Our new front door!

Awesome door taken with bad lighting and at a bad angle. But you get the idea! This is getting real people!

Permit approoooved!

I have no picture or image to share. Basically the title says it all.

Let's get this *#%@^ show on the road!

The 1st look down on the 1st day of 1st grade

We're in. But not officially. Rather unofficially actually.

But we had to be in because First Grade is starting and we needed to be out of our rental house and we need to get this house done and we need to be finished with all of this chaos.

From up here, for just a moment, it all looks good.

Exhale.

I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Breakfast in a construction zone

Can't see beyond the mess

We are treading water. For 2 weeks our construction site has been quiet - which for some of our neighbors might be heaven on earth but for me it is agonizing because there is so much to do and we want to move back into our house and we need this project to be over.

But it's not and we're waiting for the changes to our permit to be approved and that is nothing we can do.

So I'll keep looking at the mess and all the corners and places and spaces that are in need of attention.

I love our new floors.

This was a really hard decision. It felt really important. Really visible. And really in need of the right practical decision too.

With a little help of a really skilled craftsperson who knows his hardwood floor options, we choose the engineered floor planks from Monarch Floors in a color called Foxley. Not too brown, not too gray, not too weathered, not too shiny, not too dark, not too light, not too narrow, not too wide.

They arrived and had a good 5-7 day acclimation period and then it was ready to go in...at least up to the plastic barrier that is separating the semifinished from the not at all finished.

Brought back to life

Do you believe in the soul of a house?

I do. I don't really know what else to call it but I believe buildings and spaces are alive and though they are merely a mixing together of wood and nails and sheetrock and paint, in their sum, they are something greater and it is in the tending of a house that transforms it into a home.

This is the home that my brother's and I grew up in. This is the home where we experienced joy and unexpected loss. It's the home that my mom lived in for 40 years. It's the home that for the last few years, through the uncontrollable circumstances of life, was beginning to show signs of neglect, distraction and stagnancy.

Today, I think we brought it back to life.

Over the last 9 months, with the unbelievable effort and help of family, friends and strangers we can officially say:

1005 is now a rental property. A legal, refinanced as a rental property property. It has House Rules and a signed lease. It's furnished and full of character. And though it's not perfect or updated to meet all of my design needs, it's good. Really good.

So as I am writing this, there is a new family, with two small children, spending their first night in a place that they will call home for at least the next year. Tomorrow they will open more cabinets and closets. Maybe they will stock a snack drawer in the kitchen. There will be new markings on the walls and stains on the furniture. There will be new habits formed and rhythms started.

And that is exactly what this old house needs.

We picked a floor!

And the winner is: top left corner. 

Stay tuned...

Are you moved in yet?

You'll be the first to know. I promise.

Every day I check several decisions and purchases and small projects off the list. In case you are wondering what that looks like, it looks like this...

But the biggest excitement for today was just beyond the magical clear tarp...

By tomorrow, the floor will be officially one level throughout the entire first floor of the house. I have wanted this from the first moment I walked into the open house.

Now if we could only choose a hardwood floor color.

Lawn love.

There are purists and naturalists and horticulturists who turn their noses at the existence of artificial grass. And there are home owners who believe that it melts and gets hot and choose to put in new sod lawns in their yards no matter what. And then there is the drought in California.

And then there is us.

Two years ago we installed a brand new sprinkler system and beautiful green grass. And when it was good, it was good. We bought a lawnmower and a weed wacker for the edges and only slightly cringed when we saw the increase in our water bill. I mean, we had a flat patch of grass in our before non-user friendly back yard.

But the upkeep and maintenance became tedious. Much of the mowing had to be done by hand because of the weird shape and curves. The surrounding rocks and walls were getting more water than some of the areas of the lawn because of the weird shape and inability to contort sprinkler heads in the way we needed them to be. And what started as one brown patch, turned into more and more. And then it stopped raining all together. And then construction started. So we slowly let the patch of dirt return.

Until last week.

The hefty extra "difficult to access" fee that all 3 proposals I received included made the already expensive choice for artificial grass even more ludicrous, so we took it upon ourselves to do the prep work. It took all of last week for my determined and ever cheerful band of helpers to dig up 4" of dirt and fill two 5-yard dumpsters, add some pavers to the flagstone patio, and then carry up 5 yards of recycled base rock and 1 yard of decomposed granite in 5 gallon buckets. I carried 4 buckets in an effort to show solidarity. I decided providing a cooler of cold drinks and lunch was a better way to show my support and gratitude.

On Saturday morning, at 7:30AM a team of 5 installers rolled up in a huge white truck and got straight to work.

Installers spreading out decomposed granite layer.

Measuring the green carpet in our rental house driveway.

Installing the green carpet.

Finished!

And all of this for approximately 600 square feet of green. That we absolutely love.

And all of this for a 600 sq foot patch of green. That we absolutely love.

Ps. If you are interested in what we learned, why we choose artificial grass, who we used and why we chose them, feel free to contact me!

It happened in 1936

Not really sure what or who, but something happened on April 19, 1936 and we've got bits and pieces of the San Francisco Chronicle decopaged onto our floor to prove it.

Just another day of making a mess and getting dirty and this one started with 3 very diligent guys who finished pulling up bits and pieces of our old Oak floors only to be tasked with the back breaking chore of pulling out all the nails. Every single teeny, tiny nail. But they did it, without complaint and eye rolling. And I even heard a bit of whistling and song humming.

Not too bad. I kind of like the rustic farmhouse look. But it's not staying. We're choosing a floor product tomorrow, so stayed tuned.

But this post is not about the new floors, it's about what Victor discovered under the old. 

1936.

It's crazy that we found newspapers from 1936 stuck to the original floor that could be as old as from 1894. Who knows. And we are going to cover it with new flooring.

My husband thinks we should add a page from 2015 before we cover it up. We might just have to go buy the Sunday Chronicle tomorrow.