Category: downstairs

work on the downstairs apartment

Not What Normal People Do

We continued working on the Laundry room. I took off all the old siding, and added plywood. I ran out of coil strap (steel straps for shear walls can be bought individually, or in rolls, colloquially referred to as “coil strap.”) So there’s only strap below the window. Need to add some above it.

Once I got it all on, nailed, and cleaned up, we had a kitten inspection. They love this room.

Then I started on the second part: Raising the roof. Because of how this room has been built over the last hundred years (in bits and pieces tacked onto the previous pieces), the roof framing was haphazard. So I added new roof joists. I had to hold the roof up with 2×4’s while I cut the old framing and added in new.

It’s rather tricky figuring out how long to cut them, and what angle all the cuts need to be. When I put them in, because the roof slope was still steeper, they all looked short (above left). Then I put a beam across all of them, and started jacking. Above right you can see a gap forming between the wall and the roof!

Here’s me jacking up the ceiling. Maybe I should have been wearing my hard hat. Above right: When mole saw this gap, she said “this is not what normal people do to their house.” Poor house.

So Mole started working on taking out the old tile and plaster board where the old ‘shower’/toilet was. At first it was really tough going, but then she managed to get most of the wall off in one piece.

We then framed in a new wall to support the lifted up roof. Above right, you can see the gap where the roof has been raised up, and the new wall next to it. This wall is going to be mostly windows. Above left, Mole is looking out of one of the future window openings. I’ve used all the old scraps of plywood I can find to fill them in until the new windows are delivered in about four weeks! In the mean time, it’s looking like there was a fire. 🙁

Here’s Arwen playing in the comforter.

Foundation, Flowers, Travels, Walls!

Quite a bit has happened, both before I went to England and Brooklyn, and after. As usual, I over estimated how much we could do. I wanted to get a new foundation poured, and walls built to support the laundry room before I left. We almost got there…

The old walls around this space had been built in stages. Initially, it was probably open, and just posts supported the floor. Then siding was added. Then concrete. So the siding was buried in concrete, and very rotten. We tore out everything, leaving the laundry room sitting up in the air.

The problem (well, one of them) with being an amateur: Even if I know how to do something, sometimes I forget, because I do it so rarely. When laying out the foundation, I forgot that you are supposed to stretch string out to lay out the sides. That helps get them straight, and is easier than snapping chalk lines. I snapped chalk lines.

As you can see, I’m not doing real foundations, just putting a concrete wall on top of the old concrete slab. It will lift the wood framing up, so that it’s not sitting in water. Hopefully will stop the rot.

We drilled and epoxied threaded rod into the old slab, and made sure they were sticking up high enough so that we can use them to attach the new wall to the concrete.

The formwork took a whole weekend to make.

The next week, in four car trips, I got the concrete, and rented a mixer. Janeen and I poured the new concrete walls in a day. I spent quite a while cleaning up, and trying to smooth and flatten the top.

 

And that’s as far as we got before I took off. I screwed some plywood onto the outside, and hoped for no earthquakes.

When I got to Brooklyn, I pulled out the gifts that Janeen had made: Pocket Bears! She said that Misha and Aja could pick whichever ones they wanted. Misha had a lot of trouble (he wanted them all I think.)

Arwen and Bella glamor shot!

Spring is really here. The flowers are all out in our garden. Janeen took these photos while she was outside with the cats.

Here is Bella inspecting the foundations that have been setting for a week by now.

I forgot to take photos when I was in England (because my phone wasn’t working, I didn’t even think of trying to use the camera. Oh well. I spent a week in Stroud, enjoying beautiful weather, and Mum’s great cooking. 🙂

I stopped back in Brooklyn as I returned, and one day there was a track meet! Managed to snap a photo of Misha running the 800 meters, and Aja running a relay.

Nails! [Mole note: these nails are almost 100 years old! they are hand made. see how they are not round? they have corners! so cool.]

Yes, we’re back at it. And there was a 4.0 earthquake while I was gone. Fortunately, it was quite small, so nothing fell down.

Besides peach blossoms! The Freesia are blooming.

Drilling holes, and then putting the sill plate onto the new concrete. Above right, I’ve painted wood preservative into the drilled holes, and hammered the plate over the threaded rod anchors. It fits!

Janeen is dismantling the ‘Jenga’ that was supporting the laundry room. Above right is one of the pieces of wood that the jack was pushing on. I guess it was pushing quite hard!

Above left, building a new wall. Above right, with pile of wood supports removed!

Above left: I made a mistake measuring for one of the anchor bolts, so the washer and nut will extend into one of the posts in the wall. Janeen used a chisel and notched out the bottom of the post to fit over the square plate washer. Nice!

Above right: The plywood on the far left is a new shear wall. The rest of the panels are temporary. I’ve got some old aluminum windows that I am planning to resize and fit here.

 

 

 

 

Jack!

We did jack this weekend.

It took most of Saturday to get the supports and bracing in place. I added diagonal bracing below, to try to stabilize everything as much as possible. When the back room is cut off the house, the only thing stopping it from toppling over will be these braces. I wore my hard hat so that I didn’t keep hitting my head. Looks more professional, too!

Using a reciprocating saw, I cut all the way round, through the nails that held the laundry room onto the house, completely separating it from the house. We also disconnected piping (well, most of it – see later) and other things that held the floor to the house.

Above left you can see the step (red) between the kitchen and the laundry room.

Once we started jacking, Janeen ran outside and took a photo (above right). You can see a gap under the framing that is going up with the floor, and the wall below.

Above left, there’s about six inches between the floor and the wall below. Above right, this is half way there.

While we were pumping the jack, there were all sorts of creaking noises. Sometimes there was the sound of splitting wood, or sudden cracks. After one noise, I went outside, and found that I’d forgotten to disconnect the sewer pipe from the wall, so it was being lifted up with the room and had separated at a joint. I had to disconnect it, and carefully slide it back down into place (while up on a ladder, leaning on the room sitting on temporary supports – above left).

Above right, you can see light shining through a gap between the house and the laundry room. The whole thing would tilt sideways as we jacked up one side. Then it would tilt back when we jacked the other side. I didn’t realize it would tilt around this much, and am really glad I put in the bracing. It’s quite scary being underneath all this with the jack.

Janeen kept calling it ‘reverse Jenga’. I have one 20-ton jack but have six support points to lift the room at. We put the jack onto one of the supports, and pumped it until it lifted that side about 1 1/2″. Then I slipped a couple of 2×4’s into the gap, and let the pressure off the jack. Then we moved it to the next location. It took all day.

Above right, here’s the gap after getting the floor to the right level.

Above left: Flush! There’s no more step down. Above right, the whole room was moving around while we jacked it up. At one point, I noticed that as I was jacking, the room was moving sideways. A piece of wood had got stuck, and was levering the whole room sideways about 1/4 inch before I stopped. To get it back into place, I screwed a block of wood to the floor joists of the laundry room, and a block to the side of the house. Then I tightened a clamp between the two pieces of wood to pull it over. It worked!

Above left, here’s a nice (scary) pile of wood supporting the laundry room. Above right, at this side of the room, it raised up about a foot, because the floor of the laundry room (in addition to the step), sloped away from the building.

It’s been a funny winter. Actually, I think there was none. It only rained two or three times. And now it’s spring. The daffodil, crocus and iris bulbs that we planted around the tree are popping up. And the peach tree is coming into blossom already. Janeen took a photo of a couple of sprigs we brought in and put into water.

Head Banger

Besides working my tail off on paid work, I’ve been plodding forward on the house, preparing to raise up the floor of the laundry room.

The floor framing in this space was done without much help from engineering. It also did not leave much head room in the space below (I can’t remember how many times I’ve hit my head — probably once a day — working on this.) In place of the two undersized beams that span across, I’m replacing with a slightly deeper beam, but I’m setting the top of it flush with the top of the joists. I have to cut all the joists to get it in. Janeen caught a photo of me after I’d cut a couple of the joists. No going back now.

Janeen spent most of last weekend pulling nails out of old pieces of wood. I’ve got such a pile now, I need to figure out a project to use it all on.

Using some old wood, we made some support contraptions to fit the jack, and support the floor while we jack it up. It was a bit tricky getting them in place: I managed to break two windows simultaneously when the post fell over and smashed them (left). Right now, I’ve got the beam in the middle, and have put load onto the first two support posts. How do I know that they are carrying the weight (see below)?

This is a photo looking at one of the old beams (above left).

Two things: One, there’s now a gap under it, because all the weight is on the new beam. But the second is the troubling thing in earthquake country: When the previous person did this, they just sat the beam on top of loose blocks of wood. That’s fine until the building starts shaking around: Then, the blocks would just slide out, and the whole room would have come down! Speaking of earthquakes, I also added more plywood on the wall upstairs. The wiring for the light switch is just temporary!

Next, I have to get the outside walls supported, and disconnect this room from the building. Then I can start jacking…

Root Freedom

Over the past month, I’ve had a lot of work, so not much progress on the house. But last weekend the sun was out, and it was just beautiful winter weather to get a bit more done on the stairs. I pulled another “while I’ve got this open, I’ll just…”

The back porch upstairs smells moldy, is drafty, and has no insulation. So I started tearing off the siding, and added plywood. In the photo above left, the last of the old stairs is peeking out. Gone in the above right. And more nice plywood glamor shots.

Now I’ve got the stair framing replaced all the way up. Still need to finish the hand rails, painting, and.. and…

Meanwhile, we built up a rather large pile of rotten wood, and other debris. For months I’ve been trying to put a bit at a time into the garbage can. I finally went out and rented a truck. We piled it full – over a ton of landfill! Now we need to finish tearing off the ‘tear off room’. Above right, partway through pulling off the old siding.

My mum will like this: A couple of weeks ago I had an Arborist over to look at our lemon tree, and the other trees in the back yard. His first suggestion was to tear out the concrete around the tree. He said that putting concrete over roots creates a similar problem to over-watering house plants: The roots can’t get any air and are susceptible to rot.

It took about three hours with a rented jack hammer to take out most of the concrete. The tree looks so much less strangled by the concrete. Now the Arborist is going to come back and do some pruning and put in a couple of Espalier fruit trees. My mum hated all the concrete in the back yard. I agree; now that much of the concrete is gone, I feel like the garden is starting to come back to life.

I think Arwen wants to be a plumber: Here she’s looking out the kitchen window watching the contractors installing a new flue. The old furnace was starting to smell of fumes, so we had to replace it. The new one is about half the size. We didn’t get a super high efficiency furnace, but it’s supposed to be about 50% more efficient than the old one.

I also started to put in the final leg of the stairs. Because it’s cold out now (by our standards), I paint everything in the garage first.

On my way home a couple of days ago, I walked by a garage sale. They had this nice mirror hung off a tree. The cats seem to think it was a good buy.

“I feel pretty
Oh so pretty…”

June Rain

The highly labor-intensive work continued on the front porch. The weather has been sunny and warm, but there’s a weather forecast of rain…

Mole primed all surfaces of the balusters before I put them in.

Ever since I changed the wiring for the porch light, the marks left by the previous electrical conduit were an eyesore on the ceiling of the landing. You can’t see it clearly from the photo, but it also looked as if someone had started stripping the paint, but never finished.

So I put plastic over the door and landing, put the ladder on the landing, and did some overhead paint stripping. Really tiring on the shoulders.

Sorry, not photos after the stripping, but here it is with primer on. I’ve started to sand and prep the beautiful decorative wood posts. At some point, a really thick coat of paint was put on that did not adhere. In lots of places, it’s come loose, so there are voids under the paint. Other areas, the paint is showing cracking, as if the paint underneath is shrinking. It’s got to get ugly before it gets pretty.

Well, even though I didn’t believe it on this beautiful sunny weekend, I’ve been caught before: With rain forecast, I had to get primer onto all the exposed wood. Here you can see the new railing and balusters installed.

The rain did come. The following week rained almost every day. On the weekend, Justin came to visit. The cats loooovvve him.

We bought this electric fireplace back in December because my mum thought the downstairs living room was dingy. Our plan was to install it into the bookshelf space to make the room a bit more cozy. I took out some of the bottom shelves, and installed a new receptacle inside the alcove. But we’ve liked the heater so much upstairs that we never got round to bringing it back down. A rainy summer weekend is the perfect time.

Above right: Arwen and Bella inspect the test fitting.

Above left: Bella asks which screwdriver to use. Above right: I think Arwen just really likes getting into bags. She’s really curious and doesn’t scare easily; she hung around even after I started sawing, and got sawdust in her fur.

I had to trim off some of the top of the fireplace to get it to fit. But now it’s built-in.

new stairs and other stuff…

Other stuff: Janeen ordered carpet tile from flor which we put into the front lobby.

The kittens helped with cutting the tiles to size…

And Arwen was in charge of inspections.

The front stairs for our unit have been in sore need of replacement for quite a few years now. Engineer friends of mine won’t even walk on them (wise). I finally got round to replacing them over the last few weeks.

My goal was to pre-fabricate as much of them as possible so that we don’t have to go without a front door. Above, I’m cutting the stringers (structure that supports the steps.) This has to be precise, as any variation in step length or height is dangerous: People are much more likely to trip. The building code restricts the variation between any two steps to 3/8″ at the most.

We also cut out and painted (above right) all the parts for the steps themselves. The stringers and steps are made from pressure preservative treated wood, and I’ve also treated all cut edges.

The top landing was the most derelict of the whole stair (if that’s possible). Once I’d chipped out the mortar under the tile, the wood was completely rotten and just fell away.

This was Janeen’s view out of the front door. And the black hole is where I would have gone when I walked through the front door if we’d waited much longer…

We completely tore out all the stairs and framing underneath; it was too rotten to save. Above I’ve got the framing for the landing back in place, with help from John (sorry no action photo).

When the stairs were built, they were built right over windows in this area. Above left is the view out of my workshop; it’s never had daylight since we’ve been here. One neighbor told me that he’s lived here over sixty years, and has never seen this window from the outside. The window on the right I filled in so that it did not interfere with the new stair framing.

Our neighbor’s son helped me tear out and rebuild these stairs in two days. It helped that we’d already cut, assembled, and painted most of the stair parts (just the bottom riser was cut to fit). Still more to do: I need to seal all the edges, and put a couple more coats of paint on the stairs. I also need to lay tile on the landing. More about that in another post 🙁

Bella liked the new tile for the landing. Here I’m laying out pattern ideas to include hand made tile that a friend gave me years ago.

Visit from baby brother Elijah (well, he’s getting closer to seven feet). He and dad are comparing methods of cheating in scrabble with your iphone (what’s the point?)

Breakfast time neck-warmer anyone? This was a once-only performance, but it really did warm up my neck nicely.

These cats love watching fish almost as much as they like eating them… Sadly our fish Ludwig died last week after thirteen years. Above left, Bella is wondering where the fish went. Above right is what happens if you let the kittens into the closet with Janeen’s dresser: they get into it, and clothing gets pushed in and out as they scramble up and down inside it.

I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to lie down for a nap (above left): The kittens came to investigate. Above right: They are helping to (dis)organize the paper recycling in our office.

Arwen has turned into a rubber band thief. And she does not care if it’s attached to a roll of drawings.

Happy Easter!

turtle goes to new york and other adventures…

a couple weeks ago mathew flew to new york to visit his brother misha and to attend a party celebrating misha and aja’s birthdays.

siblings! (left) misha, mathew and leo, visiting from harvard. (right) leo and mathew.

(left) misha and aja. (right) misha and mathew.

(left) pretty snow covered trees. (right) a snowy, mathew-made eight two.

eight two and misha. (misha, you can download the original photos by clicking these photos. xoxo)

(left) someone putting up a lost puppy, eight two, music flyer.

(left) mathew and misha. (right) aja, misha and mathew’s hat.

(left) when mathew returned home late one night, bella was so excited she jumped onto a shelf then up above the closets! but she needed mathew’s help to get down. (right) the girls playing with our organic delivery box. can you see bella peeking out?

(left) bella loves to jump onto us, climb onto our shoulders and try to get onto doors! ack. she’s extremely ambitious. before mathew left for new york he made the mistake (?) of helping bella get on top of a door then letting her explore an overhead bedroom cabinet. ever since then, whenever she has the chance she will jump onto our shoulders, chests and heads in the hope that she will be allowed to explore that cabinet again. unless we’re wearing sweaters, it can be quite painful!

and the work continued that weekend. here we are priming steps that will become our new side entrance stairs. the weekend before going to new york, mathew and my dad cut these together.

the following weekend mathew decided to try out a crazy plan for getting a new rain water collection barrel into the back yard. it’s bigger than our other barrels and didn’t fit through the door leading to the backyard. so the obvious solution? hoist it over the fence! (left) here’s the ladder ready for me. (right) mathew on the other side of the fence with the barrel. fortunately no one was parked in that spot that afternoon.

(left) my view from the ladder. (right) can you see me in the shadows? i’m holding that huge barrel up with rope! of course there are no photos showing how the barrel got into that position… if there were photos, they would show mathew on the ladder pulling the ropes up while i held them tight. after he took this photo he carried the ladder around the block to the other side of the fence where he pushed the barrel up and over the fence while i gently let the barrel down into our yard.

(left) the last bit wasn’t so gentle as it landed with a thud onto some plants… my dad and our neighbor thought we were nuts for attempting this! but it worked! (right) clothes line poles!

we decided to swap out my grandmother’s daybed with this very modern and comfortable convertible sofa bed. we got it at a local furniture store, the box called it “click clack sofa bed.” it clicks up to form a sofa and clicks down to form a bed.

and over the last few weeks mathew has been finishing a box to hold my dad’s tile saw.  the wood box replaces a cardboard one and also supports the tile saw when in use. we’re gotten some good use out of this tool over the years. mathew had me design the top. only after he finished routing and carving it did he tell me that originally he was thinking it would just have some simple letters or words. of course mathew is always up for a challenge! my parents were really pleased with the end result.

now who’s the turtle?

progress has been happening on the house, i just haven’t been very fast about documenting it. all i can say is: the kittens sure take a lot of my time!

in january before mathew’s mom left, she helped mathew paint his workbench ORANGE. sue also did some planting in our garden.

we’ve been working on lots of miscellaneous things around the house. but finally it was time for the NEW DOOR! i think we’ve had it sitting in our garage for 12 months. mathew was intimidated by the idea of working on it, getting it to fit into the existing door frame, making sure it seals well, attaching the new hardware, staining and polyurethaning it… the whole process took about three weekends and some week days.

(above left) it started with carrying it upstairs. (it’s HEAVY.) then taking off the old door and pushing the new one into place, planing sides to make it fit and checking the fit, over and over again.

(above right) after that was done mathew chiseled out spaces for the hinges.

once the door fit into place, the hardware (pretty!) was attached and then the door frame was reworked, sanded and repainted.

next the door was taken back down to the garage, sanded, stained and polyurethaned. i think mathew said the exterior side got 6 coats of poly!

ta-da! (right) mathew even installed this automatic weather strip on the bottom of the door. it involved cutting out a groove and inserting this metal contraption that when you close the door, it actually pushes down on the floor. mathew had to plane down the hardwood floor threshold because it was interfering with the weather strip. of course, that involved sanding and re-polyurethaning that section of the floor…

since mathew is self-employed again, it leaves some weekday afternoons to do things like… tear up the sidewalk! the city of san francisco has been going around tagging sidewalk squares, encouraging homeowners to repair cracks themselves. if they choose not to do the work, the city will do it and charge something like $80 per square! (i thought sidewalks were public, not private property.) we had quite a few tagged with white paint dots. mathew repaired the cracks and even went to the effort of renting a jackhammer and chipping out and refilling some squares. a lot of the dots are gone now and it makes us wonder, will the city approve of his work? will they even know which squares were once tagged?

meanwhile inside the house, the kittens are growing fast! here they are “helping” mathew change the fish tank water.

they get along the best when they’re asleep…

(right) arwen has now learned how to play fetch too! her toys of choice are bones i knit for her.

these little girls get into plenty of trouble! (left) we had this plastic film on our living room window, to act as a double pane until we install the new window. one day arwen figured out how to cut into it and step into a see-thru tunnel… (right) bella has proudly learned how to jump up onto the handrail above the stairs…

(left) and that also means she can jump onto counters and the fireplace. the big orchid had a bad fall but is recovering well. (right) bags and boxes are endless fun. and one night while we were watching a movie they even figured out how to push the chair cushions around to make forts and tunnels!

hope everyone is having a fun february!

happy holidays!

december was a busy month for us. we tried to continue working on the house, but in the end we gave in to all the holiday gatherings (one of us was more reluctant than the other…)

on a strangely warm night, after working on the house, we met our cal poly friends, alex and mae, downtown to see the holiday windows and decorations.

we caught up in union square over hot apple cider and desserts, while ice skaters happily crashed into the rink wall beside us. alex was wearing antlers!

we took the bus to alex’s house, added a couple more friends, and had a fun fondue party that went on into the early morning.

the following rainy weekend we decided to buy an electric fireplace. they’re a funny invention, basically a heater with fake flames, logs and embers that look surprisingly realistic. they must be popular this year because most stores were sold out of them. we got it for the downstairs rental unit, to give it a more homey atmosphere, but decided we might as well use it upstairs until the downstairs is ready.

while mathew cooked breakfast i decided to unpack the fireplace. it’s pretty heavy and awkward and mathew found my efforts entertaining.

i managed to drag the thing into the living room and set it up. eventually we’d like to add a gas fireplace to this room, something really modern that fits into the wall and preferably one with purple flames. but for now this will do.

while we enjoyed our new fireplace, mathew started plans for a cat tree. the one that we liked had two beds and two cradles and cost $450!

mathew used left over wood he had in the garage. he started with the round beds, the circles were made from long strips of plywood that were scored and then attached to round pieces of plywood.

next to make the cradles, he cut curved forms out of plywood, then took thin sheets of plywood, scored these, glued them together, then clamped them into shape with the forms that he already made. so cool! we bought carpet remnants from a local carpet store but i had to order sisal rope online because no one seemed to carry it in 3/8″ widths. of course the time and effort is a huge part of the cost of a cat tree but the hidden cost is the sisal rope that winds around the posts. we bought 365 feet of it!

i mentioned that we had a lot of holiday gatherings to attend, right? i think it was 6 or 7 this year. here we are in palo alto visiting with high school friends who we don’t see that often anymore because of kids and distance. this is the annual “goat” gathering, where hal (the goat) and his wife kelly fly in from colorado. mike and junko just moved back from japan, two wives are pregnant and mark’s epicenter cafe is doing well, so there was a lot to celebrate.

we had a special guest, mathew’s mom, sue and a very rare ben (“yeti”) sighting. later that evening we went to my dad’s family gathering. sadly there are no photos but we had a really fun night. (and i was given some beautiful sock yarn!)

on christmas eve we had our annual bittleston family gathering, complete with an abundance of food, drink, gifts, conversation and charles! we missed dan as he was visiting his family, but we got a surprise phone call from eva in panama! i put her on speaker phone and placed the phone in the chip bowl. we all huddled around the table to talk and it was nice to hear her sunny voice from so far away.

the next morning my immediate family joined us for lunch and then we were off to hercules for my mom’s huge extended family gathering. sorry, no photos… just imagine a fun, chaotic, all-ages group of about 50 people. my cousins and i had a white elephant gift exchange game and collected donations for a family in need. my mom made an impressive assortment of home made pies and desserts.

and then the morning after christmas we left before the sun came up to bring home our kittens! they were finally old enough to come home. at the breeder’s suggestion we took them out of their carrier and let them wander around the car. at first they were freaked out and we were freaked out. they walked around scared and crying, they seemed more scared when they looked out the windows.

eventually they calmed down and i had them sleeping on my lap by the end of the trip.

they spent some time wandering around the house then went to hide under our bed. eventually, with the help of my brother (a cat lover) we got them out and playing. mathew spent the entire afternoon finishing the cat tree and justin helped him carry it up two flights of narrow stairs. the kittens love it.

this is what we were doing before meeting our friends downtown. more insulating! glamorous, huh? this is the crawl space above the downstairs bedroom and kitchen. i cut insulation and handed it up to mathew, and for most of the day i just saw his feet sticking out of the ceiling opening.

(left) later that weekend i worked on packing up my grandmother’s old trinkets and sculptures. so many cabinets and shelves of objects that her children don’t want and i don’t know what to do with. i may venture into the world of ebay selling, but i need to work up the courage. (right) there was one morning when i had no idea where mathew was, i found him walking up from the garage carrying these curious creatures saying, “i fixed them!” 🙂 they are a fur trimmed fish and turtle on skateboards, when you pull them back they speed away. just a small example of the many things left behind by my grandmother.

and mathew just couldn’t resist refinishing this table that my grandmother left behind. the wood veneer surface had been badly water damaged. i was doubtful about refinishing thin veneer but mathew sanded, stained and polyurethaned it and now it’s so glossy it’s reflective. it makes a fancy litter box holder in my office.

sorry it’s been a while since my last post, hope you don’t mind the random assortment of news. my life feels like it is suddenly all about the kittens. in the new year i will try not to inundate you with kitten photos, but i can’t guarantee it… i hope everyone had a fun and festive holiday season.

the adventure continues…