. What happened next involved a lot of elbow grease on my part, some steep learning curves, lots of power tools, and a few wrenches in the plan. I did manage to snap some pictures to share with you along the way. At long last, here we go...

Read More

The Progress Post

/
The Progress Post

When we tore down the old deck last summer we used the scrap wood to build out four 8' planter boxes, shoveling in 4 cubic yards of soil, planting our first garden of greens, fava beans, arugula, onions and potatoes. Amidst the chaos of tarps, dust and very cramped quarters (I'm slowly going insane), we still have our garden, and today I harvested the remains of the winter crop. Last week the boys picked and juiced over 100 lemons from our lucky tree, and in the front yard our plants are huge and almost in full bloom. Despite the fact that the house is so torn up right now, we still have a wonderful place to be, we just need to remember to go outside.

Read More

Deconstructing Home

/
Deconstructing Home

I am sitting on the original parquet wood flooring, lightly coated in sheetrock dust, surrounded by canvas tarps in the skeleton of my former living room looking out into small expanse of our newly opened up house.  I feel both thrilled at the progress and consumed with pangs of horror for having destroyed the place we call home. A live-in remodel is not for the faint of heart, and doing it all with children is just bananas.  There's a reason why people move out.  After almost a year of planning, a month long battle with the city about a 13 sqft addition, and an eleventh hour refinance to restore our budget after having to bring on a structural engineer we have arrived, one week into a seven week renovation, making toast in our garage and doing dishes in a work sink. This is the ugly part, the deconstruction. Here is the past week in pictures...

Read More