SF: Not Quite Done, but Picture Worthy

March 4, 2016

That’s riiiiiiggggghhhttt. It’s time for some before & after pictures. YAY!

This project isn’t done (those fucking radiators), but it’s for sale, and that means really pretty professional photographs (we’re finishing the radiators while for sale [they’re starting today] and whoever buys it will have it complete during escrow). Way better than the pictures I take whenever I’m checking in on this project and I’ve got a baby in one hand and my phone in the other. That doesn’t really make for good photographic compositions. So let’s just cut to the chase – my brother’s property is like 98% done, it’s staged, and there are pretty pictures. The best part is that this place was gutted when we got it, so the before & after comparisons are pretty great.

If you remember, this was the mood board when I first started things

This was the first project for my brother where I had so much control. I had done other projects which weren’t quite as transformative. It was a really great learning experience. Both from a technical aspect of managing a remodel completely on my own. And also from a design perspective. I’ve never been given that much “power,” and it was definitely a challenge. How to make something appeal to a lot of people, but still not be completely beige. And how to get the project done in a timely fashion and on budget. It was frustrating and fun. And a challenge. I learned so much. It was pretty cool for Adam to have that much confidence in me. Scary too.

Okay, I’ll shut up. Pretty before & afters. I know it’s what you want. This place is small – about 700sf, so we’ll be quick. Here we go.

Here is the hallway when you enter

The first bedroom

The second bedroom

The bathroom

And, lastly, the open kitchen/nook area

So what do you think!?

This was definitely quite the adventure for me. I took away a lot of skills that will help me in future projects for him and other clients. A better order of things, where to spend a little bit more time, etc. I’ve of course managed and worked on our own remodel for many years, but it’s definitely a different beast when you do the work for someone else, and in a much tighter time frame.

And the design was fun as hell. That was awesome. And a dream. I loved getting to pick things, make sure everything worked in the budget, be challenged by what the previous contractor did, etc. It was pretty amazing to get to do.

And I CANNOT WAIT for Adam to start working on more projects like this and maybe even go larger. He’s talking about doing multiple units, reconfigures, etc. It sounds like a pretty awesome, creative adventure that I can’t wait to tackle.

THIS IS THE HOUSE!

March 2, 2016

It’s ours!!!

OH MY GOD IT’S OURS!!! Our agent came by at about 6:45 on Monday night. She brought the keys and said she thought the old owners would be there till about midnight still getting the place vacant. Jesus. We said whatever. JUST AS LONG AS THEY ARE OUT. I cannot express the frustration. We told her the locks were getting changed yesterday at 11am, so whatever they had left – BUH-BYE.

Yesterday rolled around. Chris got there at 11am after a couple jobs to meet with someone to replace the furnace, change the locks and meet with a cleaner. He reported that the house and exterior were littered with garbage. And they had taken all the appliances. Well, minus the dishwasher. And light fixtures. OH MY FUCKING GOD.

It was okay that they took the washer and dryer – they were pieces of shit and weren’t called out in the contract. But the contract did state that they leave the other appliances (and for heaven’s sake the fucking lights as well you fucking morons). Here’s their absolutely ridiculous argument – along the way we had an addendum when we saw that they had so much SHIT and were moving slowly specifying that they take all their personal belongings. Specifically so we not get stuck with a house full of shit. So they were CLAIMING (when they got caught doing something wrong) that they simply thought that meant appliances and light fixtures too. There are 2 wrinkles to this argument: 1) that’s total, utter, complete, absolute bullshit. And 2) if you’re going to use that as your argument, you’re negating it yourself by leaving trash and so much of your shit ALL OVER THE HOUSE (which you will see in the photos below).

I went ape shit. I won’t go into all the details because at this point I no longer have the mental energy as I’m running on 2 1/2 hours of sleep because after Merritt woke up at 1:15 to nurse I only went back to bed for another 30 minutes at 6am because I was SO FUCKING FRUSTRATED. I actually spent about 10 minutes crying in the bathroom because I was trying not to wake up Chris. Spoiler: I did.

Anyway, the culmination: the listing agent said that the sellers could come back to remove their stuff so that they could indeed “take all their personal belongings.” I told our real estate agent absolutely NOT. That if they or the listing agent came onto the property at all I would call the police immediately. IMMEDIATELY. And I DON’T GIVE A FUCK. What it comes down to is the sellers, the listing agent and his fucking broker are all absolute pieces of shit, and I just want to be done with it. It’s not worth taking anyone to small claims court (because that is what we’d have to do at this point) for the maybe $1000 we would be awarded to buy ourselves used appliances or rent a dumpster. It’s not worth spending my mental energy anymore. It’s not worth them getting any more of my time.

Of course that’s all easier said than done. What I definitely will be doing will be reviewing the listing agent on every single fucking real estate review site I can find. That fucker.

So there ya have it!

Now, let’s get fucking real, I know you want to see the house. I know 🙂 And here’s the good news: the house is fucking ours. And now we can enjoy it. We have to spend money cleaning it, picking it up and getting appliances – but it’s OURS! And the locks are changed 🙂 I’ll show 1-5 pictures of each room/place and let you know what our plans are for that space. The house is not falling apart (well, the deck is), but it’s just really ugly. And really dirty, as you’ll see from the pictures.

An introduction: This place was built in 1953. It’s got a little over 2,500 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a secondary living room which will function as a sort of multipurpose room for us (office, hang out, laundry corner/closet area [we still have to figure that one out]), a 2 car garage, a basement (for lots of storage!!!), a great outdoor space with a giant deck, 0.6 of an acre, on a dead end street, 2 houses from a giant, few hundred acre park. In other words, this is exactly why we waited so long, dealt with so much bullshit and just hung in there. It was perfect for us. We loved it. And it will be the perfect project for the next 7-10 years – our guess for how long it will take us between saving up for projects (bye bye savings account to buy it, lol), raising our girls, running our business, and just life’s excitement.

Okay, okay, okay, let’s get to it.

The outside

I know, not nearly the exciting architecture that our Picardy house is. But I actually find that a little appealing. It’s a simple, but very homey ranch. It allows me SO MUCH freedom with the inside. I don’t feel tied to a really specific style like I did with Picardy. I love the deep porch, I love the big driveway, I love the planters. I don’t like how dark things are, I don’t like palm trees, I don’t like that there’s no character. So the (eventual) plan for the outside? Paint (soon actually because the wood siding is failing and that’s something that you really want to be on top of), build out the columns, maybe install a railing, jazz up the porch area, install hanging lights (Chris wants to leave the lights that are there, so let’s all try to convince him), put in a hanging swing, and of course re-landscape everything. More stuff will come up, but all I can think of so far.

The entry

I love having tile in the entry and actually having a proper sized closet, hooray! We have a TEENY closet at Picardy and there is no room for anything, so having a real space to put shoes, our shopping bags, coats, etc. is so awesome. It’s ugly now though 🙂 So we’ll spruce up the closet, paint, install new hardware, redo the tile on the floor.

The living area

This living room area is MUCH larger than our Picardy living room. Which is awesome. Eventually we’ll jazz up the fireplace somehow, install a gas insert in the fireplace (almost exclusively illegal to burn in wood fireplaces in CA now), open up a portion of the brick to the kitchen (behind the behemoth wall of brick), build a built-in for our TV components and books, paint, set aside a specific play area for the girls along the back wall, figure out window coverings (that don’t really cover much of the windows), and enjoy that fucking view. I love that fucking view.

Dining Nook

Thanks for stealing the light. Assholes.

Paint, figure out non-covering window coverings to enjoy more of the view, refinish a table we bought a month or two ago, figure out a more permanent dining solution (I’ve always wanted a banquet, but I don’t know if that will work with the giant windows).

The Kitchen

Ohhhh the kitchen. Doesn’t this look so stylish and clean that you just want to host a dinner party? Remove all their personal belongings my ass.

There are LOTS of plans for this room. Total gut is the most important because it sucks. And is ugly. After we gut it we’ll install more cabinetry along the exterior wall (probably extend all the way to the windows in the dining area), make sure we’ve got a secretary area, keep a peninsula probably (a small one), match the hardwood floors, change every single fucking surface, open up part of the brick wall to the living room area, close off the door to the garage (which will be Chris’ workshop, so we don’t actually want interior access because it will be a dirty, dusty space), maybe rearrange appliances, but who knows. But, you get the idea: this area is currently disgusting. We will make it marvelous. In a couple of years. We will need to save up BIG TIME for that one.

Merritt’s Room

Not much. It’s not in terrible shape. For the time being this will get repainted, furnished with things we have on hand, and just cleaned up. I don’t want to spend extra money decorating when I’m not sure what sort of decor would fit with this little lady’s personality. I don’t want to spend the money twice. So I’ll probably “redo” it in about 2 years.

Zoe’s Room

I won’t spill all the beans here because I’m actually hoping to have this room DONE by the time we move in (moved to 3/14 instead of 3/7 to accommodate all their fucking hold ups).

The bathroom

Ugly and gross. Lots of changes. Another complete gut job. At some point the tub was taken out for just a shower stall. We’ll put a tub back in. All new tile. A double vanity. Hopefully some fun sinks. More storage.

The hallway

This goes downstairs to our bedroom and the office. It’s ugly, and dark. I’d like to open up the opening that leads down here from the main floor because it’s a little closed off. New paint will go a long way.

Our Bedroom

Large. Disgusting. New paint, new flooring, new windows (eventually), new lights, and just making it feel a lot better. It feels dark and sad right now.

Master bath

A decent enough size. But really low ceilings. We’d hope that with new ducting in with the furnace replaced we might eventually be able to raise the ceiling, even just 6″ would make a difference. It’s dark in here for sure. This place will get gutted. New everything. Not sure if I would keep the tub and shower separate – it feels like such a waste of space to me and this is our forever home and I’m not actually a fan of baths. As Kramer says, I don’t like sitting in a pool of my own warm, tepid filth 🙂

Dressing area

This is right off of the bathroom. I actually don’t know what I would use this area for. It takes me 15 minutes to go from pajamas to showered and dressed (I wear no make-up and am in a t-shirt and jeans 90% of the time). So I don’t really have any use for a vanity area because I literally wear make-up once a year. I’ll figure out something fun to do though.

Master Closet

There is actually access to the basement through that far door. I’m not sure if we’re actually going to keep this as a clothes closet, or a extra storage space. The bedroom is so fucking big, which is totally unnecessary for me. We’ve actually talked about installing a built-in closet system in the bedroom on the wall across from the bed and then using this space for extra storage (things like suitcases, art supplies, etc.) We have a basement area, but I really want to use that space for extra work storage as much as possible to make Chris’ workshop free of as much clutter as possible

Office/multipurpose room

This room is HUGE. And there are lots of plans for it. We will move the laundry from the garage (which will be Chris’ workshop) down here onto the back wall. We’ll be removing the stove that doesn’t work and possibly building a wall back there to enclose the laundry area. Do you like that fake brick wall? Ugh. There’s also the third DISGUSTING bathroom off the back wall

Yup, another total gut job. The toilet was so gross that Zoe asked last night when she saw it, “Mommy, who pooped in there?” Lol.

But, back to the office

This room will have a lot of functions. There will be a TV, a nice, large sectional for hanging out, built-ins built along the wall for CDs and DVDs with our desk area integrated. New paint. Window coverings. New flooring. Lots of new. And don’t worry, that giant crack is not a structural problem.

There is also the backyard, the garage and the basement that I didn’t really photograph. The basement is starting to get worked on today by Chris. So I’ll actually have a little bit of a before & after transformation of that one because we’re just installing a ton of utility shelving for secondary storage of all of our work tools and materials that we don’t use on a very frequent basis.

The garage will also be worked on very soon as we will need that up and running quickly to make our work lives function normally as soon as possible. So I’ll devote a lot of posts to that specifically very soon.

And I really should have photographed that backyard, because there’s so much potential. I didn’t take many, or actually ANY with my nice camera, but at the end of our visit there last night Zoe asked specifically to go in the backyard. And she immediately ran all around, discovered, talked about how fun it was, picked flowers… pretty much making ALL of this worth it. It was the reason we were looking for a house like this. We want land. We want to spread out. We want our girls to be able to run all around and play. We want to feel free

And after all the fucking bullshit, we will finally get it with this place.

Of Course there are “Extenuating Circumstances”

February 29, 2016

I wanted to be able to write a post today about how excited I was that our new house is empty and the keys are in our hands. Or just about to be in our hands. Ughhhhhhhhhh.

This fucking house.

Last week the wife of the pair who owns the house finally signed. We didn’t find out till the next day because title stopped picking up the phone because she went to their office after they were closed and of course the listing agent turned off his fucking phone. Normally this wouldn’t be entirely frustrating (people go late all the time because it’s after they get off of work), but her signing was never confirmed and so we were just HOPING that she would be arriving to sign. We all waited with our fingers crossed. The husband had signed the previous week, so it was all up to her.

Thankfully we found out mid-morning the next day that she had. THANK GOD. We were all a little worried that she wasn’t going to show up. We never got confirmation of the appointment from her agent and even title was unsure if she would be coming. If she didn’t sign we were very afraid of what was going to happen to the contract. The deadline for the short sale to go through was going to be today. Because it has taken them SO FUCKING LONG to sign ANY PAPERWORK (sometimes over a week), we were afraid that she just wouldn’t go in within the absolutely necessary time frame. And then we’d be fucked. Then the house would fall into foreclosure and all the work we’ve done would have gone to shit.

But, thankfully she signed.

So we went in and signed on Wednesday. We signed our lives away. We signed not knowing if they would be moving out. Yes, that was the other fun wrinkle in the story. Virtually nothing in the house had been packed up and the sellers were not letting their listing agent know when they were moving out (and at one point refused to let him come in the house). Were they going to move out? Sure, we hoped. I understand this sounds incredibly dramatic, but because basically NOT ONE THING has gone according to plan, we were being dramatic.

Would you like an example?

Well, about 10 days ago we were supposed to have a “final walk through.” That was based on the FIRST COE date of 2/22 (clearly, that didn’t happen). So, for the 5 days leading up to that appointment our agent hadn’t heard from the listing agent. She called, texted, emailed. Nothing. We had the appointment, but we never heard what time it would be, who would be there, or what the hell was going to happen. But we had it in the contract. So we just decided what time we would have it, let the agent know (who was still MIA), and then went there at that time. Our agent had access to the lockbox, the key was inside, so we let ourselves in. The second we walked in: alarm goes off. We locked up, went outside. We called the listing agent over and over again. Called. Texted. Emailed. Nothing. So we waited in the driveway and then just said, fuck it, and went in. Legally we had the appointment, we tried to schedule it, they didn’t accommodate anything, so we held up our end of the bargain. We got the keys and went back inside. We did our walk through with our agent and the alarm blaring.

Of course immediately after that the agent called. And texted. And emailed. I mean – COME THE FUCK ON.

So that’s why we’ve just wondered what the fuck has been going on.

It got to the point that we were a little nervous about what would happen if we closed, but they were still occupying the house. Legally, the house is ours (and legally we take ownership and unless some rent back agreement is in place it is supposed to be vacant), and now we would essentially have squatters. We even consulted a real estate attorney who advised us what we should do, what our options would be should that occur, etc.

Late last week we finally got word that they would be moving out Sunday (yesterday) and that COE would be Monday. The listing agent set up another walk through for some time yesterday. Of course we never got confirmation or heard back from the listing agent. So we just said fuck it. If they were going to be indeed moving out, just let them move out. We don’t need a walk through. Just please let them move out.

Yesterday we went to visit friends who had moved back to the US after a year abroad. We were going to be driving by the new house’s exit, so we decided to drive by and see how things were going – were they actually moving out?

It was about 3:30 in the afternoon and we were so fucking excited to see when we drove by that there was a moving truck in the driveway, boxes everywhere, people moving shit. HALLELUJAH! We texted our agent in excitement. OMG it looks like they’re actually moving out. Hooray! Things were going to move forward! They were moving! The keys were going to be ours with an empty house this afternoon! We can schedule contractors! (to bid a furnace replacement) We can schedule a locksmith to change the locks! We can schedule cleaners to scrub that baby down!

We were so excited that we powered through our exhaustion of a long day, a non-napping toddler and too short of a napping baby and did touch up painting, some packing and sprucing up. Hooray!

So, imagine my depression when I got a text from our agent while watching the Oscars that read: LA [listing agent] left message. House and garage not completely empty. Extenuating circumstances. Have asked for time frame.

OH MY FUCKING GOD!

That’s basically what I sent back to her. Only it was longer. With more cussing.

If I wasn’t so mad, I would have cried.

I didn’t believe “extenuating circumstances” for a FUCKING SECOND. And that’s what you get for being the boy who cried wolf. This whole time there have been excuses after excuses. I’m sorry, the extenuating circumstances are that you did NO packing before and you needed to move an entire house (with all your stuff everywhere because they have A LOT of stuff) in one day. It’s just not possible.

I have gotten to the point where I don’t feel bad anymore. I had been feeling guilty. I had been feeling awful for being so mad. I understand they are in a short sale. I know that sucks. I know it must feel awful selling a house when you’re underwater. But it’s also frustrating because here we are trying to comply with everything along the way. We’ve been really nice and dealt with all the headache along the way. We’ve been understanding. We’ve followed all the rules. And at some point you have to throw us a bit of a bone and just hold up this little end of the bargain. Please.

Our agent said that “technically” they have until 5pm today. That’s the official close of escrow. So I replied to her that that’s when they have until. Tomorrow we have contractors coming in to do estimates. Locks are being changed. It’s been 3 months. It’s close of escrow. It’s time.

We’ll see what happens later today. We’ll see at what time they get all their stuff out. We’ll see if when we get the keys and have the locks changed if there’s a bunch of stuff inside. At this point if they just left all the stuff they don’t want, I would’t care if we had to pay for a dumpster. I just want to be able to have it be our house. Sigh.

So there you have it. Extenuating circumstances. I’m sorry if I sound like an ungrateful, spoiled, asshole. I know to some people it must sound like I am. And I understand that feeling. It’s just hard to have to deal with this. We’ve been looking for our dream house for a year and a half. We’ve put offers on two other houses we’ve loved and lost out. This time, we found it, and we won. We love it. I’ve had dreams about it. I’ve planned where we’ll eat dinner. Where play areas will be in the backyard. The adventures we’ll have on the property. The adventures we’ll have in the neighborhood. Where I can go on morning runs. How we’ll update all the rooms. I’ve been dreaming. And that dream is SO CLOSE. It’s just hard to have the reality of touching it being teased. Fuck.

How to: Replace Buttons on a Tufted Chair

February 26, 2016

I love the chair in Zoe’s room, but I was feeling like it needed a face lift for her new room

I never had the balls to upholster it in some crazy fabric (mostly because it costs to much and I was afraid I would get sick of it in a year or two). I was (obviously) on Pinterest and found this great image

Perfection! I LOVED the buttons.

So Merritt and I went to a craft store one day after Zoe drop off and picked up 6 buttons

I wanted them colorful and different. I liked the various shapes and styles. I thought it made it a lot of fun.

I have to admit I was a little scared to take this project on because I didn’t know how to replaced tufted buttons. I Googled a little bit but couldn’t find anything extremely helpful. I went over to the chair and examined the buttons and gathered my tools:

the buttons
pliers
a needle
thread
scissors
wire cutters

And that was all it took.

First step: I used a thin sewing needle (in hindsight I wish I had used a thicker needle – intended for leather) and threaded thread through it (also, in hindsight I wish I had used thicker thread like embroidery thread instead of standard thin sewing thread).

With my needle threaded I used the pliers and pulled the button away from the chair and with the button still attached to the metal ring I threaded the needle through the metal ring in the chair

After the needle was threaded I used the metal wire cutters to snip the original button off of the metal ring

With the old button removed from the chair I threaded the new button onto the thread

Once the new button was threaded, I cut the string so the needle wasn’t attached anymore. And then I just simply tied the string in a couple knots, and boom, the button was attached!

Now, the reason I said in the beginning that I would have rather used a thicker needle is because the standard sewing needle is thinner, it was actually a little hard to poke through the metal ring in the chair and then direct it to a point that it wasn’t poking into the chair. A thicker needle doesn’t bend as easily, and therefor is easier to work with.

The other revision was thicker embroidery thread – which is easier to thread through a thicker needle also. The reason I would revise this is because Merritt became completely FASCINATED with the new buttons and ripped one off. Obviously standard sewing thread is thin, so Merritt was able to rip the button off easily. After I replaced the button with thicker embroidery thread even after I fucked with the button I couldn’t rip it off. WIN!

I repeated all the steps for all 6 buttons. And it looks marvelous

One of the best things is that Zoe “helped” with this project. She had fun following simple directions and “helping” me tie the knots (she actually did help with this in fact). But the icing on the cake was that the next morning when she woke up, she was running out of her room, and right before she was out, she stopped, turned around and said to me, “Mommy, I really love my new buttons.” Heart melting 🙂

I still need to touch up the white paint – something I haven’t done in the 2 1/2 years that we’ve had this chair. But I was actually thinking about painting over the white with a fun, bright color. I’m also thinking about removing the skirt on the bottom. Just to update it a bit more. I was at the park with a friend and our kids the other day and she gave me some great ideas about how to jazz it up a bit with a little trim. But hey, those buttons are replaced and they’re looking good. And it makes me happy. And Zoe loves them 🙂

Merritt: 8 months

February 24, 2016

My little squishy hit 8 months on Monday

SQUISHY! 🙂 If there is one thing that is right in the world, it’s rolls on the legs of babies. Honestly, is there anything better. You just want to SQUISH them 🙂

And, of course, the comparison shot

One thing of note is how playful they are in each of these photos. At this point Zoe was definitely coming into her playful personality, and Merritt has started to show that as well. She definitely isn’t as, well, for lack of a better word – crazy – as Zoe was, but she’s starting to get more playful and wiggly and for sure wants to hang out with Zoe.

Prime example of that would be the prop she has this month – Zoe’s pacifier. Yes, I KNOW, it’s bad that we haven’t taken it away from Zoe yet, but with the potential move on the horizon and Zoe’s attachment to them, it’s been hard for me to want to take it away. I have finally vowed to myself that we will start the weaning (whether the rip of a band-aid or nice and slow) after we move and before Zoe is 3. But anyway, Merritt LIGHTS UP when she sees a pacifier, “OH! Zoe loves those! I MUST HAVE ONE!” And she just dive bombs it. If Zoe has one in her mouth Merritt must crawl/climb to her and try to take it out. Luckily Zoe thinks this is all hilarious and will usually laugh and say, “No bay-bah,” and then give her one of her own to have. Merritt is then delighted and spends the next 20 minutes figuring out how to properly put it in her mouth. We took one away from her so early she now has no idea how to correctly use it so it’s usually just sitting in her mouth (sometimes in the wrong direction). She doesn’t suck on it or anything, she just holds it. Sometimes she smiles so big because she’s so delighted she has one it squirts out of her mouth. That always makes me laugh

So, obviously the love for Zoe has continued, and so has Zoe’s love for Merritt. Still wonderful to see.

One thing that’s funny is that this month Merritt has started to TRY to crawl and Zoe thinks that is FABULOUS. The beginning of the month Merritt would sort of get on all 4’s and then rock back and forth, sometimes grunting and yelling. She couldn’t figure out how to make herself go and sometimes she would get really pissed off about it. It was both hilarious and a little sad. I’ve never seen a baby so obviously express their frustration about something they can’t do that they’re trying to. This has continued most of the month, but she’s finally figured it out a little bit. She never did the army crawl (dragging themselves on the ground that I see most babies do), she has been intent on only crawling on all 4’s. She had one going where she would sit up, face plant, pull herself forward and do it all again. The problem is that she’s so focused on her feet and legs that she will sometimes shove herself in a push up position and then wonder why she’s not moving. Just like not using her arms during tummy time, this lady has convinced herself she will accomplish crawling the hard way.

She finally gets going now little movement by little movement. She’s a little jerky about it and slow, so she looks a little drunk. It’s quite fun to watch 🙂

Zoe loves it and insists on crawling around on the floor with her laughing. I know once Merritt gets going Zoe will LOVE getting to play with her more. Because Merritt is getting better at crawling and moving all around from laying to sitting, etc. you can definitely tell Zoe wants to play with her more. She gets a little too rough and aggressive sometimes, but that’s totally normal, so we just try to tell her nicely when she’s going a little too far.

But for the most part, Zoe is great with her. I can actually leave them both in Zoe’s room playing (Zoe is usually “reading” to her) while I go into the kitchen for 5-10 minutes and get the backpack ready for an excursion. It’s pretty damn great to get to do that.

Like Zoe was, she’s great on errands and likes to be out and about. She LOVES sitting in the cart – an opportunity to get those feet swirling and kicking around. Still with the feet. Still so much that strangers continue to make comments to me about it

We had a little stranger danger going this month. She’s actually almost reconciled it. But in the beginning if you were to look at her too much, and heaven forbid you SMILE at her, she might dissolve into tears. I actually laughed one time about it at Home Depot because I could tell the older man who was adoring her felt awful. I felt bad for him. I told him her age and he understood immediately 🙂 She’s returned to being cautiously polite to strangers (never as outgoing as Zoe was), and she’s definitely happy to smile at you if mommy or daddy is holding her 🙂

Food is THE BEST THING IN LIFE. Honestly, I have NEVER. NEVER. NEVER seen a baby eat as much as this kid does. She must be in a growth spurt because the last week or so she has just shoved food in her mouth like there is no tomorrow. Her whole life I have never encountered a baby who was more apathetic about the boob. On occasion she has literally pulled my boob out of her mouth and pushed it away. Then she will – and I’m not joking – YELL and grunt at you until you give her food. And she can pack it away. I have a feeling she will wean herself early like Zoe did because she just does not have the attachment/desire to nurse like most kids do. She just LOVES food.

Favorites: BLUEBERRIES, still any applesauce, puffs and anything that you are trying

She’s great at trying new foods – like Zoe was too. It seems like in both kiddos we got the good eaters and bad sleepers. Well, not BAD, just “late” to the through the night game. We’re still not there yet. She’s waking up once or twice a night, which is still better than it was. And she puts herself right back to sleep each time. The only time in fact she WANTS to nurse is at night – and she loves it. Just my luck. Weaning her from night nursing will be a challenge. I’m thinking of starting after we move because I don’t know how much she’ll perceive that change and I’d like to have that ace in the hole if it does fuck with her a little bit. We shall see.

Oh! And last little development: she’s starting to TRY and pull herself to standing this month. Still not super great at it and can’t do it on her own. But I love seeing her try. It’s always so fun to get to see them want to do things like that. And when we cheer for her for doing it she looks at us with a GIANT smile on her face and she’s so pleased with herself. That’s one of my favorite moments – seeing her happy with herself and happy that you’re happy. This little kid is the best

Love you my little squishy girl!

The Laundry Room is Still Not Done

February 22, 2016

Wouldn’t it be so nice to finally get to call this room done? It would. But we’re not there yet. CLOSE! But not there.

The first thing I have done though is organize the wonderful cabinet. WONDERFUL cabinets. I love those things 🙂 One thing this house doesn’t have is too much storage, so it’s really nice that this room has sooooooo much storage. We have 5 cabinet areas that are empty. One was taken up with the laundry chute

We searched for a hamper that would fit in the area, but it’s kind of a strange size so we actually decided to just go without one completely because it’s right across from the washing machine – maybe only 3 feet away. So it actually felt like getting a hamper would be a waste of money

The other 4 areas got filled with: our spare rags, cleaning supplies, vacuum/mop, and then miscellaneous kid stuff

It made sense to have some of the kid stuff in here just because it takes up enough floor space in the house, so any chance we get to put a little bit of it away is nice. The small base cabinet has nothing in it

Moving these things into the new cabinets cleared out the above washer/dryer storage and the cabinets on the other side of the room

And the other cabinet on the other side of the room

Always the helper, right? 🙂

Of course, the other cabinets on the other side of the room are now inaccessible with Merritt’s crib in here. The things we do 🙂

The next items on the list were finishing out the cabinets. What does that mean? We had to put in the metal sheathing, install crown, paint touch up, install base, install a counter top, and put in the floor trim. We didn’t get all the way there, but we’re pretty close.

Because we had to set the cabinets away from the wall a little bit (to account for the box we needed to build for ducting), we had to cover the gap between the wall and the back of the cabinets.

We got a piece of metal fabricated with a bend in it and another that slid into a channel in the bed. That way the corner would be as seamless as possible. The only problem is that for some reason we mis-measured and the metal that came was just SLIGHTLY not fitting. So Chris had to cut it down a little bit. He also cut for the outlet cover. Then he put it up in place

It looks like it fits, but the sheet against the cabinets had a very slight bow in it, and the piece against the wall was not fitting into the channel properly. This doesn’t look like a huge deal, but because we’re installing picture molding at the top, with the bow in one of the pieces, that means we can’t install molding over the top. After a lot of swearing and a lot of headache, we decided to remove the sheet that was against the wall and just mud and tape there instead. The sheet there was just for looks. We didn’t need it because it wasn’t covering anything bad, we just liked the seamless look with the piece against the cabinet. So we removed it. We decided to just mud, tape and texture there instead

Not the look we wanted initially, but it was so FUCKING annoying that the sheet wasn’t fitting into the channel and the bow in the necessary sheet. Once we took out that sheet, the one against the cabinet was laying flat. And once it was flat, Chris could install the picture molding around the cabinets

And then he installed the base

And then he just went for a homerun and install the corner trim on the flooring

This corner piece has just been sitting on the corner uninstalled for several months. Which means a lot of it being accidentally kicked out of place.

So what’s left now to get it done? Chris did the mud, texture and priming. I’ve got to paint it (and touch up here and there), and then we’ve got to install the counter as well. We’re allllllllmost there. Just 7+ years after we’ve started. I’m not joking either, sadly. We started this room when we first moved in because we brought the washer and dryer in here (it used to live in the kitchen). It will be nice to finally finish it.

Ch-CH-CH—CHANGES!

February 19, 2016

Oh hi. Do you notice something different? Hehehehhehehehehehe 🙂

Hooray, the blog transformation is here!!!

I’ve been wanting to switch from Blogger to WordPress for sooooooo long. Like, YEARS. I never have done it because it just intimidated me. Well, I don’t know what finally kicked my ass into gear, but I decided it was time. So here we are! Along with that switch I switched domain providers because GoDaddy is annoying as shit. I’m using a company based in Berkeley that Chris has been using for nearly a decade. Seems like he’s satisfied with it, no? 🙂

Along with switching to WordPress, I was feeling like things needed a little bit of a freshen up. I wanted things to look less like a homemade blog (which it is, I mean, let’s not kid ourselves here), and I wanted the layout to reflect (what I feel like is) my style – clean, colorful, fun. And thanks to the WONDERFUL Sarah from Ugly Duckling House and her web design services Sweet Theory Design she helped me get everything done. I designed the logo and background and she got E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. set up for me. I’m a little bit of a moron when it comes to some of this technical stuff, so it was amazing to have her help me out so much and really walk me through everything. I’m still nowhere near where I’d like to be in terms of being familiar with WordPress, but I’m slowly learning things, so that’s good

There will be changes coming through the next couple weeks. I need to add several pages, learn how the Project Gallery works and update it, tweak things, fine tune…but I’m loving it. It looks clean and fresh, and that makes me happy.

The other change? We sold Malcolm. Who’s Malcolm? This guy

Yup, we sold the bug. This car was Chris’s dad’s, then his, then his sister’s, then his again. It’s been in the family a long time. And it’s been sitting in our driveway for 7 years. We’ve had the romantic idea of restoring it, but we finally realized that with two little kids, owning our own business and the prospect of getting another fixer….well, we’re a little busy. And who knows when we would actually get to it. So Chris decided to sell it. The BEST news is that the guy who bought it from us (last night) already has a ’67 Bug that his 14 year old daughter loves and wants, so he’s going to restore this one for her. Best sale ever. We felt really good about that.

And speaking of the prospect of a fixer – OY FUCKING VEY. Things have sort of taken a turn for maybe won’t happen this week. The sellers are being incredibly difficult. We’re at a point where we could potentially be walking away. That would pretty much devastate me. But they’re showing not very many signs of actually moving out and I don’t want to sign on a house that’s not vacant with how things have gone so far (rental laws in Oakland mean that we would essentially inherit a tenant with no rental agreement and the prospect of having to legally evict them). There should be more news next week. I wish I could share more, but we’re really in limbo at the moment, so there’s really not much more to actually share, unfortunately. I’ll just leave you with an adorable photo of the girls to keep me in a positive mood (jammies courtesy of my grandma)

And the Revisit Round 2

February 15, 2016

We’re finally in contract (and we’re hoping from an update from our agent tomorrow as to whether or not the seller’s are actually going to be signing this week – otherwise things will get delayed), but I thought it would be cool to do another revisit of some of the houses we checked out on our way to putting an offer in on this one. I did the first round back in OCTOBER. So clearly it’s been a while.

1. The first is one we ALMOST put an offer on. We didn’t because we were pretty sure it was going to go for well over asking and we didn’t even think it was worth asking