If you can't handle the heat ...

tear out the kitchen!

Some of you may remember that we started demolition of the kitchen way back a couple of weeks before Christmas.   We have finally gotten to the point I'm willing to share pictures of it with the world. Thankfully, our contractor friend was able to get us functional in early January.  The rather long delay is mostly due to my own    v e r y      s l o w      p r o g  r  e  s  s   on the final details (refinishing wood trim, painting, open shelves, etc). 

The kitchen at the time we moved in was barely functional.  The oven did not work at all.  The stove top only had 1 out of 4 burner that worked,  the remaining burners I took to naming; "DOA" (self explanatory), "Frigid" (no way to turn it on and knob ridiculously expensive to replace) and  "BurnMe" (only had 2 settings, "Not quite off" and "Incendiary"). 

Even the microwave, which looked to be a bit newer than the rest of the kitchen decided to join the list of the deceased a couple of months after we moved in a spectacular display of smoke and lights.  Oh how I grew to love my giant, rocket red, Crockpot, but that's a post for another day.

So without further ado, here are the pictures.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

 

We kept the same layout, only swapping the refridgerator and tall cabinet positions, but replaced pretty much everything: cabinets, appliances, lights and flooring. 

These are a few of my favorite things about the new kitchen:

• everything works!
• lights, lights and more lights! crucial as this room is literally in the center of the house and only gets natural light from a window onto an enclosed patio
• more storage (we removed the old soffit and got taller upper cabinets)
• granite topped seating area with open shelving on previously blank wall
• electrical upgrade and way more outlets
• sink large enough to bathe a small child (although I hope those days are over)

Off to make dinner now, Ciao.

Bronco Busting

Or, I should say, busting out the Bronco theme room.

As you may remember from my previous post, the former occupant of Aidan's room had rather feminine taste. So we undertook a good effort to make a cool, sports theme room for him.  He loves the Broncos and orange is his current favorite color.

We took down the fussy peach drapes, repainted the room in Bronco team colors, and got some cool IKEA furniture to provide a great play space and lots of toy storage.  I also refinished a thrift store dresser to match the room.  This is a room he can enjoy now with room to grow.

Before (with previous owners furniture):

  Now:

some of our favorite parts:

Team color dresser, thrift store find sanded, painted and sealed with poly for durability.  It's over-sized now, but with plenty of room to grow into.

Lego play area from slightly modified IKEA storage furniture. We cut the long shelf in the middle from MDF, sealed it with poly and have Lego mats on it (soon to be glued down).  We used 3 of the Trofast storage units to create the end pieces (2 are assembled as usual, then we used the sides from the 3rd unit mounted on the outside to create the supports for the shelf.  The shelf can be turned upside down for a smooth surface and moved up as needed)  The white storage bins contain the eighty bazillion Lego pieces he has collected to date with room for more.

My personal favorite is the "Secret Laboratory" area we created in the lower bunk bed area.  I installed an LED light strip (hard to see in pictures), which creates a ton of light underneath. Aidan picked out the fabric for the curtains, they have a flame pattern.

Closed during secret experiments:

Open for inspection and cleaning:

He is a happy little Broncos fan now :)

Home, Sweet, Home

We are getting all settled into the new home.  She is a lovely old home built in the 1950's with great bones.  The previous owner obviously took pride in ownership and cared for everything really well.  I have big plans to update and refresh this lovely old lady.  We also got a fantastic Mid-Century Modern (MCM) living and dining room set with the house and I'm pretty excited about using that as the design jumping off point for most of the rest of the house.  Very Mad Men, with a big dash of Scandinavian Modern (OK, really, mostly IKEA, but it sounds much cooler to say Scandinavian Modern).

We decided to start with Aidan's room.  Below is the before picture, pretty but not great for a little boy.

For this area I'm not really following the MCM theme, because Aidan couldn't care less about that and is much more in favor of a sports theme room. So we are doing it all up in Denver Broncos team colors (orange, blue and white). Aidan is a big fan!

Paint, paint, more painting and yet more painting is in progress.  I'm currently working on re-painting a thrift store dresser to match the theme. I'm trying something called "Chalk Paint" followed by Polycrylic in the hopes of getting a smooth finish over the slightly beat up wood, so far, so good.  I'll post more pictures when it's done.

Here is a link to learn more about Chalk Paint.
 http://blog.diynetwork.com/maderemade/how-to/make-your-own-chalk-style-paint/http://blog.diynetwork.com/maderemade/how-to/make-your-own-chalk-style-paint/

The Colorado Adventure Begins

The Colorado Adventure begins.

The Big Move from California to Colorado happened last week.  As we drove ourselves and all our worldly possession across several states and over 2 mountain ranges I was reminded of previous travelers in their covered wagons.

My personal observation is that Nevada is desolate and dry.  Utah isn't a whole lot better, but the Great Salt Lake in Utah is pretty cool. 

Wyoming is also desolate, but gorgeous, with lots of gently rolling green hills and long vistas.

 I am happy to report that Colorado is everything Craig said it would be.  The weather is a welcome respite from the intense summer heat of the California Central Valley.  The day we arrived, it was 105F at our previous CA house and a lovely 84F in our new CO place!  Every afternoon the clouds start rumbling and booming followed by rain and occasionally even HAIL, suffice it to say that this is very, very strange for a California girl.

We are pretty close to Boulder, which has a very active, outdoor lifestyle emphasis.  So far, I've been on two hikes, both of which were lovely with lots of trees and greenery as well as imposing mountain vistas.

This picture was taken on the first (very short) hike in the Chautauqua area.  These foothills to the Rockies are known as the "Flat Irons" for their resemblance to old fashioned hot clothes irons. 

Damn, the altitude and my lack of exercise curtailed a longer hike, but I will definitely be back to this area for more. 

A few days ago Craig and I went on another lovely hike, I wish I could tell you the name, but alas, no.  It was very, very pretty, easy on the ascent and dog friendly.  A little sketchy on the descent as it was much steeper and my knees were starting to feel it. 

I think everyone, including Tex and Aidan, can handle this trail, especially if we go in the reverse order (steep up, gentle down).

Friends, I hope these pictures will entice you to come for a visit soon!!

Murano

it's been a long time friends!  Some of you (well, one of you anyway) requested an update and a sharing of my recent travel adventures to the lovely island of Murano. 

Murano is a small island near Venice. A little history: in 1291 Murano became the only place in The Most Serene Republic (Venice area) authorized to manufacture glassware.  This was largely due to a well founded fear that the glassworks on Venice could result in fire and great damage, but also as a means for Venice to control their virtual monopoly on fine glassware that they traded around the world to great financial benefit.   They managed to protect their exclusive trade in, at that time, the world's finest glass by closely controlling and protecting their glassworking trade secrets for many, many years and even today there are still a few Muranese who strongly feel that sharing glass working techniques with foreigners is somewhat treasonous to their livelihood and traditions. Luckily for me, Lucio Bubacco is not one of them.

The centerpiece of the trip was a 5 day workshop with the incomparable Lucio Bubacco, a world renown glass artists (click on his name to see the gallery on his website) at Scuola Bubacco.   The trip was arranged in the States by one of his long time acquaintances, Ofilia Cinta.  It was quite an international group. We had people from Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Turkey and the US in the workshop.  Below is one of the pieces he made to demonstrate his techniques for making sculpture with "soft glass" (as opposed to "hard glass",  borosilicate which is what the majority of American glass sculptors use).  I could go on and on about the differences between the various glasses, but I won't bore you with all that now.

In addition to learning a tremendous amount with Lucio, we also had an incredibly unique opportunity to visit many other glass artists in their private studios and talk with them about their art and see them work up close.  Below is another fabulous artist, Davide Salvadore, creating the latest in his series of almost life size human/animal busts at the furnace.

He is carefully aligning all the separately prepared murrini (cut cross-sections of patterned cane) that have been wrapped around a core of molten glass.  They will spend many hours carefully reheating, then gently melting everything to a uniform finish and shaping it into the final desired form.  This process takes many hours of intense labor in very hot conditions, but the end results are worth it.

Ok, that's it for tonight, but rest assured I have lots more stuff to write about and pictures to share. 

Ciao

Treasure

Money is not the true measure of success in life, but rather the experiences one has that are the true treasure.

I recently encountered a very dear friend from the past and the encounter triggered flashbacks to some of our experiences together and from there to just general reminiscences on life experiences that make up my personal treasure.

These are some of my favorites:

1. I've danced all night in a Tokyo nightclub
2. I've walked over a bed of hot coals
3. I've climbed Mt Kilimanjaro
4. I've wrestled Komodo dragons (onto an X-ray table)
5. I've snorkeled off the coast of Zanzibar
6. I've eaten seared foie gras in Paris
7. I've sailed under the Golden Gate bridge at sunset
8. I've climbed naked through the Exploratorium Tactile Dome (it was a "sanctioned" event)
9. I've talked a suicidal young woman off a bridge
10. I've seen flying fish and bioluminescence in the middle of the ocean

what are your treasured experiences?

Old girl needs a facelift

We have been in our home for 10 years now, and she is due for a facelift.  Phase 1 is painting the exterior.  Before we can start on that there are a few items that need some work.  Craig already busted his butt trimming all the bushes surrounding the house so we can actually access the side of it now.  The porch railing is rotted so we made a good start replacing that today before it hit 100F!

Of course, it was much harder to actually do than how I imagined it my head, LOL!  Craig was a good sport and tolerated my need to measure and measure and measure again before, during and after each post was put in.  I think the end result (first of 3 railings) looks pretty good. 

Aidan even helped by using his little remote control dump truck to deliver nails as we needed them. Go Team Dauch! 

Keeping our fingers crossed we can keep the momentum going, I have a rather long "honey do" list for Craig this summer.