Tidbits

 

The work on the new room furniture continues. Lots of sanding.

My parents brought dinner and dessert to our house Sunday evening for a celebration of Dad and Mel's birthdays. 

Speaking of birthdays, Cora went to the ice rink for her old friend Maxine's birthday on Saturday.

Violet and I got in a hike/walk at Quigley Canyon on Wednesday after her school day. 

So pretty!

The girls have been getting ready for Ren Faire - Cora 3D printed some tiny animal skulls to hang from her belt, and both girls are making chain mail jewelry.

I've been busy shopping in person and online for rugs and window treatments for the new room. So many little details, and it's only one room! I can't imagine building your own new home...

This silly guy! He was rolling around in Cora's laundry basket.

On Thursday, Cora unexpectedly was asked to perform with the school Improv Team in their show in the theater. So, Stace, Vi and I packed up after dinner and headed over to watch.

For someone who loves watching improv but doesn't have a ton of experience, she did great! Very funny. 

(To be fair, all her stage experience involves a certain level of improv, when things go awry or people forget lines...)

Also, this guy!

He is in the house 95% of the time, but sometimes we let him out and he chills in the flower beds.

Addition: Murphy Bed and Solar Tubes

With the room complete, we started on the Murphy bed project.

Getting the bed from the garage to the backyard was a project in itself. My goodness, it was heavy! This is one solid piece of furniture, and we got an amazing deal on it.

Stace had to get all the pieces out to figure out how it went together - I love watching his engineer brain at work. We were able to find a schematic online, which also helped. Then, we were off to Newhall Hardware to find the right screws, nuts and bolts to put it together. (This is how we got such a great deal - the seller had misplaced the bag of bits.)

I hated to paint it, because I liked the color, but we want the finished wall cabinetry to all match. We ordered IKEA cabinets to fit either side for storage and decorative display space.

Winston was helpful as we primed. 

Having three cats - two of which are very active and curious - makes painting projects extra fun!

Here, Cora and Stace are sanding and wiping down the IKEA cabinet pieces. 

Unfortunately, despite using "the right" primer, the first coat scratched off too easily. We had to peel it all off and start over with more sanding and different, even pricier primer.

Nothing like doing a job twice - like painting Violet's walls, too. And the new room's walls, though technically we painted them once, covering over what the contractor did because I didn't like the color I'd chosen. 

The cats loved having the new mattress in the room, as a high perch.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, here's the finished paint color and baseboards in.

The Murphy bed painted and in place!

Next up - finishing the cabinets.
 

Also in recent weeks, Stace finished the solar tubes.

I absolutely love how much daylight they bring in!

We also have one in the girls' bathroom, and one in the kitchen.

Addition: Disruption

 

Although we're past the worst of it, I didn't want to move too far forward without documenting the disarray our whole house was in during the construction.

We moved out all the contents of the playroom, mainly into the garage, and then squeezed in a new Murphy bed when we found a great deal in January.

The MG was out of commission for the duration, used as storage for the outdoor cushions.

Very full, hard to walk around.

All the backyard things were pushed to the south side of the yard.

With Violet's room flooding out, she moved into the living room. We ended up just leaving the bed out all the time rather than packing it up every morning. We just sat on the bed if we watched TV. The cats loved it!

So much dust - this is the kitchen counter, and dust came in from the cracks up above the plywood blocking the window.

Violet's room became a storage room for project stuff, like the big boxes of solar tubes. There was no room in the garage for them.

Violet's furniture ended up in the hallway and dining room.

And random stuff ended up in our bedroom, including the pile of Violet's clothes she was drawing from each morning when she got dressed. She preferred dressing in our room, from the pile, rather than dressing in the bathroom or her empty bedroom.

The PS5 and playroom TV went into Cora's room, so the girls spent a lot of time in there for the two months. The playroom desk went in her room, too, and fits so well we'll keep it there.

Thankfully, Stace and I are both more low-key about clutter, so we weren't stressed out during the construction the way some people would be. And, we both knew it would all be over soon enough - and it was!

Snow Patrol

Stace and I had a fun and exciting Tuesday night, heading down to see Snow Patrol at a classic Los Angeles concert venue. 

Though we enjoy their music, we haven't seen them often - the most memorable time was when we were newlyweds, and Snow Patrol was looking to break the States. 

They were playing at the venerable Amoeba Records in Hollywood, and because one of Stace's friends from back home had sent us a CD, we knew of them and went to watch. 

Tiny stage, not too many there, and a meet and greet after where they all signed Final Straw and Gary Lightbody asked Stace about how he liked living in California. 

 

Then they hit, REAL big, and got very expensive to watch. But, 20 years later, they were at the Art Deco Wiltern, and we met up with JT and Jim for our night out. 

The Wiltern is in Koreatown, and Stace and I got there early enough for dinner, so we hit up a Korean/Mexican fusion place that was delicious, and affordable. You know, the kind of place where your dinner bill is less than the parking at the theater...

They performed all the hits we love, and a few off their newer CDs, too. Stace has their latest two, though there's a few in the middle we don't have. 

Anyway, it was a brilliant night out!

Addition: Drywall, Windows, Stucco and Floors

 

Over the last few weeks, so much progress has been made on the house! Stace put in this new drywall to replace that which had gotten wet. Luis handled the mudding since he was doing the drywall where the old windows were.

Windows and doors in! We were briefly having an issue with the size of the windows on the right side. The architect drew them and they aren't an off-the-shelf size. Special orders take weeks. 

But Joe, our contractor, decided to become a window distributor for a brand he'd had good experiences with in past years, and they were able to get them made in about a week. We love them!

Drywall in!

Outside ready for first coat of stucco.

Second coat on.

Primer going in - at night! With lights on in the room!

And the final coat on.

Joe created windowsills to match what's in the rest of the house.

Big day - removing the plywood barriers between the room and the house!

And in come the floors, on the day we made our final payment and the day after the inspector signed everything off.

The construction part of the project was complete in eight weeks, WITH adding on a new roof and a week or so of rain delays. We're very pleased with how everything went!

Week in Review

After not seeing the girls for a couple of days, we treated them to Chick-Fil-A for dinner, and ate out together in the restaurant (rather than getting it to-go, as the girls often prefer). This was our second dinner out with them in a week - before our trip, we used some gift cards and had a "nice" meal out at Red Lobster, where they'd never been. 

 Cora's school had Open House, and I helped at the Parent Advisory Council table for a bit before we went to see her classes. Cora was actually busy with theatre rehearsal - Jarod decided to allow parents to come watch an open rehearsal during Open House. Seeing the beginning stages of a musical number getting choreographed was fun for us non-musical theatre people. It'll be good in a couple of months to see how it progresses.

Maybe silly, but I wanted to get a photo of Cora's government class, only because this is it! She'll be done with high school soon, and I won't be in any of her classes in the future.

On Friday, Melissa and Tiffany met me at Placerita and we hiked the Waterfall Trail. 

Cora has been sick, and missed a few days of school, including a planned rehearsal on Saturday morning.

Stace helped Christina with a little project Saturday, building a storage area in the charity's new resource center.

Over the weekend, we did some work around the house, like Violet mowing the lawn and us starting on the Murphy bed project in the addition - more on that in a separate post.