Category: office

lost in 2020

when we went into lockdown (the first time) I thought: “I’ll just spend a lot of time working on upstairs and get it all finished.” Hahahha

Well, in spite of (or possibly because of?) the debacle of 2020, a few good things happened. Most notably, the majority of Americans were able to spot incompetence after four years of having it rubbed in our faces. And I got to vote for the first time in my life.

I ordered the mechanism for an adjustable height standing desk about.. three years ago.. and it’s been sitting in boxes in the garage since. I finally got enough prodding to stop delaying, and built the top for it. Of course, because it’s me, it was a little complicated.

I wanted it to fit into a corner in our office that’s next to the bay windows, so it has a 45 degree back. But the complicated part is the front: it curves. I used a piece of wood and some clamps to draw the curve, and cut a template out of a scrap piece of wood.

I found that putting a piece of masking tape on the top of the plywood makes the veneer on the top of the plywood splinter less.

The tricky part: I’m using oak veneer plywood, so I need to finish the edges with a piece of solid wood… and it needs to curve.

I’ve never steamed wood before, so after a bit of youtube research, I found a video with some guy making a steamer out of plastic piping. Looked quite simple: I had some old ABS pipe lying around, I figured I could make a simple wood top for the large kettle I use to brew beer, and channel the steam through another piece of flexible plastic hose from my shop vac. I put the piece of wood I wanted to steam inside the ABS pipe, and started up the steam. Just like the video.

Don’t believe what you see on youtube: The steam melted the pipes!

First the flexible plastic pipe became very flexible (similar to warm bubble gum). I quickly disconnected that – didn’t want to ruin it. I then connected to the ABS pipe with some pieces of metal pipe. Then the ABS pipe started melting!

I couldn’t get enough steam to properly bend the wood, so it split when I bent it. I don’t know how that youtuber made it work… I ended up with a bunch of Salvador Dali inspired pipes, but the wood didn’t bend.

Second try: This time all in metal. I bought a piece of metal heating duct to steam the wood in. Once the water started boiling in the kettle, steam was hissing out of all the cracks. I left the wood in there for almost an hour: My neighbors were very curious! It worked.

Here I’m gluing the curved wood edge onto the plywood. You can never have too many clamps…

The curved edge came out quite well.

My star trek command center.

It will never look this neat again, so I’d better post a photo:

… not that getting a fully adjustable desk is guaranteed to make my ergonomics any better, though…

Meanwhile…. We’ve never had anywhere decent to put our bike helmets. They were always balanced precariously on boxes and bags of building materials. So mole decided to make some shelves from a couple of old boxes that we found in the attic of the house.

Shell aviation fuel(?)

So neat!

I was wondering when this would happen: Hot water tanks must be one of the most wasteful inventions that are still part of houses. They are planned obsolescence incarnate. This large heavy contraption is in every house in the country, wastes energy all day long every day, and in the best cases may last fifteen years: you can even buy water heaters that are only expected to last five years!

The previous owners bought a good quality one that lasted about fifteen years, but it finally started leaking. 2020.

Luckily we can get anything delivered, including water heaters! I transferred the insulation blanket from the old one – I figure any extra insulation on a tank of hot water is a good thing.

Oh, and if 2020 didn’t have enough going on, it was also my fiftieth. Friends of mine threw big parties on theirs. For years I’d been thinking about the party I wanted to throw. I guess 51 is the new fifty?

Not all was lost, though: mole made me this incredible vegan chocolate torte. You all missed out.

I did get to see some people for my birthday, though. Friends put together a great bike ride up mount tam. It was incredibly foggy, cold and wet, but I was a very happy fifty-year-old. And I also went to visit my dad.

As a fiftieth birthday present to myself I decided to get a(nother) bike: This time, a gravel bike.

Actually buying a bike in 2020 turned out to be rather difficult. So I bought a frame, and all the parts, and put it together myself. And even that wasn’t without many hiccups. The first frame I received was the wrong color. Then it was missing many of the parts I needed to put it together, the most annoyingly difficult of which was one tiny bolt that holds the derailleur on the frame. Oh, and this is the first time I’ve done this. And none of the parts come with instructions.

After a few months of false starts, I finally got it together. Here’s a pic from my first ride: I really have nothing to complain about. Riding on a dirt trail looking out to the Pacific Ocean, with San Francisco in the background on a sunny day in winter, all I could think was “How truly lucky I am.”

what’s new?

last friday mathew spent some time cleaning and refinishing some exterior parts of the house. (right) his ladder set-up made me a bit nervous… but it all went fine.

after removing some material that the previous owners used incorrectly to fill large gaps in the front of the house, mathew filled, sanded and preserved the old, exposed wood. this ladder set-up made me less nervous…

the wood preserver STINKS! mathew paints it on and it supposedly pulls any moisture out of the wood and hardens, sort of like artificially petrifying the wood. it turns black in the process. often this concern for exposed wood comes just before the rainy season, but it needed to be done. sadly it makes the front of the house just a little uglier. it’s currently covered in plastic and once the rain stops we can get out there and paint it.

we spent the rest of the weekend pulling up the floor covering, cleaning and moving into the office. here’s what it looks like at night. mathew says it shines like a beacon when he’s coming home (we just received our blinds and haven’t installed them yet.) the neighbors have all been watching the room’s progress and it’s gotten rave reviews.

(left) during the week i saw this car being taken away. it must have come out of one of our neighbor’s garages and i thought it was cool. i wish i could see it refinished! (right) and mathew’s mum, sue is visiting from england! she’s staying in popo’s downstairs unit and it’s nice to see her and have the space used again.

yesterday we proudly attended eva’s graduation from the samuel merritt university accelerated nursing program. and when they say “accelerated” they aren’t kidding. eva studied her butt off and is becoming an RN in only 12 months! eva is one of the sweetest, most caring and conscientious people we know; we know she will be an amazing nurse.

(left) sue, mathew, me. (right) me and eva.

mathew, daniel and eva.

it’s a big weekend/week for mathew. stay tuned for a BIG, birthday post!

finishing the office

This weekend, the office was finished enough to start using it: Only a nine month project. I vacuumed the walls, and all surfaces, then we started taking up the plastic and paper that’s been protecting the floors.

Underneath the layer of plastic is a layer of craft paper. Of course, we need to recycle everything we can, so we took all the tape off the paper as we took it up.

Sun in San Francisco? I guess there’s enough in the Mission to bleach the protective paper on the floor. It started out a mauve color and became a very pale pink (left.) The floors held up nicely, and still look fine.

Janeen took some close-ups of the ceiling, lamp, and the crystals that she had cleaned up.

After a couple of passes with caulk, and paint, the medallion melds well with the tin ceiling.

Dad, Elijah, and Eva came to visit this weekend. We all went out to one of our new favorite restaurants: Gracias Madre.

My ‘baby’ brother is now standing a good few inches taller than me. Dad, on the left, is trying to pull him down to size.

Janeen had the camera, most of the time, so she took a photo of the goofiest person in the restaurant (right).

We finished up the weekend starting to move things back into the office. Boxes that have been sitting down in our garage for almost a year. Maybe we don’t need that stuff??

Since winter is on its way, and I can’t see my finding time to get the outside of the house completely painted, I’ve decided to just touch up the bad spots. We’ll do the full repaint in spring. (left) Dumpy is really loving his smooth, clean runway.(right)

the factory

this weekend mathew and i spent a lot of time in our separate factories…

mathew was in the garage, a.k.a. his shelf factory! in true mathew fashion, it was only after he’d had all 16 shelves cut, glued and clamped that he began to question why he made them so complicated… he used plywood but wanted to have a fancy front edge that would show (similar to an original built-in cabinet in the hall) so that involved adding a small strip of solid wood to the fronts.

here they are after the solid wood has been planed and routed. beautiful, huh? worth the time? probably…

to match all the other wood in the office, finishing involves sanding, staining and 2 coats of tinted poly.

i thought it was fun that each shelf has a very different wood grain. mathew used whatever wood he had lying around…

here are some of the shelves in place. the final cabinets will have doors with wood and glass. oooh…

meanwhile, upstairs i was working in my “chair factory” re-covering some chairs we’ve had since college, that i first re-covered about 10 years ago. the fabric made me nervous though… when i picked it in the store it seemed like a fun choice but when i brought it home it screamed, “SHINY!” it’s a gold tapestry type fabric with matte red and gold circles. fairly low-key, right? haha.

i got to work and after some trial and error and a little help from mathew…

…we have new chairs! the thing that makes them extra new is a nice layer of foam cushioning on the seat.

if you ever decide to do this at home, a word of caution: if you have chair backs that curve in two directions, make sure you buy a fabric that has some give. i’m an experienced seamstress but these chair backs proved to be more difficult than a fitted pair of pants. with mathew’s suggestion to cut on the bias (he pays attention when i talk about fabric?!) and darts across the top we finally got these chairs to work! they are still shiny, but super-comfy and we like them. mathew is even considering making 2 more chairs to match so we can have a complete set..!

and in between the shelves and chairs we had a visit from mathew’s sister eva and our friend bob. (left) after spending the day at the always awesome, hardly strictly bluegrass festival, eva came over to take a power nap before her 11pm student nursing shift at kaiser. we got to catch up with her during a late meal of homemade pizza. (right) and bob was in the neighborhood and dropped by for a visit. of course, whenever an architect or engineer drops by there’s always lots of discussion inside and out about what to do next…

and it wasn’t all shelves and chairs this weekend. (left) mathew filled the gap between the two different crown moldings. better, huh? he also filled the gaps between all the tin ceiling tiles. i painted the bay window alcove ceiling, filled, sanded and primed the outside window sills and painted all the wall touch-ups, because “oops” happens.

(right) when mathew went to sand and put the final coat on the outside window sills he decided to scrape and sand the surface just beyond that as well, because it REALLY needed it! of course i don’t have any before photos, because it was just ugly and embarrassing… we cannot wait to have new paint on the exterior of the house! we’d hoped to get it done before the winter but since rain has already started it will have to wait till next summer. we’ll have almost a year to figure out what colors we’ll use…

hope everyone had a good weekend!

here’s what’s new

(left) a couple weeks ago my “little sister” wylie was visiting from seattle. i forgot to take photos, we were so busy running around the city, cooking, baking and watching twilight movies, so this is a photo from may, but we still look pretty much the same… (right) mathew bought an old brass strike plate from building resources. he cut off the amount he needed then cleaned and polished it up. pretty cool, huh? he drilled a couple more holes and it’s now a new, smaller strike plate for a door. and in case you didn’t know what a strike plate was (i didn’t) it’s a protective metal plate that goes in the door jamb that receives the latch when the door is closed.

CORRECTION: the strike plate was actually used as a receptor for the deadbolt, not the latch (which is connected to the doorknob.) above are photos of the strike plate and the deadbolt (which is vintage, purchased from building resources. pretty, huh?)

(left) here is mathew wiring cable and internet hook ups, having a much easier time than he did in the pink room last year… (right) while i paint the crown molding.

mathew playing with his new tools in the garage. (left) a drill press and (right) a big dust collection thingy. it’s like christmas down there.

(left) and new green gloves that make him look like some weird super hero. (right) staining the top of the window trim.

(left) the chandelier in the office had decades of dust that needed cleaning… (right) while mathew polished up a brass lock knob that he bought from building resources.

(left) i cut the hole for the medallion to fit over the light in the office. (right) mathew used what he calls “janeen’s technique” to apply the medallion to the ceiling with adhesive and allow it to dry.

the last medallion. as much as mathew loves medallions, this is the last one we will buy and install. there are no more rooms that need medallions! i am not as medallion-crazy as mathew and i was hesitant about adding a medallion to a tin ceiling, but we picked a simple one that doesn’t compete too much and mathew says it hides the fact that the light junction box didn’t fall exactly centered between the tiles. he was right, it worked!

looking up

we’re making some real progress on the office, so that means time for…

(left) dumpy’s glamor shot. (right) and here’s my new brass light switch.

(left) here’s the cove crown molding detail shot i should have taken last weekend. see the “c” shape? it’s made from lots of pieces of poplar wood, finger jointed together. pre-made from the lumber yard, mathew did NOT make these! (right) see that dark gap between the small primed molding and the tin ceiling? i’m filling it with caulk. it started out as a really frustrating project but then i finally got the hang of it just about when i finished my last wall.

(left) mathew doing some trigonometry to figure out tricky angles for the crown molding that will go in the little alcove above the bay windows. (right) his calcs. when was the last time you worked with sines and cosines? ack.

(left) taking a little break. (right) towards the right in the photo above, you can see why those angles were tricky…

here we are trying to decide whether to add the 3rd piece of molding below the cove. in the end we liked the clean lines of the cove and left off the 3rd molding even though we already purchased it. it also meant less measuring, cutting, filing, installing, filling and painting…

as mathew is working his way around the room filling the nail holes in the trim, i am priming the cove molding. here is how the ceiling looked at the end of the evening.

turtle work/play

people are always telling mathew to take a break from working on the house. this frustrates mathew, because to him it isn’t work, it’s FUN. he’d rather work on the house than relax, socialize or even eat or sleep.

(left) pieces of wood recycled to make trim for the cabinet. mathew cut then routed them, sanded, stained and polyurethaned them to match. (right) here he’s trimming out a complicated notch so the trim can fit around the picture rail (see below right.)

now that my grandmother has moved out we need to make some changes to the downstairs unit to make it rent-able for someone new. this includes adding a new lockable door (recycled from upstairs) leading from the entrance. mathew cut out the top half and will add tempered glass to let light through.

during one of the heat waves we had recently, mathew realized the skylight installed by ‘professionals’ was still not done correctly. part of the flashing was getting in the way and bending the metal of the skylight making it impossible to close. mathew got his ladder, tools and flashlight and was determined to fix it. this is what happens after 11pm at our house, when most people are sleeping…

mathew doing a load test on the cabinets!

last weekend mathew and i started adding crown molding to the office. i’m realizing these aren’t the best photos to show what’s happening… but the main molding is like a “C” shape, called cove, and when two pieces join in the corners you have to cut the second piece at an angle then cut and file the backside so that they fit together perfectly at the corner. it’s quite complicated but of course mathew knows what he’s doing. there will be a second smaller piece of molding that will go above the cove molding next to the ceiling. and eventually it will be painted white.

it was a 3 day weekend so the other days were spent prepping for the new center window which we finally received. mathew used a heat gun to remove old paint from frame. and there was a weird bump of old wood on the sill so mathew planed it off…

…then chiseled it out and added a new piece which will match the new stained sill.

(left) late on monday night as the sun went down, we got the new window in! (right) and then wednesday we received a delivery in a wooden crate that managed to scratch the floor in the entry really badly. i know these delivery guys are always trying to be helpful but no one seems to realize how damaging it is to drop a heavy box on a wood floor then push or drag it! i was pretty upset about this all day but mathew says he can probably fix it.

the windows are finally in!

the lost weekend?

a few weeks ago i went down to southern california to spend a week with my friend, margaret and her family. mathew stayed home and worked on the house.

here’s a photo from the week before i left, of the giant stained cabinets.

while i was gone mathew added brass window handles in the office…

…and put up shelf hangers for the giant cabinets.

mathew said that my uncle ken was visiting and saw mathew in the process of putting these heavy cabinets up. he came running in to help and then realized mathew had the whole process under control. the shelf hangers cleverly held the shelves up and in place so that mathew could then screw them to the wall studs.

and all around the ceiling he installed angled crown molding backing for the crown molding to fit against.

meanwhile, my week in southern california looked completely different… (left) me and walker doing some grocery shopping. (right) max hanging out in his jumpy chair.

on one of the sweltering days during my visit, margaret, max and i went to visit the warner bros studio lot. margaret used to work here and some of her former co-workers were kind enough to give us a tour. (above right) the fictional connecticut star’s hollow town square from the show ‘gilmore girls.’

more ‘gilmore girls’ buildings: (left) lorelei and rory’s house, (right) luke’s diner.

(left) the star’s hollow high school was also the courthouse from ‘dukes of hazzard.’ this town square set has been used many times for different shows over the years including ‘seinfeld’ and ‘the waltons.’ (right) we also took a cart ride around the studio and got to see merlotte’s bar from the HBO vampire series ‘true blood.’

back at home after a long, hot day. max looking tired and then sleeping while mommy cooks dinner.

finally a photo of me and margaret! the week went by too fast. (right) me riding the train home…

august already?

two weekends ago we visited our friends, midori and andy, 3 weeks after the birth of their son adrian.

andy and the “bunny” i knit for adrian.

the following evening we took a hike with mike into bernal heights, our neighboring district.

we had indian curry and indian pizza at zante.

on friday mathew and i were home and not working. we got a surprise visit from leo and dan. they wanted ice cream so we walked to humphrey slocombe, the city’s of-the-moment, trendy ice cream shop, less than a block away from our house. they offer flavors like, secret breakfast (bourbon and cornflakes), government cheese, mcEvoy olive oil, russian imperial stout and pink grapefruit tarragon. on hot days the line goes out the door and down the street. we’ve even seen, on more than one occasion, people jumping out of cabs to buy this ice cream!

the humphrey slocombe two-headed calf. dan got blue bottle vietnamese coffee and leo got carrot mango and tahitian vanilla.

later, back at chez turtle+mole, we harvested some peaches off our backyard tree.

last saturday’s project was installing tin ceiling tiles in the office. mathew worked out the grid measurements on the computer and we were ready to start snapping chalk lines on the ceiling.

mathew giving me his best puppy-dog look.

and the fun begins! each tile is 24″ square with holes on 2 sides for screws and folded grooves on the other two sides. after the first tile is installed, the second tile snaps and locks into the first tile and screws secure that tile in place. we worked this way in rows across the ceiling.

to fit around the light fixture, the corners of 4 tiles had to be trimmed.

the last two pieces!

mathew admiring our work. it’s done! now it needs crown molding around the edges.

but before crown molding can even be measured for, shelves on either side of the fireplace need to be built and installed. mathew cutting plywood, then using a cabinet making kit that was a gift from his brother, misha.

that night mathew played now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t with his beard.

beautiful, wood trim mathew routed from recycled wood, sanded, stained, then polyurethaned, will go around the windows in the office. a clean-shaven mathew demonstrates how the trim will look in place, too bad i forgot to use a flash!

summer weekends

it’s been the strangest san francisco summer… very sunny, hardly any fog.

last weekend mathew insulated the gaps around the office windows, then installed the side windows. we’re still waiting on the new center window to be made and sent. the new wood windows look so much nicer than the cheap, old aluminum windows, especially with the bars removed.

last sunday was another ‘sunday streets’ and mathew volunteered again.

here he is making sure people don’t get run over.

everyone was out, children, adults, bubbles, custom-made bikes with stereos, unicycles…

and we got a semi-surprise visit from deborah, eva, leo and dan!

(left) a skating-dance demo. (right) our group got smaller.

later mathew and i went for a nice long walk enjoying the quiet, car-free streets. we made a big loop through our neighborhood and had a lovely noodle soup lunch at ‘cha-ya”, a vegetarian japanese resturant.

oh, and really fun news: our neighborhood is getting an ARIZMENDI! those of you familiar with the bakery know how exciting this is.

on our way home we stumbled across mirrors for sale at a local framing store. mathew was surprised that i didn’t choose the plain, modern, silver mirror, but opted for this ornate, victorian-like, gold mirror.

check out our weekend wheels! a rental for our sweltering drive up to sacramento this last weekend. since it doesn’t go back till monday, i suppose we could be out tooling around town in it but it’s just sitting in the driveway.

we attended a wedding and reception for mathew’s karate friends christina and marcus.

we’ve known these people for as long as we’ve lived in san francisco and they are like family to us. (left) mathew with his “little sister” yvonne. (right) me and yvonne’s mom, geri, also known as one of mathew’s moms. we all look happy but we’re actually MELTING in the sacramento heat. it was over 100 degrees that day. so hot i forgot to get a big group photo of the dojo family. hopefully someone will send or post it.

back in san francisco where it’s sunny and warm but not at all dangerous to spend time outside. (left) mathew checking on the garden. (right) and we have peaches!