Some of the fiddly bits

First off - weird thing with font colors. I emailed draft and then finished it on the blog site. It won't let me change the font universally. Weird.

One of Eiko's new favorite places. As she gets bigger, it's gonna be harder to turn around. I also think she likes it because she knows Joey can't follow her up there.

We're down to the nitty-gritty, the finishing bits. However, I think these are exactly the things that will demonstrate the house is not "builder-grade", not standard, but special. Pride of ownership is very big, and the extra touches are not for the house sale - that's 15 to 20 years from now. They are because we deserve finished. We deserve beautiful. And L has done a spectacular job

This shows the trim that will eventually be on all the windows and doors, but also to show the lovely warm color in the kitchen.

This is the baseboard at edge of French door. I love how the dark accent trim defines each area.

The base shoe is not attached yet but this is what it will look like.

The additional baseboard treatment at arches. Provides extra protection, looks good and hides the non-levelness you can encounter with old houses.

What L's been working on for the last two weeks. It's really well-done with excellent finishing details.

The curved base pieces, called corbels, were pre-carved and about $40 each. The rest of it is built from scratch, plywood, bits of molding round the edges. He designed, assembled, stained and varnished it.

These are the sort of finishing details that set it aside from "builders grade" - standard stuff in new homes. The trim above and below the shelf itself.

And, oh yes, the French doors. After 15 years, they have a finished edge around them, and it really makes the doors POP.

Yes, it's shameless promotion. I've never been so proud and amazed at the workmanship L put into this project. I hope sooner or later, he stops long enough to relax and enjoy it.

We make fire. Fire good.

Especially in the wet, wicked, windy winter. Actually, it was kind of mild when I went out this morning, but that doesn't have the same ring to it.

After several delays, which were frustrating and annoying, we have a fireplace. Not only do we have a fireplace but L has redone all the damaged sheetrock, redone the texture, repainted, etc. We have a template for the small mantel that will go above said fireplace. Life is good.

In other news, we have discovered a heretofore undiscovered feature of the new dishwasher. Apparently, it cleans or at least entertains pets. As tempting as this was, they do perform other services, like double-teaming on security detail, or possibly central heating.

L has started work on the baseboards and trim. Everything will be custom and I think it will all look very special, judging from the bits he's completed so far. These are the special baseboards that will be done at base of arches.

Almost finishing up

Still working on finishing touches. My big hope is that we get the backsplash done for Christmas. Need to call the tile place and find out status.

Retaining wall - we've added low retaining walls in other areas of the front yard; this is only part of it. I love how the color of the house is picked up in some of the stones. L has some better pix which hopefully I can post in a day or two.

Fireplace - after looking at dozens in catalogs, and in a couple stores, we ordered something very much like this. The insert accentuates the eyebrow arch which ties into some of the architectural detail in Living Room and hallway.

Stained Glass Insert was delivered this week and L installed it. I love it. I was a little worried that the green border would be kelly green because that's what it looked like when they photoshopped it in. But, it's perfect. We are considering small lights inside the cabinet to illuminate the insert because it came out so well. It's very pretty without jumping in your face and yelling, "Look at ME ME ME!"

Living Room Rug was also delivered this week. For the time being, L put it down without the pad which ships separately. I think it makes the room look more finished, and cozy.

L has been working on interior window trims and they are starting to look really good. Time to take the construction plastic off the windows and get / make some curtains.

L has installed the guest room closet doors. These open up like French doors for full access to closet and the woodwork is great. They are very similar to the closet doors at entry from Garage.

L wanted a small table for the phone. Surprise! He found one with dragons on it LOL. At least, this keeps the phone and answering machine off my end table and gives me some room. I should get better pix, but the stuff out of the cellphone has been really poor lately.

We've been quite preoccupied with Mosa the last week or so. Saturday, she started bleeding from her mouth. We already had her scheduled for a blood pressure check on Monday. However, the vet was very concerned about this, especially after drawing blood work and noting how much her kidney disease has progressed. She went in on Thursday for 24-hour IV drip to flush her system, had the procedure around 11 on Friday and 6 hours later, came home. Since they had to try several IVs, she's all bandaged up like the loser on WWE, but her rough tongue would prevent the spots from healing so they need to be covered up. Today, she's a red lady, who knows what she'll be tomorrow.

We're still here...

but we're still not done. Although the City says we are. In other words, we are "street legal", with just finish work from now on. L has since built little shelves for these to sit on. I think it will be great for the holidays, we can put poinsettias here.

We've been mostly shopping for rugs, locally, online, with "eh" results. One place in particular made me feel like I was buying a used car, high pressure. "Take a couple rugs home and see how they look in your house." Once it's in your house, they know they've got you. No thank you. I had maybe a dozen samples, but these are a few that I liked. They did have an "educational" display of how some rugs are done.

Pantry is essentially done. Sorting needs to be tidied up a bit, but I *love* not having to schlep downstairs for a can of tomatoes, bag of rice, roll of paper towels. This and the sideboard in Dining Area essentially turns a kitchen with a small/medium footprint into a pretty decent size.

We did make some progress on final touches for kitchen. Ordered the backsplash tile - about a dozen 3x3 little celtic knotwork tiles that will be placed approximately 12 inches apart (with 90% of the tile being ivory/bisque plain square tile), and then a large centerpiece for behind the stove. We are hoping the color will be close to the checked paint chip on this sample, and close to matching Babs and the clock.

We also have ordered a stained glass insert for the corner cabinet. Pretty cool how they can change the colors out and photoshop it into a pix we send them. The green border will actually be darker than shown. Their visuals assume pieces are backlighted, but ours will not be.

The tile and the glass should both be showing up early to mid-December. The kitchen will then be done. Oh, except for paint. Damn.

Anyway, not too much going on, more visuals in a couple weeks.

Moving Back In

I've been threatening all along to do a seriously country kitchen, chicken wall paper and cookie jar, farm animal tiles for backsplash, etc. None of that happened of course, but we found this sweet little thing and had to bring her home. $11 at Pier 1.


Now that the floors are done and more or less "cured", we've been accumulating furniture. The Living Room still looks pretty barren. But so far, we have the aforementioned couch. Red leather, power motion recline - think automatic seat adjustment in a fancy car. Whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

This weekend, we found some mission-style end tables and a small coffee table. We can't put anything big in front of couch because of the two reclining seats. L had them assembled within an hour and will stain them this week.

We had been looking for either occasional chairs or a loveseat / settee. We found this on sale, and L negotiated $200 or about 15% off the price, and got delivery at half-price.

This one below was on the short list (Pier 1 !!), but we ended up going back to leather for the durability, and ease of cleaning, esp since we have two cats that are each 9 years old and one is already dealing with diseases of age.

Looking at rugs but really need to see all the furniture in place before we decide.

Next time, pantry is coming together. Hope to have that organized for a pretty pantry pix.

Living Room Floors Furniture and Beyond

Found a better pix of Living Room floor and a really good, before/after shot.

Mid June:

Late September:

Transition to hallway looks very nice, I think:

L put the rack of shelves into Pantry. This will be great for those appliances and large pots that don't get daily use.

Did a lot of shopping yesterday. For Living Room set, possibly endtables, new TV etc. A previous trip, and most of this one consisted of looking at sofas that all pretty much looked like this:

Eh. L wants a recliner built-in - me not so much. Especially when it looks like 17 leather pillows all sewn together. It's been hard to find a compromise. The one above was less pillowy than some and I was 80% willing to relent; we came VERY CLOSE. This was at one of the larger stores in Portland, where they would "make a great deal for you in order to sell these TODAY!" I started looking for airbags and whitewalls and faked odometer readings. Can I see the Couchfax, please?

In a nod to Miss Kitty's bordello, I actually kind of liked these. They were extremely comfortable. But no recliner and a really light color with two aging cats and an, uh, "young adult" - well, as GHWB would say, "Wouldn't be prudent."

These are on the short list:

I like this. It's a little different, very comfortable. This was in the scratch and dent room, but there was another one in a brown tweed upstairs.

And there were a LOT of these, which I like too:

Maybe L doesn't care for them so much, eh?

L's fave was this one. Since these would be placed with the chair back facing the door, he liked that the back was interesting, too. We would not get the ottoman because we expect there will be a large coffee table. Even though no one in this house drinks coffee LOL.

At the end of the day, we did not get a TV (boy what IS it with the pushy salespeople? Oy! They were pushing the service agreements and we hadn't even picked out a set - those agreements are a HUGE revenue stream), end tables, loveseat or chairs, although the chairs immediately above are on the short list.

We DID find a couch and it is SO NOT what we expected we'd end up with.

More fun with this when it is delivered. Wednesday.