The Perils of DIY Handiwork

Chris and I are DIY people. We like to get in there and get dirty. Well, in everything except cleaning and plumbing. The former because we hate it and the latter because that's just something that should be left to the professionals.

Last night we had our first disaster. And I'm down to nine toenails.

The moral of the story... pick up boxes MUCH higher than you think you need to. A box housing new kitchen cabinets slid across my right foot last night and took my nail with it.

The good - my nail polish was a nice red anyway, so sans bandaid, you can't even really tell that the nail is missing.

The bad - the internet tells me it could take a year to grow back... if it even does grow back. WTF!?

Do they make fake toenails?

My Life in Bullet Points

Too busy. WOOO!

- Auntie was in town a few weeks ago. Whenever she's here we eat like rock stars. There was Tower Bar (the most beautiful atmosphere), The Ivy (where we saw Shauna Sand, but thought she was a porn star, until I was clicking through channels and she was on TMZ. She super skinny and looks like a porn star. Is she a porn star?), CUT (by far, the most fantastic meal I think I've EVER had. Mr. Puck came out to introduce himself and see how our meal was. I think I may have gawked a bit) and topped it all of with an old favorite, Il Sole.

- I have the most amazing husband ever. He strips, he builds, he paints and he's doing most of it without me! I'm working all week and shooting all weekend and editing all night. Adore him. A lot.

- The plumbers have come and gone. The dry wall has gone back up. The ceiling has been depopcorned. The flooring is nearing completion. Nearly all the walls have been painted. That place looks fantastic. Would it be wrong to live in the rental unit of my house and rent out the house part?!

- Chris' parents are coming in October. I keep thinking we have so much time to get out of the boxes, but then I realize that October is next week. Holy shit.

- Photography is the best thing that ever happened to me. More on that soon.

- Attended a wedding show with Paola complete with blue martinis and pistachio cake (really the best part of wedding shows). We followed it up with dinner at The Abbey. There was a show and it was fabulous. Realized that I should get out of the house more often.

- The gym has not been graced with my presence in nearly a month. Seriously. I should go back there soon. I'm a poufy jiggly mess.

- I haven't cooked in over a month. Now that the house kitchen has been cleaned I feel safe using it until we can completely rip it out. But I haven't. Most times I ask Chris to cook and then give him a really big kiss and hug and tell him how good he does it. He is a fantastic cook. But mostly I just don't want to do it.

- A lot of my plants are dead. Moving traumatized them. (Or perhaps lack of water murdered them.)

- Bingley and Jack love the new house. But Bingley was chased by a dog and Jack fell off the roof. Both boys are fine. I am totally going to be an overprotective mother that follows her daughter to the movie theater on her first date, sits in the back with wig and Jackie O sunglasses and spies with bincoculars. It's going to be bad. Should probably work on that now.

I PROMISE pictures soon. I JUST downloaded the pictures from the first day I broke in to "Guerilla Move."

House: More Demo

Super crazy busy busy weekend at the new house!

There are three parts to our house. The original house, the kitchen/living addition and then a later Mother-in-Law Addition. The last part completely closes off to the rest of the house, has its own entrance and is about 600 square feet. So, we decided to tear it apart, build it back up and rent it to some friendly/quiet/nice folks. One problem... it's ugly as hell.

So, I learned how to break up and tear out tile this weekend!


Lots and lots of angry aggression came out of my body, through the hammer and into the ugly floor. It's now out in the back yard! WOOO!


Chris took on some heavier things... the closet! We ripped out the closet and are putting in a kitchen/living area.


The backyard is currently a disgusting disaster area. We've cut some trees and ripped out carpets and torn down walls... and it's all on the ground in the backyard. We figured that if we're going to hire someone to come haul it all away, we were going to make it worth their while :-)


Please note another stupid previous owner move. See that wire behind Chris' shoulder? It's strung throughout the backyard just like that. From a post. To the corner of the house. To the ground. Yeah, it's the water feed for the sprinkler system. Apparently burying it like normal people was a bit too tough. Nice, eh?

House: Ahhh the Joys of Homeownership

Chris just sent this to me from his iPhone.





The subject - "First House Boo Boo"

I think there is no electricity at the current moment. F.

Ahhh Marketing...

I really like marketing. I think it's quite interesting the various ways in which companies try to reach us.

Today, we received a fax. At work.

This is my favorite.

House: The Demo

A portion of my house looks like this...


It's amazing to see how incredibly stupid some people are. A lot of the tile in the house is rickity. I just figured it was old. Nope! It's because the previous owners just put it down over linoleum. Just threw it down there on top. Smart.

House: The Fridge!

I think it could be inappropriate how incredibly much I love this refrigerator.

The french doors are amazing. Everything fits so nicely without pulling, giggling, moving, pushing, etc. There is a potential for a lack of drawer storage space, but I'm sure I'll find a work around. If the doors aren't closed exactly right, it beeps at me. Fantastic.


The pull out freezer drawer is GENIUS!


OK, this part is a bit weird... I hate when something is fashioned exactly for one thing. What if I want to use this space for something else? Can't... perfectly formed for cans. Nothing else.

Chris moved over the important stuff :-) Seriously, we have no condiments, and no staple items, but we have Prosecco and Champagne.

Holy Crap

It's been 10 days since my last post!

My entire life has been turned upside down with the new house and there's stuff EVERYWHERE. For serious. For the first three days that I had to get dressed for work at the new house I had to find my underwear in the formal living room, my pants in the bedroom, shirts in the dining room, shoes in the kitchen... it was rough.

Things are coming together and there will be pictures soon!

But right now I need some help. I found some FABULOUS fabric for office chairs and want to find a cheapo version of this...

image from Brocade Home via Design Sponge

But what would you call this style of chair? I'm searching Craigs List and Ebay and plan on hitting some estate sales. Any other thoughts on where to find it?

An All WOOOOOOOOOOOO day!

Some days are woo/boo days. Some more woo than boo, some more boo than woo. Yesterday was all woooooooooooooooooooooo!


Woo - we closed! Freakin' finally. But since I had been breaking and entering for the past week or so, it didn't feel quite as awesome as I had expected. More like the same ole same ole, except this time I took the keys home with me instead of leaving them in the lock box. And I didn't get the guilty panic that I was doing something wrong and bad by breaking/entering/cleaning/painting. (All in all, I thought, what are they going to do!? Sue me for making the place more awesome? I was paying to own it, thought I should use it.) I was going to guerilla move on Saturday anyway. (Anne came up with the fantastic term, not me. I like it. So I stole it.) But now it can be totally official.

Woo - We have hardwood! Most of the house is hardwood. The formal living room, dining room and office are original. The living room is some crazy ass mountain shit that they renovated. the bedrooms are carpet. But the upstairs was icky gross carpet. The stairs and the whole open top floor (the master bedroom). Disgusting, icky, stained, gross, disgustingness. But I thought the stairs MIGHT be hardwood because of the curve under the carpet. Didn't know if they were original or not though. Didn't think that the upstairs was, and really, I kind of like carpet in the bedroom... cozier. But it's ALL original hardwood! Well, original, with stain, under the paint, poked with tons of staples, and padding, and carpet. But Chris' new job is to bring them back :-)

Woo - we got a renter for the condo! His office is two blocks away and wants to be able to walk to work. He loves the space. No animals. Super nice older guy. No raging parties. He seems competent with basic household repairs. Super awesome. Adore him.

Woo - our office is nearly painted! But I ran out of paint (ok, a boo.) It's a purpley-grey and it's soft and beautiful and awesome.

Woo - Apparently the closet upstairs backs up to the attic. Which is dead space. The totally super ghetto plywood is going to get ripped out and the ENTIRE ATTIC will be my new CLOSET!!! Seriously, A.W.E.S.O.M.E. I get teary eyed just thinking about the fantasticness that will occur when Chris and his Dad start the demolition up there. I'm imagining something L shaped, with hardwood shelving units. And drawers. And built in shoe racks. And more hanging space then I will ever need. We may never move out of this house. Chills & Tears of Joy.

Woo - Chris came home at 8:45 last night and today is his last day! Tonight is the wrap party and he planned on getting super drunk at the end of his miserable August. But, I told him he can't because...

WOOO - we move tomorrow! We're picking up a truck at 8 am and moving all our crap from the condo to the house. I moved the first set of boxes last night before the painting shenanigans began and the rest will be heading over tomorrow. Not sure when to bring the kitties. They would LOVE to go playing in my purpley-grey paint and then traipse through the house with sticky little paws.

House: Refrigerator

Refrigerator shopping is AWFUL. Disgusting. And Awful.

Last week we tried a scratch-and-dent place in Chatsworth. Some pretty decent stuff, but the pricing wasn't as low as you expect for a giant warehouse with no air condition full of stuff that's been dinged. Or fell off a truck.

Then there was Lowe's. Mostly, I was just tired of shopping already and didn't care and didn't think that we would need one so quickly. My oh my how time flies when you're having fun.

Yesterday we started the shopping again as I realized that we're moving on Saturday and we don't have anything to chill the multiple beers that Chris will need to consume as I put him into manual slave labor mode.

Sears was the first stop. I.Hate.Them. Firstly, there are 6 sales folk in the TV section standing around picking their noses. They don't know about/can't sell/don't want to sell refrigerators. There is one guy in the refrigerator section who is stuck with a couple asking a bajillion questions. So, we looked. And we waited. And we looked. And finally one of the stove guys came over to help us. He picked one that we liked. Here's where I get REALLY angry. All of the fridges have prices on them. There are black and white and stainless fridges and they all have prices. Put not until you actually put your nose onto the tag and get really really close to read the itty bitty teeny tiny print do you realize that all of the prices are for the white version of that fridge. The stainless version is obviously $400 more. Bastards. AND all this "Next Day Delivery" stuff is crap. They can't deliver it for almost two weeks! What's with this pay and wait crap!? That's when I stormed out. I was tired, and cranky, and angry.

But we had to push through. We need a beer chiller. So, to Home Depot we went. Big selection, helpful folk, lower prices. And a chair that I could sit in. The chair was important I think. Oh, and cell reception. Why don't warehouse stores have cell recpetion? We were able to pull up reviews and comparisons on our iPhones and decide on our giant purchase with somewhat of an education. Well, really, I mostly decided that I liked rounded handles, pull out freezers, french door fridge, a top drawer in the freezer that pops out when the whole drawer is opened, lots of little drawers in the fridge, doors that close without being physically pushed shut and water in the door. Chris liked that one of them had a long shallow drawer... he called it the beer drawer. Perfect for lots of bottles laying down. But, then the sales lady called it a cake drawer. Perfect for giant sheet cakes. And then I knew we had to have it.

And it was the last day of their 10% off, free delivery sales promotion from labor day! Still a week on the delivery, but I guess we can get by with an old school cooler for a bit.

YAAAH for checks of the list!

Random Bits of Updates

- House - We do not officially own the house. Yet, we are making payments on it. It's kind of like standing at the cash register at Target waiting for someone to grab your new purchases from the back warehouse. For five days. However, I have the lockbox combination and have been allowing myself in for cleaning (well, for letting the cleaning lady in) and painting. Lots and lots of painting. Seriously, the walls are sucking down paint like thirsty hyenas. Three gallons for the living room. Painted it blue... but it came out a bit more smurf than I would have liked. But I was already in it, so I pressed through. Hopefully some photos on the wall will bring down the smurfness.

- Body - I've been bad. Lost another pound last week, but have eaten like a crazy person all week and avoided the gym due to a massive amount of painting needing to be done. Probably have gained it all back. However, ceiling painting is an awesome workout and my arms/back feel like they've been through the ringer!

- Visits - My good friend WTF and her husband were in town for a wedding. YAH! As always, excellent to see them! Aunt Jill is in town next week, which means lots and lots of shopping and even more eating. There will also be no working out, so I expect to buy up a pant size for next week.

- Husband - Only two more days before I get to really see him again! He's been coming home pretty early for the last week, rolling in not too much after midnight. That brings him down to 16 hour days. Poor kid. It's weird, he's here, but not really here. I rattled on and on about Sarah the other night, failing to remember that he had no idea who Sarah was. He didn't know that I had hired a web designer to build a new blog/website for the photography. Forgot to mention that. Odd how major things fall away when you don't have idle time for chit chat.

So, I've been a bad blogger... but that's mostly because there's not that much to be interesting about. Work, Paint, Edit, Sleep, Repeat. I could use a nap...