check out what mathew brought home from the tournament!
while he was competing in the finals on sunday i was exposing more red floor in the downstairs living room. but the cool thing is that this time i didn’t strain my back…
rainy wednesday
as if our day jobs weren’t keeping us busy enough, mathew also has woodworking to do for karate. his dojo is hosting the annual nationals tournament and they need poles to hold the region banners. the tournament is this weekend! he’s also been training to compete in it.
he’s here sanding this rainy morning instead of at his day job. but the upside? he LOVES his new workshop.
rain!
and he sealed up the openings he made over the weekend. because it’s getting COLD.
our wedding anniversary is this saturday and most likely mathew will be at the tournament all day. hard to believe we got married this weekend 5 years ago. the last 5 years have been great, time has flown by, i’m just wondering why we’ve had such a cold and rainy october. what happened to our san francisco summer?
one more thing: mathew wanted to show a little glimpse into my life. the little stool that sits by my chair holds my new tape measure, my new camera (thanks justin!) and its cables, etc.
one less window and some red floor
while i went off to do yet more shopping – i think i’ve been procrastinating, because i’m feeling intimidated by the cast iron sewer pipe that i need to move for the new toilet location – janeen started to tear up the underlayment that is on the floor in the room we are using as a living room right now. there are so many nails in it – fortunately they did not glue it down, though.
when i finally got back from ‘discount’ (it’s anything but) builder’s supply, i realized that we need to remove the painted over window because it will interfere with the shower. it’s a bit weird because it looks out directly at three of our neighbor’s windows. there will (only) be two windows left now. so instead of fiddling with the intimidating plumbing, i reframed the wall and, with janeen’s help, nailed on the siding through a combination of leaning out the side widows, and climbing on the roof. it was really difficult to fit the new siding in, because the old siding had all shrunk the new pieces were almost half an inch wider.
so, it feels a bit better now that we got something done. janeen managed to take off about 1/3 of the underlayment. janeen is now relaxing under a blanket next to the floor where she removed the stinky underlayment.
urban ore
we finally got to visit urban ore in berkeley and it was pretty amazing. and overwhelming. our plan was to go take a look around to see what we could get there, before buying new. if you have time and want to save stuff from landfill, you can sell your old stuff or buy something discounted here. they have everything. we didn’t try selling old things yet (though we are building up a collection).
so many toilets. we’ll be back for one eventually. a field of tubs. even fancy ones with claw feet.
sinks that reminded me of easter eggs. and the one sink we almost bought. but in the end realized it wasn’t really us.
windows, windows and more windows!
doors! and fancy doors.
glass victorian doorknobs that i love (we might need some more of those) and really old antique ones.
even an industrial espresso machine that mathew had to get a closer look at. and an original built-in cabinet (hiding behind something) that we might go back for. (i’m crazy about built-ins.)
funky old lamps. cool antique vanities. they even sell clothing, books, records, golf clubs… it’s amazing how much people throw “away.”
after all that we bought a plain white kohler sink and a small, glass, pendant lampshade. as we were leaving i found this vanity sink (above, left) i think i have to have (last night i checked the measurements and it’s exactly the size we need downstairs.) we stopped to have dinner at breads of india.
returning to our city, with the smallest sliver of a moon i’ve ever seen (do you see it to the left?) next stop: lowe’s, where they seemed to be out of everything we wanted… where the employees are nice, but know nothing…
short weekend
we didn’t make any major progress this weekend but got a lot of little things done.
i cleaned and repaired the blinds in the office and took down the valance and curtain rails. (20+ years of dust?) we’ll keep these blinds for now until i figure out what i want instead of them. hopefully soon i’ll get some new paint on those walls.
mathew temporarily fixed the sad, sagging deck in the backyard.
and pulled up the floorboards to get to the plumbing in the upstairs bathroom. he did some re-routing with the copper pipes in the garage. the previous plumber had some strange, inefficient methods. i know nothing about plumbing, but hot water shouldn’t travel twice the width of the house then go up and around the exterior of the house, should it?
is there anything this guy can’t fix? last week mathew also repaired the ancient stove in the downstairs kitchen. now we can cook downstairs! as good as the mexican food is around here, there are only so many tacos and burritos you can eat before you need some variety.
it’s columbus day and i guess some people have it off? mathew is away at work and i’ll soon be sitting in front of my computer, in my pink office with clean, functional blinds.
slight detour
we moved in two and a half weeks ago and still have no progress to show! hmm… must be because we’ve been on a family trip! we saw celine dion, cirque du soleil’s O, the hoover dam and zion national park.
back to work!
moving day photos
“two dads moving company”
left: daniel and mathew moving the blue chair. right: pre-lunch snacks provided by mom.
mae and stef arrived just in time for lunch. and they brought homemade curry noodles and spring rolls! they even helped move a carload full of stuff. aren’t we supposed to provide the food? our volunteers are too good to us.
after lunch we had a quick visit from mike (visiting from spain) and chris. (sorry, no photos.)
when the 3 cars were unloaded everyone but my parents were set free to enjoy the rest of their sunday. alex showed up at the old apartment to help with the final load (again, sorry, no photos, but he was wearing neon green and his hair was very enthusiastic…)
homeowners.
this is what exhaustion looks like.
we’ve moved.
we’ve moved. everything is in boxes.
big hugs and thanks to all of our amazing moving helpers: dad-daniel, daddy-john, mom-judy, mae, stef and special guest appearance from alex. we couldn’t have done it all today without all of your help. and thank you to mae and stef for the yummy home cooked lunch.
our dsl won’t be activated till tomorrow afternoon. i’m at the apartment and the camera cable is at the house, so photos soon…
moving
we’re moving in this weekend!
it feels like craziness: we’ll be moving into the rooms on the main floor, while we continue to work on upstairs. on top of that, we have a visit to popo (janeen’s grandmother) today (saturday) and next week the whole family is going on a week-long vacation. nice timing, eh?
adventures in plaster
mathew spent most of yesterday at the house. he hadn’t had any experience working with plaster but he read-up online, bought a 50 lb. bag and got to work. he spent the early part of the day prepping, came back for lunch at 3 and went back at 6 to start the plaster. around 11:30 last night i started getting worried. where was he? was he okay? wasn’t he starving?
i called and he was just cleaning up. he sounded happy and talkative. he said plaster is HARD work and that he didn’t know what he was doing, but he plastered the first wall and we’ll see what it’s like when it dries. he said he was trying for super-smooth, but we might have to go with the rustic look… knowing mathew i’m sure the wall is fine and he’s just being hard on himself. he came home at midnight and ate dinner.
we used to always criticize the “sub-standard” plaster in our apartment. now he strokes the walls and says “how do they get it so smooth?”