Christmas amid the chaos

Back from England to collect my parents. Not much visible change to the construction site although I can feel that things are progressing. Boxes and dust everywhere so it is hard to feel Christmassy, but with the help of Mum and Dad we have done the best we can!

Peace, Love and Joy to everyone! 

The Sky is Falling…Being a Bond Girl

One would think, since we live on the West Coast, that we would be unaffected by the current mess caused by Hurricane Sandy. I wish! As previously mentioned, my lovely husband, also known as He Who Must Be Obeyed (HWMBO) , is a huge James Bond fan, and a friend of David of The New Zaritsky Archive. David has an epic Halloween Party every year and we were lucky enough to be invited to this year’s, which given Bond’s 50th anniversary and the premiere of Skyfall, had the theme of Spies and Detectives.

It was a given that HWMBO would want to be some incarnation of Bond, so my choices were narrow from the start. Being a woman of a certain age I knew that I was looking for one of the earlier Bond girls, And being a Brit, who better than Solitaire? But of course HWMBO had specific ideas about which costume…

But then again, in a former life I was a dress designer.  Fabric from Jo-Ann, trim from Southall, beads from Thailand, two weeks of sewing…Guess who took first place?

Then we had to get home. Our flight from Philadelphia was of course cancelled but we found a flight from Pittsburgh. So we abandoned the Zaritsky After-Party, got into our hired mini. The Pittsburgh flight was cancelled the following morning. Back into the mini…through wind and rain to Cincinnati. We are now back in sunny CA but our thoughts are very much with our friends back East…who still have no power…Great party, guys. And the Sky really did Fall.

Anyone need a slightly used Bond Girl costume?

 

Patience

Nothing much to report within the house this week. Luckily the skies have provided some inspirational sustenance. 

Closets

The Master Suite is beginning to take shape. Stud walls are up, and for the last week electricians have been up ladders with reels of wire. It is now possible to envisage finished spaces.

Which has me musing about closets. The English don’t really do “closets”. We have wardrobes, which in most cases are only as deep as your average coat-hanger. So the concept of a separate room where one stores one’s clothes is somewhat alien. And in our master suite we have not one but two rooms! There is no way that either of us will fill that much space, so I have decided to make them dual purpose and use them as dressing rooms.

I’m not a girlie girl but I fancy a bit of a “boudoir” feel for my space. I found this great idea on Pinterest, and I’d love to find some vintage fashion photos or adverts to frame to go with. (Hm, maybe a visit to the Nice antiques market – and my sister – is in order?) I also have a nice Venetian-style mirror so maybe I should put a vanity at the end for hair and make-up. I’m finding myself more and more drawn to the Deco mirrored furniture which seems to be popping up everywhere, but a nice Indian inlaid or metal-covered piece would look good too. And isn’t this chair divine?

Now, if I inflicted a boudoir on my husband I’d probably be sleeping alone! So I’m going masculine on his side. He’s a James Bond nut, so think secret agent…

Of course, we don’t even have proper walls yet so all this is in my head.

Watch this space for updates!

 

Laundry

Do you enjoy doing laundry? I’m not a lover of ironing, but I do like the smell of freshly washed clothes. So imagine my distress when we moved into our new home and found that this:

 was the laundry. It’s infuriating on a number of levels.

1. It’s in the garage! All laundry has to be carried downstairs to be washed and, once ironed, hauled back upstairs to be put away.

2. It’s in the garage! The car you can (just) see is not used on a daily basis so I always have the fun of squeezing around it AND a variety of tools with my baskets just to get to the machine.

3. It’s in the garage! Any clean laundry that accidentally hits the floor is likely to pick up sawdust, oil, brake fluid…

Not to mention the lack of a sink for hand-washing, or dedicated drying/airing/storage space…

So part of the remodel plan is to have a whole room upstairs entirely devoted to laundry. Here is my inspiration:

 {fromscandinaviawithlove.com}

There will be not one but two sinks with storage underneath for linen baskets and cleaning products, a rail for pending ironing, and a proper linen cabinet. This is the space:  (Sorry, it’s difficult to get a good angle.) In the 1930s, when the house was built, this room was the cedar closet, where the lady of the house stored her furs. It’s in the existing part of the house, between the guest room and the maid’s room (as it’s called on the original blue-prints).

The machines will go on the back wall and the area to the left will have a pair of sinks with open shelves below and a drying rail above. This nice built-in cabinet  is original and will make a wonderful linen cabinet.

In a nod to the art deco style of the 1930s I’ve chosen this tile:

but done in a honey/chocolate combo which fits better with what is going on in the rest of the house. Once the plumbing and so on is complete the cedar will be going back on the wall, and to complement it I’ve chosen a butchers’ block-style counter from IKEA. An original light fixture ~ ~ salvaged from a previous remodel of the house completes the look. Can’t wait!

Crane Day…

For several weeks a large piece of timber was parked kerb-side outside our house.

Not the most convenient thing, but we sort of got used to its presence. Then came this:

Contractor John warned us to vacate the house – which as this was the day my lovely husband had chosen for a lie-in, did not go down too well! But vacate we did…even the cat…

The crane backed up onto the front lawn as far as it could get

and the guys scurried around to get everything level.

And then we were off!

 I’ve never been so close to a working crane so it was fascinating – and a little bit scary – to watch the process. Of course, nothing is as simple as it first seems and it was a some time before everything was in place, but now we are on our way to having a roof.

Walls!

Our dream home is really beginning to take shape! Although at times it sounds as though the guys are trying to create us a new back door with their hammers, it is exciting to see the walls go up. If you remember, this is what the back of the house used to look like, with our bedroom right in front of the entertaining space.

This is what it looks like now:

The large opening is for 16 feet of glass doors which will lead from the new great room onto a fabulous porch. This is what it looks like from the inside – in effect the view from my stove. Not bad, eh?

This will be the window over the kitchen sink.

And this wall will be filled with kitchen cabinets, the ovens and the fridge. 

And finally, this former closet will be a little “pool bath”. Sounds much nicer than “outside loo”!