Hemmed Curtains

Steve and I lack both the skill and tools to properly hem our curtains for the sliding glass door, so we turned to Steve’s mother for help. With her expertise, we were able to hem the curtains and sheers and I think they look fantastic. We promised to post a picture to show the results and here it is:


We are still progressing in making our new place more and more livable each day and will probably post updated pictures once we retrieve more of our belongings from my parents, who have patiently allowed their house to serve as a storage shed for our excess of stuff.

Opting Out

For the first time in our lives, Steve and I are paying our own utilities. While perusing cable and satellite rates, we became disgusted. No way were we going to pay those rates for a bunch of channels we don’t even watch. So we elected to go “back to the future.”

First, for the blast from the past part, we purchased a small indoor antenna for our little television in the upstairs bedroom. Then, we acquired a much more substantial outdoor antenna for the entertainment center downstairs.


We are able to get local network channels and public television quite clearly.

To watch our favorite cable shows, we are employing a combination of iTunes and free programming from various websites. I actually prefer this to the package cable or satellite model because we are directly supporting the shows we enjoy. They can see what we are purchasing and downloading and know what shows we value.

We should recoup our start-up costs (for the antennas and a converter box for our older non-digital TV downstairs) in just a few months based on the cost of a basic cable package. So far, it’s working marvelously and helping us save at least a little bit of money.

Laundry!

I can’t overemphasize how excited Steve and I are to have our own personal washer and dryer. We had been using the laundromat at our previous rental, which was actually an improvement from sharing the landlord’s laundry at our rental in the mountains (which was seldom available and did not work reliably when it was).

Steve and I were looking at some floor models that Best Buy was liquidating and I was complaining (loudly, I guess) about the price (over $400 a piece). A man approached us and mentioned that if we were looking for a washer/dryer set, he had just consolidated his belongings with his fiancée, and was looking to get rid of his set and would let us have it for $100. I was wary, so Steve took his business card and said we’d get back to him. We called later that afternoon and he said we could come see them and decide if we were interested. He turned out to live in an address on the east side near my work, an area we are familiar with and felt comfortable in. We were delighted to find the washer/dryer to be a very lightly used, good condition, matching set. Here they are at our place:



Granted, the washer is not the newest water-efficient model and the dryer is probably not as efficient as it could be, but they work great!

What didn’t work so well was our landlord’s bizarre drainage rig from the washer. Due to plumbing issues stemming from the slope of the lot, the landlord had rigged a quasi-greywater system, lightening the load on the sewer line from the washer by having the water drain both into the sewer and into the garden. The problem was that the garden end of the system was a long garden hose, which constricted the water to the point that it came bubbling back out into the laundry room. Luckily the laundry room is essentially just a shed on the deck, so no harm done.

Steve got to work to solve the problem. He unhooked the drain pipe from the washer and, using an existing hole in the shed wall, ran the line outside into a makeshift reservoir fashioned from a 20-gallon trash can with a spigot attached and sealed with marine adhesive. From the spigot, we can run the hose out into the garden. The reservoir completely eliminated the constriction problem, and we can even turn off the spigot and save water for later (we have a lid for the can to keep the bugs out).


I underestimated how much having our own laundry would thrill me. It’s good to be satisfied by the small things, I suppose.

Pumpkin Festival 2009

Steve and I drove up to Half Moon Bay this morning for the annual Pumpkin Festival. The last time we went (in 2007, I believe) we got up early for the pumpkin pancake breakfast and perused the booths after breakfast. This year we elected to browse in the morning and have lunch just before we left.

One of the more interesting food items was the pumpkin mac & cheese. This was thick, KFC-style mac & cheese sprinkled with pumpkin seeds and spices.


It sounds bizarre, but was actually delicious. Had my stomach allowed, we would have had more, but we opted to get some garlic string beans (pictured below) and a roasted herb chicken sandwich to finish off our meal instead.

We love going to shop the local artists. Our budget of course is very limited, but you can find relatively inexpensive prints of more impressive original works.

There was an artist there that painted primarily on silk. His paintings were beautiful, but understandably expensive. We decided to get a couple prints and were agonizing over which two to get out of the three we liked best. He saw our dilemma and gave us a deal to get all three. Better to make a half price sale than none at all, I suppose. It was interesting dealing with him, as he was deaf and I remembered very little sign language from elementary school. Luckily he seems to read lips pretty well and I definitely recognized the sign for “thank you” as we left. Here are the prints we got:



I also got an inexpensive metal bunny yard decoration. It’s a little kitsch-y, but I liked it.

Lastly, on our way out, we spent some time in an unusual photography booth. The man explained that while doing some long exposure shots, some of his pictures got “ruined” by shadows. He realized the appeal of the images and, presto, the Spirit Shadows line of photography was born. Check them out at www.sheerentertainment.com if you’re curious. Steve was really drawn to this one, and I like it too.

The artist said he took it in a graveyard in Santa Monica and took his primary inspiration from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland.

The New Place

The front of our new place (Steve now parks his truck and motorcycle in the empty space in front of the house)

Views from the back deck into our backyard. There are two sheds on the left side of the yard, one for us and one for the woman who lives in the front house on the property. Steve has been delighted to have his own grill. We have eaten several meals cooked on it already and I have to say they turned out well.


The back of the house. The sliding glass door goes into the living room while the door to the right goes into the kitchen. The small extension of the building on the far right houses the washer and dryer.

The kitchen. There have been a few changes since this picture was taken, but the kitchen’s too messy to photograph at the moment. The landlord got a new stove because the one in the picture wasn’t starting property and was declared a hazard and disconnected by PG&E. We also are using our larger refrigerator instead of the small stainless steel one in the picture.


This is the view from the kitchen into the living room, where Steve is assembling furniture from Ikea. The under-stair storage has proven very useful for small kitchen appliances and such.

Two views of the living room, one opposite the entrance to the kitchen and the other from the base of the stairs.


The bathroom is small and pretty generic. I didn’t bother to take a picture.

View up the stairs. The strange cabinets on the left are in the space above the kitchen and provide quite a bit of storage for Steve’s tools and other household miscellany.

Two (“before”) views of the bedroom and the small upstairs closet.



“After” views of the bedroom. It’s still a work in progress, but I figured I’d better not wait any longer to get pictures up.




I especially love the curtains and rug we got from Ikea.


When you walk in the door, the bunnies are arranged in a sort of “hallway” configuration. We bought some inexpensive Ikea snap-together laminate flooring to make clean up easier (it’s much easier to sweep up hay than pick it out of the carpet).

The downstairs is so full of stuff that it was hard to get pictures of and the camera had trouble focusing with all the junk around. We basically have the entertainment center in the center of the room with the computer desk on one side of the room and the dining table in the opposite. Behind the couch, between the couch and the staircase is the bunny “hallway.” Steve is intently playing “Uncharted 2” on the Playstation 3 while I was taking these pictures, hence the goofy “video game” faces.

Before we start on pictures of the new place…

… a few from the old.

Demetri relaxing in the living room.

Steve eating a gigantic tomato that we got in our veggie box.

In a forest of boxes...

Well, we finally have removed all of our stuff from our old rental. We are currently sitting in the living room of our new rental, surrounded by boxes. I fully intend to post before and after pictures of our new place, but for now there's too much stuff that hasn't been put away yet.

We started the move in earnest last Saturday, so it has taken us five days to get to this point. But that's the way it goes when you're using your pick-up truck instead of a big moving van.

Our new place is much larger than our previous one, but we've still managed to make it feel pretty cozy with all of our stuff. Steve and I are certainly collectors. We're going to have to watch that and make sure it doesn't get too out of control.

Many thanks to Sarah & Barry for hooking us up with the new place and to Katie & Alex for helping us move Steve's hefty entertainment center, couch and mattress. We really appreciate all the help!