Friday, September 18, 2015

Garage Facelift

We've finally started working on the front of the house (much to the delight of our neighbors, I can tell you!) We've got a lot of work to do and will probably start in earnest in the fall or winter. But for now, the area in front of the garage is starting to look reasonably schmancy.

You might remember what the front of our house used to look like:

Pretty classy stuff. That picture was even taken after we replaced the garage doors! This is what it looked like when we bought the house.

It had a wonky (and dangerous!) garage door with lots of cracks and icky light fixtures and it was generally unsightly. Then we had the house painted and added new light fixtures and it looked a lot better.

Next we decided to add these old-school house numbers. Well, Eddy added them. (I totally helped.)

The next thing we thought it needed was potted plants. That means plants ride home from the nursery in the passenger seat as is our tradition.

We failed take good pictures of this step, but trust me when I tell you that we went to the nursery 3 times in a morning trying to get just the right pots and plants.

That is, after we special ordered the giant pot in the middle and spent 2 months waiting for it to arrive.

I'd say it all worked out in the end, though. We are still working on a lighting solution to illuminate the house numbers at night, but it looks pretty darned good during the day if I do say so myself (which I do.)

The Great Quilt Audit

DIY, Quilting No comments

If you are hard on your belongings like I am, then you probably have a big old pile of quilts that you made when you were a kid that have been on countless picnics, trips to the beach, outdoor movies, road trips, and other odd adventures and are in need of some repair.

I made this quilt for my twin extra long bed when I went to college. (I was totally a cool kid.)

It's flannel on the back and is super cozy. We still use it on our bed in the winter (especially when we know the pit bulls might be sneaking their way onto the bed.)

It had some little holes where the seams had come undone.

It also had some spots on the binding that had been loved (chewed) a little too much by a pet rabbit when I was a kid (his name was Roscoe Peterman.)

Not the prettiest binding repair, but this is more of utility quilt for us.

This is the very first quilt I ever made!

It was on my bed for years as a kid and was washed and used about a million times. It had tons of holes like this.

Even in an area with several repairs, they didn't end up being that noticeable.

Then there was this butterfly quilt.

It had some applique wear.

This quilt was probably the most complex quilt I made when I was a kid.

It had a lot of these guys.

See, not so noticeable in the end.

There was also this table runner.

Not even very old, but I hated the binding (which I had already redone twice, for the record). First of all, it was coming off already (I forgot to backstitch.)

Second, I used white thread. (It was before I learned about colored threads somehow.)

Aaaaah, much better.

For those of us who are really uptight and detail-oriented, this was a most satisfying blog post. Regular folks might have been a little bored.

Do You Know the Mushroom Man?

California, DIY, Quilting, Yosemite 2 comments

So I got Eddy a book for Christmas last year and it's basically his favorite thing ever.

We found out about it from our friends Jim and Jeanne who live at work at Yosemite right now.

Recently the mushroom man actually gave a talk at Yosemite and we were all going to go, but a sad thing happened and Eddy had to work and it was all very terrible stuff, but when we still thought we were going to be able to make out out there for the talk I did make a quilt for them to, you know, commemorate our fun time together.

So I still sent the quilt along because now it can commemorate other mushroom fun we've had. Like that time we found a tiny fairy mushroom forest in the woods. Or that time they taught us about mushroom man and changed the trajectory of books in our house.

The 8 Month Bathroom

Renovation, San Jose House No comments

Remember the one week bathroom? Well, we finally finished the 8 month bathroom!

Just a refresher course for those who may not remember the last 8 months of this blog. This is what our master bathroom used to look like.

Then we did this to it.

Then we mostly finished it but didn't have a shower.

We now have a shower! It's sort of hard to get a good picture of it. But it is amazing!

I know, I know. That wasn't much for building the suspense for the reveal. But... WE'VE GOT A SHOWER! (Well, a second shower. It's not like we didn't shower for 8 months straight.)

Unscheduled Stops

North America, Oregon, Travel No comments

The second day of our Oregon road trip was a visit to Crater Lake. We did made quite a few unscheduled stops along the way, though. First, we saw a river that we knew Norman wouldn't be able to resist.

Boy were we right. He played and splashed and had a big old time. We also stopped here because the sign pointing toward it had a picture of a camera on it.

Once we were on the trail, we had the choice between boulders and falls.

We chose falls, duh.

When we finally got to Crater Lake we were greeted by snow.

There was even a staircase that led only to snow.

Finally some scenic views of Crater Lake and Wizard Island.

Also views of the picturesque lodge (with more snow).

We made just a couple of unscheduled stops the next day on the way home. One to take Eddy's picture in front of Mount Shasta (which he was real excited about for the several hours we could see it from the road).

And one to prove that we drive through Weed, CA.

I think the unscheduled stops were almost as good on this trip as the scheduled stops.

My New Year's Resolution

No comments

This year for New Year's I resolved to learn to can foods. Of late, our freezer has become entirely jammed full of homemade chicken stock and precooked beans and homemade lemon curd (a terrible problem, I know). I put it off for many months because, well, pressure canning sounded scary!

This beast came in the mail.