The Start of Summer

I want to be rich so I can decorate my house with live lobsters.
via remodelista.

Sadie's disguise

Sadie had surgery to remove a large cyst caused by an ingrowing hair follicle. She was a trooper and came through it all excellently


We made her wear this attractive T-shirt for a while, which didn't impress her at all


But did cause a visitor to The Cool House to ask who the kid with the long black hair was.....

First BBQ of the Year

The temperature hit 68F, the yard has been cleaned up, it's barbeque time!


First Hoegaarden of the summer (and yes that is a Krups scale bowl we are using as an ice bucket!)


Polly banished to the bridge while there are hamburgers about


Sadie drooling


Life is just a bowl of cherries - and cherries are the perfect summer dessert.

Something old, something new...

Comments left on my recent post about the rehabbed powder room and also by The Handyman made me think I should explain in greater detail why we kept the fixtures we did and how I arrived at the plan for the new ones.

Like many projects in this house it was undertaken piecemeal. When I first thought about this room (2004) I was going to strip it completely, starting with the shag carpet, but we didn't have the budget to do it right away. I did, however, start formulating a plan. I could say it started with a doorknob but it was a little more complicated than that...


Between 2004 and 2006 we had a bunch of leaks, drips and other plumbing issues that resulted in a completely rebuilt toilet mechanism. When we decided to redo the powder this Spring room I didn't want to throw the WC out especially as the china looked good, it fitted the space and I'd spent more than the cost of a new loo getting it fixed.


One day in 2005 the ventilator broke and when put in a new one we also tried to fix the chandelier back to the ceiling. We couldn't and neither could any other contractor who has worked on the house. We knew it had to go when we redid the room, so eventually we swapped it out for one we already had.


I was going to rip out the vanity and replace it with this unit but the more I thought about it the less I liked it. For one, I'd lose precious counter space, then I'd have to possibly remove the mirrors and maybe re-texture the walls. Finally I wasn't sure I liked the bowl and faucet enough. In the end it seemed like too much money to spend to get something I wasn't 100% happy with. There was nothing wrong with the original cabinet so I figured why not get rid of the part I hated, the fake marble top with its clamshell sink and tiny faucet that only elves could operate, and keep the base.
The shag carpet bugged me every day. We wanted to wait until we remodeled the kitchen before we took it out but the longer we lived here the more remote that day seemed. Once we'd made the decision to keep the vanity and tile up to it there didn't seem much point in waiting any longer, we'd just get it done.


Then came my favorite part: shopping. Firstly I shopped for free in the "things I thought we'd use but never did" department aka a shelf in the garage. I found a chrome towel bar I bought for the boys' bath remodel that we couldn't fit in that space. Then I started spending money. I love Carrara marble and we've used it throughout the house to update other bits of furniture so that was an easy choice for the countertop. I made a paper template and took it to the stone guy up the road and he had it cut in two days.


The faucet I wanted, the Tara Classic from dornbracht would have cost a stress-inducing $918 but I found a much more reasonably priced version at overstock.com. There was a brief obsession flirtation with a red vessel sink but I think the one I chose out of necessity actually looks better here. It cost a little more but it compliments the marble really well.
Our ethos during the renovation of The Cool House has been to save as many original features as possible, to do as little harm as we can and accomplish it on the smallest feasible budget. Having said that I do like the occasional "wow" piece.


My designer neighbor once charitably described the old powder room as "not horrible", she hasn't seen the new version yet but I hope she will approve. There's a lot of old, a fair bit of new and some things borrowed from another room in this remodel and I think it all works together. I'm happy anyway.

Pool update

When I wrote this a couple of weeks ago I mentioned there might be a problem with the pump. Well two days, a new pump, new timer and some tubing later we can now recirculate the water without annoying the neighbors and more importantly we can run it during the day and turn it off at night.
The timer replacement business is hysterical, by the way. The pool guys slap another timer on the fence, hook it up to the electrics and LEAVE THE OLD TIMER BEHIND. We now have three timers decorating the pool housing, looking like little metal birdhouses without the holes. I wonder how long they last? Will I still be here to see each fence post with it's own special box? Could I call it art and charge people to visit the exhibition?
Unfortunately all the new mechanics have not solved the leak we had fixed in 2005 or 2007. Actually, this is probably a new leak and I'm fairly sure it's in the plastic pipe under the flower bed because we had two rhododendrons die there this year. We'll probably start excavating it soon because even though the water isn't going down much we don't really want to lose any more bushes. The good news is that the filters are still in good shape as is the cement so we don't have to contemplate marble-dusting it this year. The bad news is that the water is cold, we still have no pool heater and even if we did we couldn't afford to heat the pool as oil hit almost $127 a gallon yesterday.

EDIT: Sorry, I meant a barrel. $127 a barrel, not a gallon. Still bad though.

I can see you

I'm supposed to be working (but there seems to be quite a bit of blogging going on including commenting on other people's blogs) so I wasn't really paying attention to where the small dog was.....


Yes those are my new pillows that she is happily snoozing against. I managed to shoot this before she woke up and guiltily crawled off the sofa.


Then I saw the reason for her contentment, and guilt. That's a scrupulously clean pot of what was formerly my lunch. Puppies. Such a joy.

Pool's Open

But no one will be swimming in it for a while unless they are crazy a member of this club. It's freezing out there.
We The Guy started the process on Saturday afternoon by taking the pump out of the pond*, going to the hardware store to buy a new piece of hose the correct diameter to replace the one that "got lost" during the winter, attaching hose to pump, dropping it into the water that had accumulated on the pool cover since last September and flicking on the switch in the kitchen. (No not that one, that's the outdoor lights. No, that's the tree light. No that's the balcony. Hang on... By connecting the cable to the pump and turning on the switch). Then we pumped water, Saturday until dusk and all Sunday, by which time had a nice, dry cover with a few inches of leaves all ready to be scooped onto the leaf pile.
Then it started to rain. It poured down all Monday, a good 2" by the end of the day. A lot of which sat right there on the pool cover again. So we started the pump going again this morning. By the time the guys (as opposed to The Guy) arrived to actually open the pool we still had a fair bit of water on the top, and it was raining again.
They will come back again tomorrow to make sure the system is working, I think there is going to be a problem with the return, maybe even the pump itself, and we are finally getting a replacement timer for the one that hasn't worked since we bought the place so I think we'll have to charge people to swim this year. Or maybe even to look at it.

*we use the tiny pond pump to pump the water off the cover because neither of us can figure out how to use the actual pool pump to do it

Friday Night Fun

Because we'd taken advantage of the fabulous weather on Thursday evening and taken guests to Prime Restaurant for a sunset seafood and fish dinner on the deck overlooking Huntington Harbor we forwent (really, forwent? went without? denied ourselves? Whatever) our usual Friday night booze fest Martini and meal in town and made this vegetable thin crust pizza (recipe over here) instead. OK I had a Martini and some olives to start but it was basically a low-calorie supper.


Then because it was still early I had a crazy desire to get a jump start on the weekend by putting up the curtain rods for the drapery panels I bought.


Of course the previous sentence makes it sound as if I was actually wielding the drill when we know my role is to take photographs and alert The Guy to the fact that the middle bracket is 1/4" off center.


You'd hardly think from his smiling face that he had a drill in his hand and it was menacingly close to my eye, would you? Still, in the end it all went off quite smoothly. I believe the drink before dinner helped, and the pizza, of course. There's nothing worse than tackling projects with a rumbling stomach, is there?


There was only one teensy-weensy little problem. When the curtains went up. I HATED THEM. They're definitely oatmeal not pearl and I hate oatmeal. What was I thinking?


I couldn't bring myself to fess up to The Guy that I thought they were a mistake, especially as he didn't want drapes in the first place, so I lived with them until Sunday afternoon but in the end they had to go. We tried them in the our bedroom but they were still oatmeal. Not every plan is a good plan and I'm admitting this was not my best but at least we know what won't work in both the den and the master.

The morning after

The Cool House is a great place to entertain and we love having company over for drinks or a casual supper, especially those who have never been here before or who haven't heard of Andrew Geller and his work. We show off the house and describe how we found it, hopefully without boring other people who have heard it all before. But the pressure is really on when another of the guests is a frequent visitor and loyal blog reader and his wife is an extremely talented interior designer.


I know I'm expected to blog something pithy and acerbic about last night's dinner but I'm going to throw this curve ball out of left field and present some shots of the spring flowers I received instead.


Fabulously beautiful, no?
I don't know why I'm feeling so mellow this morning. Perhaps I'm still relaxed from the marvellous company and conversation last night? Perhaps it has something to do with the seven hours uninterrupted sleep I had for the first time since we got the kittens?


Or perhaps it was the amount of wine I consumed?
Thanks to all concerned for making it such a great evening: the chicken carver, the bottle openers, the plate passers, the table clearers and the dishwasher stacker. The Guy and I really appreciate the way you worked for your dinner.

The current preoccupation

You can guess from yesterday's post and today's playlist (scroll to page end, press to play) that the economy, our economy that is, which is deeply affected by the real estate market, is my current #1 concern.
When we took on this house we knew it required a lot of work to correct the problems caused by years of deferred maintenance. We did everything necessary to make the house watertight, pest and rot free and we addressed certain things like removing carpets and landscaping that we thought would make the house more appealing and easier to live in. For the first two and a half years we were sure that every dollar we put into the house we would get back at least once. Now the market has turned and even though we didn't buy the house to flip (we bought because I was deeply in love with it) we have to consider carefully the level of investment we are prepared to make in the future.
I was therefore intrigued by an HGTV mail 30 Tips for Increasing Your Home's Value and I started to compare what we'd done with their checklist.
We started really well, a perfect score on things we could do for less than $100, and we are up to speed at the $100-$200 fixes, too. Things start to get a little wonky at the next level. I refuse to believe a "functional, decorative ceiling fan is a beautiful thing" even though my realtor told us to install ceiling fans in all the rooms as "buyers expect them". I've never met a ceiling fan I like and we have a HVAC system with a fan option so I hope I'm covered. Even more disturbing, though, is Tip #3: "Replace heavy closed draperies with vertical blinds or shutters to let light in — a sunny room feels larger and more open". Does this mean people keep their drapes closed all the time? What are they, troglodytes?
We ripped out all those vertical blinds the first week we were here. The same fan-loving realtor suggested it as an immediate way to increase the value of the house when we viewed the place and we took that advice. The rooms went from dark to light in the hour it took to pull the vertical vinyl from 10 windows. Did we do the right thing, or have we seriously compromised our real estate value?


Is this before shot really better than the image below?


Or should I give up reading the HGTV emails?

How not to die

The answer to this eternal question, according to artists and architects Madeline Gins and Arakawa is to "cradle tentativeness". In an article in today's Home and Garden section of the New York Times the couple explains how by challenging the senses through our environment, we could continue to live forever. This theory is being tested by the design of their East Hampton, NY Bioscleave House. Undulating floors and primary colors are reminiscent of a children's playground, oddly-spaced windows and sockets placed off-kilter are specifically there to throw visitors off balance and so, explains Gins, to wake up the immune system as the body struggles to maintain its equilibrium. If you do start to wobble, grab one of the strategically placed poles, or suggests Arakawa, wriggle across the floor like a snake, as residents of the “reversible destiny” apartments in Mitaka, Japan were told to do.
Be sure to visit the multimedia presentation A Death-Defying House for more images, an interview with the designers and an attempt at an explanation of their philosophy.

One small village, one big price difference

Two houses went on the market yesterday: one to the left us and one to the right. The first is a 1955 farm ranch that looks, apart from the new (2007) roof, as if it hasn't been touched since it was built in 1955. The second was the gardener's cottage to the Ferguson Estate and was completely redone and extended vertically in 2006. It's asking price of $1,750,000 reflects all the work that has been undertaken to turn the former cottage into an Italian-inspired villa. Even so it only has has three bedrooms, which may put off a lot of potential buyers and this house is situated right on the edge of the property line, backing up to a steep hill. You are literally 3' away from the road, so imagine the potential noise of trucks and schools buses making the incline all day long.
The price of the fixer-upper (that's Great Opportunity! in realtor-speak) is $799,000. Almost a million less than the renovated home. You do get a full, flat acre and 5 bedrooms but farm ranches aren't a popular style these days. My best guess is that this would be the value of the land only, and we're looking at another teardown. And at that price, in this village, it's a bargain.

40th House Anniversary

It didn't hit me until I opened the New York magazine this morning but our house will be 40 in June. At least the blueprints that Andrew Geller drew up are dated June 1968. This is so exciting. We have to celebrate!
Any cool, swinging-sixties ideas how?

House Porn*

*Alert: the links in this post may provoke feelings of desire and discontent, you have been warned.


I'm jealous, envious, totally green and WOWED by this Nolita reconstruction, It as as stylehive suggests quite possibly the coolest house you will ever see. Make sure you take in the slideshow - the master bedroom, the kid's room, the roof-top see-saw - how did they ever envisage these things?
The owners, both designers, have a website where you can read all about them and their SIX children, learn about their signature "Vintage Nouveauxx" style and see other spaces they have designed for clients. All while listening to their impeccable taste in music. Try not to lick the screen.
Oh yes, I feel very inadequate right now.

Powerless

Yesterday the power went out a couple of times. In this house there are always consequences from a power outage and even though we have surge protectors, there's always stuff to fix when it eventually comes back on.
We are pretty much wireless here, at least the computers are wireless and the phones are VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol or telephone via the internets), so if the power is out they don't work. That means if your neighbor phones to ask if you've got power as his just went out, you don't get the message until the power comes back on. Now you can set the phones to transfer the calls to the cellphones, which is very useful IF you have cell phone service in the house. We don't, so without power we are cut off, and we have to reboot the Airport before we can get to the internets again.
Then, while my lovely iMac will automatically save documents when it loses power, Steven's laptop running XP, won't. But it will tell you the file you were working on doesn't exist, or is corrupt or numerous other versions of "I refuse to cooperate with you". When you have to be finished with a very important proposal by the end of the day this will cause much screaming, swearing and kicking of furniture when the power comes back on and you discover the whole weekend's work has apparently disappeared.
Then there's the TV. When the comes back in the volume has been reset, so it sounds like it's being transmitted through a cotton wool muffler. That's an easy fix, though, requiring only that we press the volume button on the cable box to max. And I have to reset the clocks on the appliances: washing machine, oven and microwave, too. All expected, if slightly annoying.
But there is always a kicker. A little something you never imagined would be affected by the outage. A little surprise to deal with. Yesterday it was the alarm system. When the power went out the loudspeaker, the one that scares the entire neighborhood whenever I overheat anything in the kitchen by booming "FIRE, FIRE, VACATE THE PREMISES IMMEDIATELY", started to vibrate like a drum. Of course this is hard-wired, you can't just take out the batteries, and the wires were soldered together. I'm sure this is a very secure system but when the humming and shaking are driving you crazy there's only one solution and it involved a chair, a torch and a pair of wire cutters. A little drastic maybe, but we were desperate.
So today I have to fix the loudspeaker, and I have to work out why the system tells me three of the door sensors have been compromised and the medical emergency button, too.

How long does it take to memorise your address?

How long have we lived in this house? Almost three and a half years. Forty-two months. Quite a long time. That's why it surprised me on Friday evening when there was a knock on the door and a delivery guy asked "This 250"? No, answered Steven, "This is 265.
He has had two of the numbers transposed since we first looked at this place, and he still can't get it right. His excuse when challenged about his lack of precision? "I'm not good with numbers".
He's a statistician.

Modern Gingerbread House

I swear if it didn't cost $78 I would so get one of these.
A modern. gingerbread. house. Who'd a thunk it?