Another beautiful Southern California day. A little girl and her corgi drawn carriage.
Kitchen Cabinet Installation
Kitchen design by proxyKitchens, Restoration Diary, Animals
Note: This post was added after the fact.
A slew of texts messages and images fly back forth from my hospital bed, where I am strapped to a fetal heart monitor 24 hours a day, and from David who is overseeing the installation of our kitchen cabinets. I get asked lots of questions…where is the cabinet hardware, how thick should the base molding on the cabinets be?
David: Your idea for the pullout pantries won’t work.
I send David a drawing of how it WILL work.
David: The guys say your idea won’t work. Oh, wait. Yes, it will. You are getting exactly what you want.
Me: Ya know it! 
{yes, I do text annoying emoticons}
Back and forth, this goes on for hours.
We have made peace with the electrician. After the fact, I will admit there was a slight chance I could have been a tad hormonal. He paid for the labor to have the wallpaper installed. We had the paper installed before I ended up in the hospital. Everyone is happy.
The electrician is super cool and doesn’t press us for a final payment until I’ve been out of the hospital for a few weeks. It wasn’t that we were delaying on purpose, just tired from lack of sleep and still trying to get the hang of this parenting thing.
I hope that things are cool with Juan. We had a disagreement over what he would be paid since a lot of the work was jobbed out to other vendors. Juan comes back and finishes a few major carpentry issues and sends over his tile person.
He still needs to come back to finish up a few things but we haven’t pressed him. Hopefully he’ll come back! Please, come back…we miss you.
This leads me to the real hero of our kitchen remodel, Jeff at The Limey Woodshop! Jeff came in and saved our project. He got the cabinets built and installed within 3 weeks…and they are absolutely beautiful. The cabinets are traditional in style with inset door frames and soft close drawers.
Once I was in the hospital Jeff kind-of took over. He arranged the countertop installation and found painters to spray the cabinetry. I really cannot recommend them enough.
Note: The Limey Woodshop company name may be changing. Jeff is from England and his family doesn’t really see the humor in the name “Limey”. Being an American, I thought the name was memorable and didn’t realize it can be considered derogatory. You do what you have to do to keep the peace within your family. The name may change but it is still the same owner and wonderful work.
Of course, the project supervisor was on hand to make sure the kitchen cabinet install went smoothly!
FLOR: Fun Modular Floor Covering
Installing modular carpet tilesRestoration Diary, Animals, Floors, Home Office
We needed an odd sized rug to fit underneath our desk, something durable that could stand up to lots of wear. FLOR carpet tiles fit all of our criteria, plus they come in multiple shades, textures and fun patterns.
FLOR samples
I ordered samples to see which worked best in our office.
It’s a plaid, plaid world
We chose a grey plaid called Pop Tartan.
Jack, project supervisor
Our cat Jack overseeing the carpet installation.
Attaching FLOR dot
The tiles are held together by adhesive stickers called Flor dots. It is as easy as peeling the backing off the Flor dot and attaching it to the back of the tile.
The tile is lined up and dropped into place. Easy!
Tah-dah!
It took us 15-20 minutes to install the carpet. Now all we have to do is finish moving into the office.
One More Thing to Love About the Bathroom
As if we need more!Bathrooms, Restoration Diary, Corgi
The bathtub is just the right size to give two corgis a bath and the sides are high enough that they can’t jump out.
When Animals and House Projects Don’t Mix
Bad Kitty!
Look who decided to walk across the still wet cement floor, leaving tiny paw prints in his wake. The Project Supervisor, otherwise known as Jack and more recently other names that I won’t post here, decided that he needed to look out the bathroom window now, right now.
The bathroom door is being stripped in the backyard, so I put up a barricade to keep Jack out. It is going to take more than my feeble attempts to stop him. Now that he is successfully inside the bathroom he refuses to budge. I am reduced to opening cans of cat food outside the bathroom door, but he is having none of that.
He is lying underneath the window on the still wet cement, safely out of reach, and I swear he is laughing at me.
We Just Had an Earthquake
Rockin’ and Rollin’
Winston’s first big earthquake! He wasn’t a fan.
I was ok when the quake happened, but now I’m kind-of freaked out and feeling anxious. Delayed reaction. I’m always disoriented when the shaking starts and never quite sure if what I am feeling is actually an earthquake or my imagination.
I was braced in a doorway thinking, “I wonder if this is going to get worse? This might be the BIG ONE,” just as casually as if I was thinking about what I need to buy at the grocery store. Strange how the mind works.
This earthquake seemed to last longer than most quakes. It was what I call a “rolling” quake, the whole house moved in gentle waves like a sailboat being rocked back and forth across the surface of the ocean.
David felt the quake at his work in Santa Monica. We are both fine and our house also appears to be fine…nothing broken, nothing cracked…except for my nerves.
Alternative Cat Perch
Jack’s favorite new sleeping spot.
The bathroom sink isn’t hooked up and hasn’t been operational since we have lived in the house. I’m glad the sink finally has a purpose.
Cat on a High Bungalow Roof
Last night I spotted a dark gray cat perched in the very center of our roof. He looked like a Medieval gargoyle, waiting, keeping a watchful eye on the neighborhood, hoping to catch a pigeon for his dinner.
Lulu, we will always love you.
Our beautiful pet corgi and restoration buddy has passed awayRestoration Diary, Animals, Corgi
Written by David:
I remember the first time I saw Lulu. It was about 8 years ago at the pet store. Heather had seen her there previously and thought she was the wierdest looking puppy she had ever seen with short legs, big paws, big ears and a missing tail.
I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to get a dog but after driving around and talking about possbile pet names we decided to go back to the pet store to see her again. I asked one of the pet store employees if they could take her out of the cage and they handed her to me. She was so tiny and her fur was so soft. You could just tell that she had a great little personality. Lulu won me over and we took her home that day. She became a part of our family.
Lulu was the sweetest dog with such a great personality and calm demeanor. I used to take her to work with me everyday and she would just hang out in the office and contently lay by my chair as I worked. She was much loved by everyone who came in contact with her because she was so quiet and well behaved.
She loved to go on walks at the beach and at Runyon Canyon. She would always go on ahead a little bit then stop and look back making sure we were following her. She would also herd us together nipping at our heels making sure we stayed together as a pack. Lulu’s been a big part of our life. She was there through the wedding planning and she was at the door and happy to see us when we returned from our 2-week honeymoon in Tahiti.
Lulu was with us when we moved from our apartment to our house. She’s been through all the restoration process living with us in the sawdust and giving cheer to all our various contractors. Lulu also got to travel with us over two different holidays – one year going to visit my parents in snowy Utah, and another time she got to visit the farm in Indiana.
She was always so sweet, happy and healthy. That’s why it was such a shock to us to find out Thursday night in the animal critical care center that she had a tumor that had burst and was bleeding into her abdomin. Lulu was even just at the vet a few days earlier because we thought she might have back problems and there was no indication then that there was anything else wrong with her.
Thursday night Lulu went into shock because of the tumor and the doctor said that her vital signs were so low they were worried that they might not be able to keep her stabilized through the night for emergency surgery the next day. So we were faced with a decision that we didn’t want to make: either try to put her through surgery and see if they could remove the cancer cells and to see if the cancer had spread, or to put her to sleep.
Surgery is no guarantee which we have found out in the past putting one of our cats through two major surgeries trying to remove a cancerous tumor – which turned out to be unsuccessful. We didn’t want to put Lulu through all that pain and suffering. She was such a sweet dog. So Thursday night we made the hardest decision to say our final goodbyes as she gently fell asleep and through the tears I whispered in her ear “We love you baby girl.”
We miss her so much. The house isn’t the same without her.
Lulu, we love you.
Where Have We Gone?
Hello! Are you still there?
Lulu and Simon because I know you miss seeing them.
We have received several emails from folks wondering why we haven’t posted in a while? What is going on with the house? Have we decided on a paint color yet? Are we ok? Did we take the bars off our windows and something happened to us? Just what is going on with us anyway?
Well, we haven’t posted in a while because both David and I have been busy with our work outside of the house (our real jobs) for the past few weeks. But, we are still making some progress on the house. We are upgrading the wiring in the house from the original knob and tube wiring so that we can install an air conditioner in our attic. We had a few record breaking hot days last week that made me realize what I was in for once we hit July. We will also be able to insulate our attic after the wiring upgrade is completed. Our house currently has no insulation.
I hate to admit this but no, I haven’t decided on a house color yet. I have grown tired of my favorite color. I guess I have looked at it for too long. Many homes in our area are painted a similar color to the one I had selected, so now we are looking into woodsy green/olive/brown colors. We have it narrowed down to about 3 solid contenders.
-
- follow me on twitter
-
What’s Popular
Sorry. No data so far.
-
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Dr. Seuss
-
My Favorite Home Improvement Books
-
{a few of my favorite things}
-