A Very Poolridge Christmas (in pictures)

Before leaving for Southern California, Steve hangs the final ornaments on the family advent calendar he inherited (thank you, Natalie!). He had fond memories of it and I think it's charming.

Once in Southern California, Steve eagerly awaits Christmas cookies in my parents' kitchen. He not only baked the traditional Spritz, he prepared Christmas Eve and Day dinners. Christmas Day was some wonderful beef short ribs. Yum...

 My brother and I are not morning people.

Steve watches the goings-on from in front of my mom's ever-impressive Christmas village.

My brother does his traditional Christmas Eve car repair.

My brother and mom play Christmas carols (one taking over the left handed notes, the other the right). I give encouragement from beside the Christmas tree (and warm fire).

My brother tries his hand at the awesome R/C forklift he got me for Christmas. Rotten kid is much better at it than I am.

My family plays a rousing round of "Unexploded Cow" (a card game Steve and I gave Jim for Christmas) while my Grandma rests. Steve has a winner's grin this round.

We had a good one, and hopefully you did too!

I'm dreaming of a white...

... toilet! Yes, the things homebodies get excited about are really... special. By the way, before I move on, alternate titles considered for this post included Little Plumber Boy and Joy to the Commode. So it could have been worse.

City of Santa Cruz offers a $150 rebate for ultra high-efficiency toilets. Our toilet had started running a bit, and while that would have been a fairly inexpensive problem to fix, it reminded us that we had wanted to upgrade to a model with greater water savings anyway. The toilet was one of very few things the previous homeowner hadn't trashed when we bought our place, so we hadn't acquired a new one.

Since the largest open space in the house is in front of the Christmas tree, it looked like Santa had visited upon us the most practical of gifts.

 Obligatory before picture (exciting, I know):

 Ta da!

Okay, I'll admit one toilet looks pretty much like any other toilet. The thing I'm happiest about is that we bought a soft-close seat for it. Another small move toward a quieter household (I'm admittedly very weird about noise, and I've absolutely loved the soft-close hinges on our kitchen and bathroom cabinets).

Stay tuned for more thrilling news, from our home to yours... perhaps next week we'll clean out the dryer vent hose. Or the rain gutters. You really never can tell what exciting adventure awaits.

Christmas!

Fair warning, I am entirely too excited about Steve's and my first real Christmas tree. So I'm going to post a bunch of pictures. Because I can.

 With Steve, for scale:

 Stockings for the bunnies (hung above the computer with care):

Awesome advent calendar my friend Gail got me (the 24 penguins before Christmas):

 Close up of tree (remember, because I can):

 Tree from below (why not?):

 My cardboard safari is very festive as well:

Wider view of the living room (including awesome gold hang-y thing I got from my Grandma and we attached to the ceiling fixture):

This year, we put up some garland, a wreath and a few strings of lights as well.

Neighbors came up to us as we were decorating to praise us showing a little cheer (Santa Cruz is very under-decorated). One neighbor gave us a thumbs-up from across the street. One of a few pictures a neighbor took of us on the porch:

We intend to do more elaborate outdoor displays in the future, but the weather has been extremely cold this year and we'd had enough of being outside after doing just this much. I think it looks pretty festive, though.

All that extra space between the floor and ceiling...

The bedroom in our little beach cottage is very small. That never bothered us, because with our nice big living room, we figured we'd only ever sleep and store clothes in the bedroom anyway. As long as there was room for a bed, dressers and a little closet, we'd be set.

Well, it turned out that the space I assigned to house Steve's dresser resulted in said dresser blocking the door to the bathroom. We lived with it like that for a year while we contemplated solutions. When my parents visited back in September, the brain trust discussed the problem:

Design ideas in mind, Steve and I embarked on a little building project.

Last bit of framing going into place ("walls" partially sheathed... the sheathing adds stability... you can jump up and down on this thing and it moves not a bit):

We had decided to paint the finished bedframe. So, while I was away spending time with my Grandma, Steve took the initiative to give everything a light sanding to prepare for the paint. Well, at least that's how things started out.

Upon doing an initial sand, Steve found that he thought the formerly unremarkable, rough, construction-grade wood looked quite nice. So he sanded it again. And again. And again.

Crazy as he is, I admit that the end result was beautiful. Obviously we couldn't just paint over such a lovely sanding job.

Steve begins to stain (he used two different colors, a lighter one to blend more closely with the floor and a darker one for a little more drama):

That done, we snugged Steve's dresser underneath:

Steve stapled some inexpensive indoor/outdoor carpet to the plywood base. This places a barrier between the mattress and plywood for cleanliness as well as just creating a nicer look.

Final(ish) product:

I add the "ish" because, as we all know, projects are never truly done. We plan to install a padded headboard after we pick out fabric. You can see the pictures leaning underneath and near the bed, so there's definitely a lot of decorating things still to do.

We currently use a small ladder to climb into bed. Eventually we plan to build a nicer fold-out ladder or something of that sort. It only takes a few steps to get up, so it really doesn't end up being a problem at this point in our lives. Steve can actually get up there without the ladder, but I don't have the arm-strength to vault onto the bed like he does. Something to work toward, I suppose.

We've been sleeping up there for a couple weeks now, and have found it very cozy. The additional height makes it more comfortable temperature-wise than before. With our 10 foot ceilings, the higher you can get in the room, the warmer you are. We'll see how it is this summer, but really our summers are mild, so the bonus of staying warmer in the winter is more valuable than any issues we'll have in warmer months.

Having the unblocked bathroom door has been wonderful and now we have a ton more storage behind the dresser to utilize as well. Things like Steve's dive gear and computer parts will fit nicely down there. We're planning to build some sort of door(s) to close that compartment eventually.

This weekend, it's back to working in the garden.

Yes, a rug in the kitchen...

Our little house has a lot of character, including some really lovely wood floors in the living room and bedroom. There are other things about this house that don't have quite so much appeal. One of my least favorite features is the kitchen floor.

The kitchen floor is real wood, sure. And I can definitely see beyond damage and glimpse the potential in many things. I cannot, however, seem to appreciate that floor. Thin, short planks with bland grain pattern and uninteresting color is all I can see.  Sure, I could change the color, but the best remedy for this floor would be to rip it all out. Having about a thousand things on the to-do list more pressing than this, Steve and I settled on a stopgap measure: a rug.

Yes, I know a rug in the kitchen is dangerous. High probability of spills. However, Steve is a neat cook, so I'm not too worried. Also, we focused on finding a rug that didn't cost a fortune, just in case.

We had been watching for a large, affordable, not-ugly rug for a long time. Eventually, woot.com came through for us. 

I'm sure it's a bit bold for many tastes, but I am thrilled with it. The more pattern, the better as far as I'm concerned. And I love not having to see (most of) that darn floor. As an added bonus, it provides great traction for the bunnies to get around. Rabbits don't have pads on the bottom of their feet like dogs and cats do (just fur), so they slip around on most hard-surface flooring and don't care for it. Interestingly (possibly only to me, but here goes...) there are exceptions. I've found that occasionally a rabbit is able to figure out graceful slick-surface maneuvering. Of all the rabbits I've had over the years, only Kuipo and Kiwi have figured out how to get around proficiently on slippery floors, so it seems to be a relatively rare trait. 

At any rate, before Steve and I rolled out the new rug, Steve deep-cleaned the kitchen floor. I snapped a picture of his cleanser-mixing technique, because it amused me. 

You can take the chemist out of the lab, but you can't take the lab (glass) out of the chemist.

Great Wall of Steve

Steve has completed his masterpiece. Behold!

The dirt area in front of the wall is going to be filled with more of the square pavers you can see in the pictures. The spaces between the pavers will be planted with moss to hopefully assist in absorbing rain water, as well as just making the whole look softer and greener. 

It's remarkable how much this project has opened up a very small yard. Progress continues!

Happy Halloween!

Holy cow!

I have a halo made out of a wire hanger... kind of hard to see in the picture. I had no time to plan a costume this year, so I had to work with what I had. And I had cow pajamas. Don't judge me.

The fabulous spiders are courtesy of my mother-in-law. I love them. In dim lighting, the large one really looked like it was coming down the stairs.

This picture also gives a glimpse of the work Steve has done painting the porch. It'll look amazing when it's all done. Bright and colorful like a proper Victorian.

Absence makes...

October has been a sparse month for blogging due to a confluence of factors.

First, I have spent three out of four weekends this month in Southern California. Largely San Marino to be more precise. First weekend was my grandpa's memorial service. Along with one of my cousins, I did some readings about Grandpa's life. I thought I did fairly well... I only lost my composure once and my mom stepped in to bridge the gap. My parents are on a well-deserved vacation, so I've stayed with my grandma two additional weekends (currently at her place as I write this, Steve stayed home to watch bunnies and look after the house). 

The individual tax extension deadline expired October 15th, so I was frantically doing taxes for procrastinators until then. Then there were third quarter payroll taxes to do for about twenty clients. And then a bunch of audit clients dropped off their information seemingly all at once. I have eight open audits right now. So I've been really busy at work.

Finally, I've had a bunch of doctors appointments over the past month. After three years of trying on our own to have a child, Steve and I have brought the medical profession in to the mix. We've done one (unsuccessful) round of IUI. Trying to get two more rounds in before the end of the year when our insurance changes since the UC cancelled our health plan. Still don't know if the new plan will cover any infertility treatments. I guess we could always just get a dog if we really can't stand not having something to demand attention and require housebreaking. 

I consider myself resilient (and, really, my concerns pale beside those many others face), but I find that I have a fairly high stress level of late. I have been unwilling to spend every free moment on house projects. However, things are still progressing thanks to Steve's dogged efforts. I hope to have an update soon.

Paint it Black

I continue to be thrilled with the way the house is coming along. Of course, I should be since it's 1/2 my house and I've had primary creative control over the design. The one room in the house that we hadn't touched in our approximate year of occupancy was the bedroom. In the couple weeks since Steve and I moved our bed into the living room, things have changed dramatically in the little bedroom. 

Before:

I have always wanted a black ceiling. Steve making it happen:

Grey going on the walls (good riddance, horrible faux-finished purple!):

My parents were in town to help with this project. My dad helped me with the somewhat harsh sanding required on the poor, beat-up floors. Though the edge sander was a little too unwieldy for me to handle, I did as much of the drum sanding as my arms could take.

The untouched living room floor provides a dramatic comparison:

I knew the floor would be beautiful. It's not without imperfections, but flawless floors in a house as old as ours would just be silly.

My dad helps Steve wire and hang my little chandelier:

Finished! Well, there are still several projects going on in the room, but I took the best pictures I could to give an idea of the final look. As usual, the pictures don't do it justice. The room is absolutely beautiful and I adore it.

I am planning to paint that green dresser a color that will go better with the room, just so you know. Steve and I are currently building a storage bed frame and finishing up some little touch-ups. Crown moulding still needs to go up. The door hardware needs to be fixed up (parts arrived in the mail yesterday). And so on...