Month: October 2010

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!

visiting grandma

last weekend we visited my grandmother at her new senior home. they were having a chinese moon festival so a few of her daughters and their families came to visit. this was also a good weekend for us to help hang photos in her new room.

(left) mathew and my sister-in-law, najia hanging photos. (right) my mom and brother, jason helping to unpack and sort photos.

(left) my aunts laura and linda sorting my grandmother’s medication. (right) laura’s daughter, cindy and laura’s grandchildren putting a puzzle together in the library down the hall.

half way through the festival my grandmother (and the rest of us) decided we’d had enough of the loud karaoke music. these photos were taken from the second floor balcony/bridge looking down on the residents and their guests.

(left) back in my grandmother’s room… my grandmother seems to be settling in well. she complains that she can’t always eat the food, and that it’s too sunny, but she’s socializing and walking a lot more, using her walker to get to breakfast, lunch and dinner. (right) as usual, i forgot to take photos after all the frames were hung. (family photos definitely made her room look more lived in.) i think i was a little distracted by the fact that my family won three prizes in the raffle including the grand prize DVD player!