Over the Weekend

We had a great weekend! We finished painting the basement...

Enjoyed the new, less glowsticky, kitchen view...

Had a little dinner party, which began and ended with this lovely Humboldt blue fog cheese, which is now my favorite ever...

Like a little cake.

On Sunday, Tocco and I pulled ourselves out of the house for some fresh air. This is the San Andreas Fault, on the way to Half Moon Bay, which has become our favorite weekend escape. Every once in a while the air smells so summery on this road I instantly think we're back on our big summer road trip a few years ago. We even went through this same spot then, so it makes perfect sense.

When we arrived at Half Moon Bay I left T on a bench and took a jog around the beach neighborhoods. It's hard to do much running because I always stop to take pictures. I found this sweet small turquoise house and love it. We're always playing around with which place we'd buy if we could have a beach house, and I'll add this one to the list.

It sat right on the cliff's edge, facing the Pacific Ocean. The mailbox even had our red VW Nalu bus on it, so it's kind of perfect.

Beachy plants. The air was really clean and misty.

Ran back and Tocco wasn't where I left him... searching, searching, follow my eyes to the ocean, down the cliff, and ahhh... of course.

My little beach bum. ;)

Tocco told me to just jump, like he did. I managed not to break anything, and the lady next to us gave me a beer with a laugh.

Back home, I started messing around in the backyard. The guys who helped with the basement took the old shed that was rusting in the back off our hands for free. I love them. I was so psyched to get rid of it. It looks so much fresher in that back corner. I can't wait to start planning out what to do back there. 

Already found fresh mint. Helloooo spring salad.

Going, going, gone

Today I want to escape.

Photo by Max Wanger's Life Book

This morning we finished painting the basement... hallelujah! Tocco did most of it, and he's no complainer, but let me tell you, it was tough. Mainly because yesterday he put 5 full coats on it in one day (2 ceiling, 1 primer, 2 wall color) and gave himself tennis elbow/body. I did the edging. Then we hosted a dinner party with great friends and laughed and relaxed, which was so good, and necessary.

To celebrate another room nearly done we are getting out of the house today, and turning ourselves over the the beach. It has, nearly overnight, turned into 100% Spring here. The birds are chirping. It's the kind of weather where you have to be outside soaking it up. I hope it's warming up where you are too. We are outta heeere.

NorCal beachy cabinet trees (post by Tocco)

This is the situation we have to tackle. A nice Frankenstein green, it even glows in the dark.

Before

Even though you may think one can get used to it while it's daylight...

don't turn the light on, or it starts glowing again.

These are the old hinges, but they are original and still work, so we decided to throw them into a crockpot to loosen the 10 layers of paint, strip them and reuse them, quite a bit of work, but definitely worth it.

Step 1: Select a part of the cabinet tree you want to tackle first, we've choosen the drawers, thinking there is not much surface to sand and paint, but that was around the time where the cabinet tree started to fight us.

Step Two:

Put you warrior outfit on and fight back!

Step Three:

Fight back! The whole frame wants to be sanded and painted. Of course, 10 layers of old paint takes a long time, and if you think you can avoid sanding by hand, forget about it. These old paint layers simply start melting under every sander you'd like to try, just hang in there, and sand it by hand, I swear, it's less hassle after all.

Step Four:

After it seems the cabinet tree won a battle by neglecting to be sanded, we decided it may be enough sanding for now and we pulled out the paint.

Step Five:

Put it back together and get excited!

Step Six:

Overlook you imperfections and enjoy the moment and be a little bit proud of yourself, and prepare to get scared, there are five more cabinet trees waiting to receive the same procedure, and they will beat the heck out of you. But as I said, just hang in there and fight back, one day they will be all done ... ;-) We'll keep you posted and let you know who won the battle, the cabinets or us ...

Weekend

Last weekend at Mavericks- one of those incredible beach weekends where you keep saying how perfect the weather feels and you want to share it with everyone.

Mavericks, Half Moon Bay

Friday is Mavericks. Mavericks is the surfing competition where the waves get HUGE- 40+ feet. The water is sharky (great whites), kelpy, and freeeeezing cold. I don't know how they do it. Those waves are like towers. The surfers have to get towed far out and then dropped off where the waves are so they can ride them. The huge rocks where they biggest waves lurk make it especially dangerous. That said, if we have any kids in California we're signing them up for lessons. 

This is Mavericks Beach without a huge wave. I count 3 sharks

Our friend Tocco, always studying

and Mavericks International last year. Once the competition starts this is as close as they'll let you get. A little less thrilling, but it's still pretty fun to watch.

Design Inspo

Color scheme inspiration from Patrick Baty I like that it looks like the ocean and sun. I feel like we need a lot more of the four blues in the lower left. :)

The Dining Room

When we bought the house the dining room looked like this:

Yikes! It looks like a dollhouse.

The carpet from hell. 

We ripped out the carpet, and spent hours of pulling out nails, staples and carpet bits....

But when we had the floors sanded, it was worth it. Perfect floors! It was like the boards were preserved under that carpet for decades. 

The chandelier was left behind by the previous owner, as you can see above. When the room was empty and we we were painting and working on the space, we kept bumping into all those crystals. It was almost comical how we kept making it swing. It was like we just couldn't see it! I could not wait to replace it. But then! We added our own stuff, more of a midcentury vibe, and somehow the chandelier started to make more sense, and now we love it. 

Got very ambitious and had our first dinner party the week we moved in...

And here it is on a regular work/mail day. The process of homeownership documentation/ bill paying/ loan paperwork is scary business. We're a little terrified we'll screw it up. 

Basement Blues

This week has really been all about the basement-- and it's been awesome. We decided to let someone else do some of the work!

 Aside from having the hardwood floors sanded (the week before we moved in) this is the only place where we did the demo, looked around, and said, "You know what? No. We don't wanna. Let's hire somebody." It was kind of weird to leave our home in someone's hands, but also incredibly gratifying to come home to work completed.  

Before: 

So charming.

After we ripped everything out:

The previous owners updated the electric in the basement (yay) but didn't repair the walls and just plastered the wood paneling on top of the holes (boo). This made the basement very chilly and in need of a lot more work. Calling in the contractors.

This week we came home to this: 

Holes gone, walls patched!

T admires the work. He can spend an hour looking at I don't even know what down there.  :) 

It's so much warmer down there! Huge difference already. Now, we finish it up ourselves and get the floors leveled and carpeted. 

New for Spring

I am all over these limited edition pieces at Ikea for spring. Clean lines... wood and white... that sweet color palette. Count me in. I hope Tocco likes that desk because I'm going to put her right up next to his. Buddies.

I have so much catching up to do on our renovation progress (thankfully we are not at the very beginning anymore), so I'm just going to add a lot of before and after pictures, and hopefully a few stories here and there on the process so far. There is still pleeeenty of work ahead of us. 

I can't wait to get up to date and start posting regularly. 

Photography by Marcus Buck showing imprints of demolished houses left on other houses. Wild.