New Bathroom!

Sometimes when you start a project like a cosmetic remodel of your bathroom, you feel guilty. Because your house is less than five years old and the builders grade finishes are perfectly acceptable. Because you made your dad work for free doing hard labor on his hands and knees. Because maybe you’re just a spoiled princess who fixates on little things like bathroom aesthetics instead of just being grateful for two bathrooms.

Well, put a pea under my mattress and thank my dad over and over, because the guest bathroom remodel is done and it makes me so happy, I forgot about the guilt.

Here are the finishes before: IMG_7276

And here it is after:
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Dad took out the existing vanity and put in a new wood-look porcelain tile floor. I re-stained the vanity as per Pinterest, then we put it back in and put on a new top and faucet from Lowes.
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THEN he put in a marble and glass backsplash, which really just makes the whole room sing. (Seriously. And check out the line of tiny tiles on the bottom left he had to cut, to compensate for the dip in the sink and make the top tile line stay even!)
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I don’t even hate my staining job on the vanity any more, although it pales in comparison to the tile work.

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Most importantly, the princess’s cat also approves of the whole remodel.

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It looks so good. This bathroom is at the top of the stairs, so every time I go upstairs I get to see it and smile.  Thanks again, Dad!

 

Four Years

Sunday was the fourth anniversary of moving into the house here. As time goes by, owning real estate becomes less of a huge, life-changing event for me and more just how things are, but feeling settled continues to be awesome–as does making improvements outside, having stairs for Toby to gallop up, and living in a good neighborhood that still harbors a family of raccoons.

Like I do every year, I have a January list of things to update, (and there are things that I’ve wanted to do here since day one and still need to get to) but it’s a good little house. Happy anniversary, house. I’ll finish Magic Tidying you and then we’ll get new carpeting.

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Tuesday Project Roundup: Patio Time

As I said yesterday, when it comes to this pergola, all I have to do is blog about what I want and then it happens. (Thanks, Dad!) In this case, it was adding curtains made of drop cloths (thanks, Pinterest!) to the main posts to give me some privacy and a bohemian-casbah-Raj-tent feel. It worked!
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In the day time it looks light and proper and the canvas adds lovely depth and shade:
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But at night you can draw the curtains and light your lanterns and feel like you’re in a J. Peterman catalog, “drinking gin and saying truly witty things.”
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And if you’re still playing with the new Waterlogue app, you can make it actually LOOK like you’re in a J. Peterman catalog, too:

Many thanks to my dad for (yet again) making my blog posts into reality. I just write about what I’d like to have, but he has to put his engineering brain to work to think of ingenious solutions–and then do the prep work, drive everything to my place, climb on ladders,  and make it happen. He’s the best.

Tuesday Project Plans: Pergolas, Privacy, and Pinterest

As you may recall, last summer my dad built me an awesome deck and pergola on the back of the house, and I enjoyed the hell out of it all summer long: 07fcf1709079befa9b072a48cf6c83ab

However,  I’m in a new “twin home” development where I’m pretty close to the neighbors (on all sides). A fence isn’t in the cards this year, but I think putting outdoor curtains on the pergola might do the trick. Like so:

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(Source)

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(Source)

I can pretend I’m in a cabana in the afternoon! I can wear a caftan, put on some Turkish music, and rock the casbah at night! I could even close them and take a nap out there. I think it’s going to be great.

And it turns out that Pinterest has some really great ideas about using canvas drop cloths for curtains (cheap, sturdy, and already hemmed) and electrical pipe for curtain rods (cheap and weather resistant).  My dad has already engineered everything for me, so I’m just waiting on steady weather to re-stain things and get going.

Is it summer yet?

Home

It’s the third anniversary of moving into my house today. This was the scene three years ago on moving day–I’m not sure what’s going on with my hair, but I’m pretty sure I was thinking, “Holy shit what have I done WHEE!”  -2

I roped my family into helping me move. I think my dad is thinking exactly what I am here–minus the “WHEE!”–and my brother might be looking for an escape hatch in the oven:
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But we got me moved in, I decorated, and then started doing even more permanent things:
IMG_0703Dad built me a pergola and the family helped me add all sorts of back landscaping (and even Christmas lights).

IMG_2434I panted a vine out front and a lavender hedge and have potted plants year-round.

IMG_1710And Toby and I have a place that is all ours.

The tag I use for posts about my house is “the precious,” as explained in this post. At least once a week I still look around and think, “Hey, this is mine. I earned it myself. I can do what I want to it. I can stay here as long as I want.” It’s a good feeling.

Around The Yard

I didn’t tackle any big house projects this weekend, so I got to enjoy the work I’d been doing instead. Here are the yard highlights:

The trumpet vine has really taken off this year. I have a half-remembered poem in my head from college that goes, “My heart is a vine; this house is a trellis.”
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All the daylilies are blooming. This one is extra-happy.
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The first bloom of the lavender is over and I have cherry tomatoes coming on in pots.
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The pots on the back deck aren’t edible, just decorative.
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And what’s this? A raccoon has been visiting  and leaving prints. I think he likes the yard, too.
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Good Weekend

I went up into Little Cottonwood with friends Saturday morning:
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On Sunday, my family descended on my house like a Habitat for Humanity crew and dug and planted me a flowerbed around the deck in about two hours (thanks, family!):
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Bet you thought that my patio couldn’t get more fabulous, right? Wrong!
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And I watched the super-moonrise:
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BONUS Sunday night conversation story:
I was talking to my best friend while watching said moonrooise and told him to go out and look at it. So he went outside and it wasn’t quite up yet at his house (I was looking at it from a second story window) and he asked, “Where is it? Is it in the east?”

And I said, “YES it’s in the east. It’s not the end times!”

What I’ve Always Wanted

My parent’s home has an amazing back patio. Growing up there, I remember the variations over 30 years–brick, cement, umbrella, lattice, no lattice, shade cloth, and now fancy aluminum pergola–but there was always an outdoor table and lounging space and I always spent at least part of the summer days out there, reading,  getting tan, what have you.

When I moved out ten years ago, I missed that so much. My first apartment had no outdoor space, but I tried to make a little space in my second apartment in 2007. However, like everything else there, it was a little cramped:
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When I started looking for houses, a patio or potential patio was high on my list…until it got bumped by such things as modern wiring and attached garages. When I bought this house in 2011, I thought the tiny deck was better than nothing and got pots planted even before the landscaping was put in:
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But it wasn’t quite right. There wasn’t enough space to really lounge, and it just felt temporary, even though I’d taken out a 30-year mortgage.

Well, two summers later,  something clicked and I went from “maybe a pergola?” to “THIS is what I’ve missed;  THIS is what I’ve always wanted” in about two months. Behold, the new patio:

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That’s a 10×10 rough cut fir pergola and a 10×10 redwood deck, both designed, engineered, and built single-handedly by my dad. (Look at that trim around the edge of the deck so you don’t see the end grain! The steps! The cross bracing on the pergola!)

I didn’t know how much I wanted somewhere to hang out outside until this was all finished and furnished last week. I’m out there in the weekend mornings and afternoons and every evening until it’s dark. It’s another room, it’s my treehouse-fort, it’s what the house–and I–was missing.

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Thanks, Dad.

Almost

I’m almost ready for the big deck unveil. That’s not stopping me from sitting out there this week, though:

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I think of Robert Hass when I’m out there: “What summer proposes is simply happiness.” Yes.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Happy birthday to the original hippie poet, Walt Whitman.

2. YOU GUYS. My deluxe be-pergola’d outdoor space is getting even MORE DELUXE:

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That is an almost-complete 10×10 redwood deck right there. It’s going to be glorious.