Where Once Was a Window

One of my favorite parts of the new deck is this area right outside my bedroom door. Once upon a time it was just the top of the driveway, used to store trashcans and other assorted demo debris. But now it's a private little nook, just waiting to be given a purpose.

When I asked my brother, Monty, to build me a gate on the other side of my bedroom window, I was really just setting him up for the eventual request to replace that window with a door. And being the awesome guy that he is, this weekend he kindly obliged. 

First, the old window had to go. 

Then the scary part - cutting out the wall!

In a crazy stroke of luck, the window was almost exactly the right width and height for the door replacement. Only very minor adjustments had to be made.

Oh boy, that pic probably should have been censored...

And voila! Door is in! A little trim work, patch, plaster, and paint, and I officially have a walk out from my bedroom! And just check out the exterior...

Too freaking cute! And here is the overall view, all dressed up for a Sunday BBQ...

 

The rest of the backyard is still a disaster, but I love that I now have one (small) outdoor space that is officially finished. It makes me so motivated to get the rest done!!

Discovering the Morey Mansion

I was driving down a quiet, orange tree-lined street in Redlands the other day when I spotted a for sale sign at the end of a driveway. As I always do, I slowed down to take a look, expecting the 1950s ranch style home that is popular in that area. Imagine my astonishment when this was staring back at me.

Hello gorgeous!

I quickly Redfinned it, and the pictures of the inside did not disappoint. Check them out here. 

I decided to do a little more research on the house, just out of curiosity, and it turns out it is not only famous (was used as a filming location in Talk About A Stranger, in 1952), but is also haunted! Maybe the ghost upkeep is very expensive, because the owners also seem to be financially troubled. I'm not at all surprised that they're being forced to sell due to bankruptcy, just looking at that place made my bank account whimper. 

If you're looking to move to Redlands and have $1.6M to spare, check this place out. Maybe you can get the ghost to move to the pool house?

Awfully Big Deck You Got There

When my parents and I walked through my house, before I bought it, the first thing my mom said was "I would rip down this patio cover and open this all up." At the time I thought she was crazy. First of all, SHADE! Secondly, it's a covered outdoor space, who doesn't love that? 

Two and a half years later, I am willing to admit my mom was right (didya hear that Mom??). The roof had gotten progressively leakier over the years, not to mention sustained quite a bit of termite damage. And the cement floor was severely sloped (toward the house), so if I ever wanted to level it out, it would mean the roof would be incredibly low on one side. I finally decided to give up putting lipstick on the pig, and just take it all down.

Here is the before...

I'm not going to lie, this was way more work that I expected. The roof was tarred right up to the siding of the house, so taking that down meant damaging quite a bit of the siding. And then about a third of the cement floor had to be chipped up and thrown into a dumpster (such back-breaking work), just so we could make a level frame for the deck. 

Once that groundwork was laid, the actual decking went in pretty quickly, thanks to this handy tool. 

Not only does it help people who are not that great at drilling screws in straight (ahem), but it also puts the screws into the sides of the board, so they're hidden. And check out the results!

Pretty fancy, eh? It's amazing how much brighter the space is - it feels like a whole new backyard!

DIY West Elm style pouf

I love these dhurrie poufs, at West Elm. I dunno why exactly, it's like all the fun of a bean bag, but with the sophistication of an ottoman. I mean, how cute is this?

But I don't love the $249 price tag. For that price, I could get a real piece of furniture!

So one day I was eyeballing my old memory foam mattress topper and wondering what the heck I should do with it, when it hit me - I should make a pouf!

I used my electric bread knife to cut the foam into 24 inch squares, and then layered them all on top of each other, like a layer cake (using spray adhesive where the frosting would go). I had to clean up the edges a little bit, as (much like my layer cakes) my 7 layers were a little lopsided.

Then wrapped the whole thing in a layer of batting, and used an old mattress cover to make a little pillow case for the stack of foam. This will keep it nice and tidy inside the final slip cover, and disguise any unevenness in the edges of the foam.

Finally I used a dhurrie rug that I got on sale from Urban Outfitters (only $89!) as my material. It frays like a maniac, but the texture is consistent with the West Elm pouf. And unlike those other poufs, I outfitted mine with two zippers on the bottom, so that I could easily remove the cover for washing.

All in all, it only took about three and a half hours. And look how cute!

My only regret is that I had but one mattress topper to give to this craft project.

Craigslist Crawl: Card Catalogue!

I have always had a soft spot for old library card catalogues - something about the tiny drawers just seems so purposeful. Unfortunately (for me) the rest of the world has caught on to the romance of these pieces, and the prices are going through the roof. Stupid old supply and demand!

In one of my regular Craigslist crawls, I actually found a unit for a very respectable price, but I thought "I have too much furniture as it is... where would I even put this?... what would I put inside of it?..." and all the usual methods of talking yourself out of something you really REALLY want. Then, almost by destiny, I stumbled onto this article on Apartment Therapy. Clearly, the universe was trying to tell me something.

A few days later I drove to a remote Public Storage unit in Gardena, and came home with this little beauty...

The graininess of that Craigslist pic doesn't even show the years of dirt, tape, pen markings, and scratches that couldn't mar the potential of this gorgeous piece. I took it straight home and got to work with some Scott's Liquid Gold (which is really a miracle product) and Goo Gone. I couldn't believe how the much the wood glowed, when I was done!

I also added some simple legs from Lowes, and stained them to match the color of the cabinet.

This is totally my new favorite piece (aren't' they all, though?). And yes, I did use it to organize my life, and take back my kitchen junk drawer (which had actually expanded to two junk drawers!).

Now I have a place for every thing, and a thing for every place. Just the way I like it!

Disaster Watch 2013: Bobcatting!

The holidays are over, people, and so is the time for slacking off! We've been chipping away at the World's Worst Backyard, while fervently hoping that someone from HGTV would just whisk us away on a luxury vacation and install water features and fire pits while we're getting spa treatments. Apparently there is no Santa Claus, because that did not happen.

And while we'd been eating holiday cookies and sipping eggnog, our weed collection has been thriving! Check out Garrett, attempting to stem the tide (pun intended).

No, that's not grass he's standing on, those are geranium weeds that he's chopped down to the nub. Seeing how much work there was still to do, and feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all, I decided to put aside the wimpy weed whackers and wheelbarrows, and call in the big guns.

That's right, we rented a Bobcat! I had first answered a craigslist ad for a Bobcat operator who would also haul the dirt away, but he wanted over $1500! Then I found American Rentals, who rents and delivers Bobcats for the bargain price of $441.50. After renting a dumpster for $166, I was still at less than half of the price of the first estimate. Plus we got to drive the Bobcat, which was good fun. 

The trickest part was getting it up the driveway, under the patio cover, and into the yard, without unintentionally tearing anything down. But we did it! And after a long day's work, our Disaster is a little less dire. 

All the stumps and plastic bins of questionable contents have been removed and disposed of. I never though it would be so nice to see a backyard composed entirely of dirt!

Christmas in New Orleans (the House Highlights)

Merry Christmas, from beautiful New Orleans, Louisiana! Instead of flying to Florida to spend time with Garrett's mom, we all decided to meet in New Orleans and have a little Christmas vacation together. None of us had been here before, but we had our preconceived notions - I envisioned the whole city looking like Disneyland's New Orleans Square, and people partying in the streets all night long.

Not that I was entirely off. The French Quarter is beautiful and very Disney-esque, but it's only a very small portion of the city. And yes, there are people partying on the streets, even two days before Christmas, but we're told it's a very small crowd, compared to the onslaught of people they're expecting for the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras this year.

Nevertheless, getting out of that part of the city felt pretty good. We hopped in a cab, and told the driver to take us to Chartres Street - where we'd heard the fancy people live. It did not disappoint! Check out some of my favorite houses from our impromptu tour...

You know I have a weakness for yellow houses, and check out that turret! Even the carport is adorable!

But there were many others that were arguably more grand...

Porches are definitely a big thing here, though we didn't see anybody rocking on them, or drinking mint juleps while fanning themselves. Maybe it's just not the season...