la cucina

Ah, what a difference 2 days & a great big heap of OCD* make. To wit:

We seem to have a kitchen.

I can't believe how much bigger the room looks since we took down the cabinets that flanked the window. (And thanks to my friend M who suggested we put them in the garage, where we can still use them. Brilliant!) Also, it was totally worth the effort & caustic chemicals involved in getting rid of the "oak" veneer ... or as the Mr. has dubbed it, "fauk". Now all we need to do is hang the shelves above the window-adjacent counter. And buy a stove.

I feel obligated to show the reverse angle, for some perverse reason. Or maybe just to reassure myself that there's a whole lot of Project remaining.
Behold: left) the aforementioned shelves, and right) Future Site of Our Kitchen Table.

*I "may" have alphabetized the spice drawer. No, you can't see a picture.**

**Okay, fine:
(for some reason Blogger won't rotate the picture -- oh well.)

repurposing v1.0

Behold, the 1st in a possibly-many-parted series:

Some of it, we're selling on Craigslist/Bravo Bride/ etc. And the rest of it, well ...

A) at the wedding:


B) after the wedding:


Just doing my part to keep the planet green.

pretty pictures!

Finally:
The formerly lead-paint tainted closet doors have been taken outside, stripped, sanded, repainted, given new hardware & re-hung. Now a) we're cool if any children or pregnant women want to come over & lick our walls, and b) I can put my shoes away. Good times.

And from the Tah-Dah! Dept:
I think the towel bar should be a little lower ... but screw it. We have a bathroom! For those of you who are keeping score at home, this pic features:
Pedestal sink from Home Depot: $214
Light from Restoration Hardware Outlet: $52
Bead Board from Stock Lumber: approx $2.50/sq. ft.

It's really hard to photograph a shower that's perpetually back-lit during the day, but hopefully you can tell that we have two (2!!) shower heads -- a rain bath in the ceiling, and a hand-held on the wall.

The storage would be completely installed & allowing me to unpack some of those effing boxes marked "bathroom", if it wasn't for the broken hinge-thingy from Ikea. The Mr. got us a replacement one yesterday, but since I don't speak Needlessly Cruel Swedish Drawings, I'm waiting for contractor-guy to install it tomorrow.
Shelves: $6 each
Brackets: $10/pair
Cabinet: $89
all Ikea
(And yes, I know the brackets don't quite reach the front of the shelves. Since we only plan to store towels on them, I figure they'll hold.

I imagine those will feel really good under foot. I could tell you that with certainty if it wasn't for the fact that we have no hot water in there. As in: I was standing there for over five minutes watching the water run, taunting me with its refusal to rise above Icy Cold. Wrapped in a towel, Ready. To. Bathe. At. Home! I placed a call to contractor-guy, who informed me that he hadn't yet tested/adjusted/what-the-fuck-evered the water yet, but he plans to in the morning. Oh my effing god my shower is a cock tease somebody help me!!! Also: to the students in the 2 classes I have to teach this afternoon -- I'm sorry.

But other than that, I'm rather pleased with how the color scheme turned out. The Mr. has expressed doubts about the shower curtain's stripey-ness (Thomas O'Brien for Target), but I think it ties in the tiles, towels & wall pattern rather extremely-genius-like. Or maybe I'm just giddy from the fumes?

aaaaand we're back!!!

Phew! I was seriously turning a shade somewhere between cerulean & indigo there, waiting for our FUCKING INTERWEBS TO GET WORKING. Ahem. I'm sorry. I don't mean to swear. (Really. I try not to. I just suck at not-swearing.)

In case anyone has been wondering about the brevity/simplicity of my recent (aka post-move) posts, allow me to elucidate: We had DSL service at the apartment, with a small-ish provider whose service/pricing/support we adored. So naturally we tried to just shift our account with them to the new Owned By Us address. We had to wait 5 (five!!) days, because AT&T makes you suffer if you don't use their 'net service, for the phone to get "turned on". I guess the guy who had to flip a switch was busy that week. Anyway, once the 5-day time frame had elapsed: still no 'net. So we called, and were asked to wait ANOTHER 2 (two!!) days for a technician to come out & investigate.

Which he did. I was here. And a Very Large Dude, who was surprisingly friendly AND helpful, played with some wires outside the house (even though it was raining). And he diagnosed us as 3000 ft. too far from the DSL hub to get service. (Insert Lumbergh voice here:) "Greeaaaaat."

So: back to square 1. Call cable company. They'll come out in 3 (three!!) business days. Except that the 3rd day was Effing President's Day. (Stoopid Presidents.) So we just. finally. got. service. today.

(By the by, my interim posts were made via a nifty iPhone app called BlogWriter. I was very pleased with the results. Get the free version, unless you have the urge to post photos -- then it's a worthwhile $1.99. But you can't delete posts ... hence the bewildering stuff that I just got rid of, from my "learning curve" phase.)

At any rate: Howdy! I'm still here! And we still have no bathroom to speak of. (Epic Construction Timing Fail.) But here's what we do have:
An uber-fancy new light/fan, with switches that independently control both functions! And paint! And some bead board (slightly visible)!

A couple of fixtures! Including a rain bath shower head, and that awesome outlet-find light for over the (eventually) medicine cabinet.

And various kinds of flooring! That's the river rock stuff in the shower floor, and those (totally my fault, expensive-ish) penny tiles on the rest of the floor. Also, a better look at the bead board.

Now all we need is for the Effing Grout to dry, so we can re-connect the toilet. That's all I care to say about that ... except that NO, I'm NOT enjoying this part.

tile story

I alluded to Tile I no longer want in yesterday's post ... allow me to explain: I started off thinking that we "had" to have glass tiles in the shower, preferably in the subway style pictured here:
And then we started pricing the stuff. The cheapest we could find it in a color we like (similar to the above pic, actually) was $17/square foot. Yikes! So in a dazzling display of design flexibility, we've changed course: we're keeping the shape, but changing the color & material. Ceramic tile in matte white (for some reason I'm really digging the non-shiny finish) like this:

image source

only costs $4.50/square foot**. Much better.

I had the idea to get penny tiles for the flooring, which will now be non-white, so as to avoid making the bathroom resemble a surgical theater, like these:

image source

which we found for a very agreeable $8/square foot. And then the Mr. got totally excited about a river-rock style for the shower floor, like this:

image source

except in a charcoal-y black shade that I couldn't find a picture of. And they feel pretty sweet under foot. Plus, they're almost exactly the same price as the other floor tiles, so it looks like we're going for it.

Once we can reassemble the walls & floors, and therefore get accurate measurements, that is. Is there drama around that? Funny you should ask ... more to come.


**(All the prices I've quoted are from United Tile in L.A. -- no website (again!), but you can find them here. They have everything, and they're really reasonable.)

2 steps forward ... 2 steps back

That's not a scientific rendering of the number of steps we've taken, in any direction, by the way. I'm just sitting here humming Paula Abdul songs (and now, so are you. You're welcome.) And yes, I know I keep fiddling with the heading of this here re-purposed blog. It's a work-in-progress. Also, I'm indecisive. But moving on:

We have a fridge! Check it out:
That's the Mr., a) looking cute, and b) showing off our excellent handiwork in getting all the shelves/drawers/etc. properly situated. I had no idea fridges were so complicated. Here it is from the outside:
Pretty! We got a sweet deal -- it's a brand-new last-year's model, courtesy of a giant warehouse out in the porn end of the valley. No website (?!?!), but they're at 8930 Mason Avenue, Chatsworth 91311.

We're also pretty much sorted on lighting, at least as far as fixtures go. We made a trip out to the Restoration Hardware Outlet in Camarillo, where we found this:
Ours has the brushed nickel finish, to go with the rest of our hardware. Also, that's totally the tile I've decided I no longer want! (But more on that later.) Again brand-new -- probably an internet return (so now you know where stuff goes when you buy online & return it: Camarillo) and they were giving an extra 20% off bath stuff "just because" that day, so outlet + sale = $51. Or as I prefer to call it, 25% of retail. Woo effing hoo!

After much more dithering about styles that one of us loved & the other hated-with-vehemence, we found these at Ikea:
Calypso, for the bedroom; and one that they don't have on the website yet but it's pendant-y & white & fun & cool, for the office. I'll post a pic once we've hung it. And by "we" I mean "our awesome handy-hombre".

So that's the cool stuff. And then, from the Dept. of Destruction: guess what was underneath all that tile in the bathroom?
MORE TILE!! We now officially have more tile than a Mexican restaurant in this house. And while I don't really dig the colors, the stuff they covered up was actually nicer than the stuff on top. Aaarggh!! Who the eff were these people? (Answer: the same people who cut through supportive studs to install windows & doors where-the-heck-ever they pleased, and did it without permits of course, which our guys now get to fix. Thank goodness for flat-fee contractors.) I'll get some more pictures of the mayhem tomorrow, but in the meantime:
Why yes, that is a demo'd bathtub on our front porch. And we're happy to see you!

ch-ch-ch-ch- changes!

Finally! a few images of what's been up with Isabelle. (Yes, that's the house's name.)

First:
In the Living Room: out with the vomit-tan, in with the greige (dammit! I miss Domino) and blue ceiling detail. Drapery to replace awful vertical blinds = a work in progress.

In the kitchen, we've secretly replaced the "oak" cabinets with these:
Let's see if she notices! But seriously ... the Mr. just finished stripping the icky varnish off the doors, so the next steps are: sand, paint, & re-attach those.

And in the hallway, just a few adjusted hinges away from completion:
Our built-ins! Here's the doors that are awaiting their pretty satin nickel hinges:
Aren't they pretty, with their non-paint-encrusted hardware? I know!!

Oh, and referring back to this entry's title ... and just because her name rhymes with Bowie:
It's Zöe**!! Wearing the shirt we got her for her birthday. (She's the most fashion-y fashionista I currently know. Girl changed her outfit 4 times that night!)

{** NOT OUR DOG!! That's my friend Bayleigh's dog. Stop congratulating us -- we just bought her a damn t-shirt!!!}

More pics on the way -- the contractor is coming!1!!

stop the presses: we agree on something!

Actually, we agree on 2 things: 1) the kitchen, as purchased, was atrocious; and 2) these light fixtures:
As of today, the kitchen is the most un-changed room** ... BUT! after emailing him 15+ (at least) ideas for light fixtures, I stumbled upon the ones pictured above, to Our Mutual Delight. They're available at Shades Of Light (which is in Virginia, and therefore charges no sales tax in CA -- haha!! Screw you, Ah-nold & the Legislature!) and we're eagerly awaiting their imminent arrival via FexEx.

** why yes, I DID re-paint the entire house myself. NO, I don't need a hobby -- thank you.

Also, after talking to four (4!) contractors, two (2!) of whom deigned to flatter us with a bid, we're moving forward with our remodeling plans. Up next: a brand-new, shiny bathroom & LOTS of rugs to cover the hideous floors.

Oh, and some pics. Eventually. Really, I swear.

my new best friend

Yes, thing are going swimmingly at the Un-Casa. (That name sucks. I'll work on a better one. But meanwhile ...) The locks have been changed, the interior doors have shiny new doorknobs, and the paint samples from Ralph Lauren arrived today & were promptly smeared on the relevant walls. I'm not sure in which parallel universe one pays for 2-day express shipping on December 29th and receives said order on January 4th, but I plan to take that up with the dear people at RL first thing tomorrow. And frankly, I'm too excited about getting my hands on Pretty Colored Things to let it bring me down. Even better news: the Mr. and I are in agreement on colors for 3 rooms -- we're 60% of the way home, and still speaking to each other. Woo hoo!

But getting back to the semi-caustic substance in the spray bottle: it all began with our Mission Statement: Replace Ugly Crap With Nicer Stuff ... On Budget. To wit:
In a perfect world, I'd get rid of the ugly "oak" cabinets & start over. But in Our World, we're going with plan B. (No, not that Plan B. Nobody knocked up our cabinetry.) Plan B started out as "Let's just paint them white," but has since turned into "Let's get an electric sander & some varnish remover, so that the white paint we apply will a) stick, and b) not be lumpy." So while the Mr. has learned how to use varnish remover & not die (it involves gloves, a face mask, and not taunting the substance), I've been tackling the insides of the cabinets.

Fun fact: other people's shelf paper is disgusting! Especially when combined with All The Dead Spiders (see previous post -- free shipping offer still applies!)

Also, the previous owner's Stupid Plumber Tricks has led to 2 of the lower cabinets being rather mildewed. I discovered this as I was systematically scrubbing the living daylights out of them, and the ick-factor jumped from an 8 to a 10. At that point I stopped reaching in with my sponge and just basically sprayed & ran. That's when the miracle happened.

I came back the next day, and it was better. Dramatically better. It went from "Maybe we should just replace that" to "The patient is ALIVE!" I kinda wish I had a "before" picture to post here ... but then again, I wouldn't want to make anyone spontaneously kill themself in horror. Suffice to say: it may smell like the devil and wreak havoc on your cuticles, but I LOVE me some Lysol anti-mildew spray.

Back tomorrow to check the paint samples in better light. And yes, I will absolutely be addressing the ceramic floor tiles that go halfway up the walls -- count on it.

stuff I've gotten done

We've been a little slow on getting out the thank you cards. Like, a snail-race-through-molasses slow. But it's for a good reason. Or at least, a "good" reason. Mr. UB had the breel-yint idea to send each person a photograph of us using their gift, so as to make them feel like we really appreciate it. Or at least like it's not just gathering dust in an attic somewhere. (Not to worry: we don't have an attic!) A few people had to get left out of this fabulosity, because their gifts are in our storage unit (yes, we will remember them at Christmas), but for the most part, we "thanked" our people for their generosity thusly:

J, who bought us the luggage set, got this:

And S, our wine hook-up, received this little gem:
I'm sure they realize just how worth the wait that all was ....

In other news (aka Shopping Success Stories), behold:
$219 at Restoration Hardware

$10 at a thrift store in the valley. Hell no, I'm not saying which one.

Can world domination be far away?

wedding recap: ceremony readings

With a guest list of only 40 people, the Mr. & I wanted to keep the number of "attendants" to a reasonable number. (Yes, that's me adding the parentheses -- there are some things I just can't take too seriously. Like having people "attend" to us. But I digress ...)

The only problem with this was how to include as many people in the goings-on as possible. We had His Parents enter at the beginning of the processional, and both My Mom & My Dad walked me down the aisle. And we included two more of our friends by asking them to do readings. (Yes, the 2nd person reading is dressed as a groomsman -- he generously stepped into that role, too, for a friend who couldn't make it from the east coast.)

So: the near-&-dear people were in ... but what to have them read? My brain was glazing over at this point, so thankfully they both stepped up with suggestions. Perfect suggestions.

First, our friend T. read Shakespeare's Sonnet #119.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

(We're both actors, so this was both lovely & extra-fitting.)

Then groomsman R. read "Oh, The Places You'll Go!" by Dr. Seuss. (I credited him as Theodor Geisel on the programs, so as not to give it away.)
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look’em over with care. About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.” With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, you’re too smart to go down a not-so-good street.

And you may not find any you’ll want to go down. In that case, of course, you’ll head straight out of town. It’s opener there in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew. Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.

Oh! The Places You’ll Go!

You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights.

You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Kid, you’ll move mountains!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ale Van Allen O’Shea, you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So get on your way!

(We're also both very silly.)

It was the perfect combination of "us" ....

cost breakdown: candy buffet

One of the biggest "non-practical" elements of our wedding was our candy buffet. (It's also one of the only things featured in wedding magazines that I fell in love with. What can I say? I'm not completely impervious to pretty pictures.) I'm sure that we could have come up with a less expensive cost-per-guest party favor, but I figured that people had earned their sugar comas after all the dancing at our reception!

We had 9 different containers in our buffet: 3 apothecary jars & 2 decorative plates, all snagged at Ross. (I started looking very early in our planning process, in order to take advantage of post-Christmas sales. I basically grabbed anything white or metallic I could get my hands on.) I got creative when I found 2 big mercury class candle holders at Target (I just covered the pointy thing in the bottom with tissue paper), and I made a cake stand from a tutorial on OnceWed.com. At the last minute, I found a giant clear-glass vase that I already owned -- score!

Total: $69.18



For the candy, I realized pretty quickly that while lots of websites out there offer "discount bulk candy", the overnight shipping required to get it to Southern California in the summer, hopefully without melting, was a potential budget-buster. I got as much of it as I could at a local warehouse in downtown L.A.

10 lbs. each grapefruit sour gummies, butterscotch & Hershey's kisses = $68.88.

I got the rest from 2 online resources, and went for the 2-day shipping in protective packaging (still cheaper than overnighting it) just before temps soared for the summer.

10 lbs. each 7-up jelly bellies & white jordan almonds from bulkfoods.com = $99.56 + approx. $60 shipping.
10 lbs. "milkies" (like M&M's, but without the "M" so cheaper) & 5 lbs. champagne bubbles from Groovy Candies = $115.85 + approx. $40 shipping.

I also got 5 lbs. of white mints from Smart & Final for about $10. And somehow I got it into my head that I'd have a) the time, and b) the skill to make a thing or two. Yeah, I know ... overly ambitious = me. Fortunately, after my test run turned out poorly, I found these at Target:

White Oreos! Who knew?! (I didn't.) About $10 for 3 bags.

I made the signs for each container with leftover cardstock from our invitations -- printed at Kinko's -- and attached it with ribbon I found on sale. Instead of buying pricey labels from some online site, I printed some using Word on my home computer:

They seemed to get what I wanted to say across ... and I already had those labels, so they were free.

We decorated the table with the leftover bubble liquid bottles from our ceremony, and some matchbook notebooks that I made. I used the cardstock samples I'd bought when looking for our invitation paper, plus stamps that were in the set used on our invitations & plain computer paper. The upside to doing things yourself = re-purposing your leftovers!


I found the big scoops at a local party supply store (about $10) & decorated them with the same ribbon as on the container signs, and got the bags through a wholesale company. (I ended up with twice the amount I needed, so after selling the extras on Craigslist, they cost a net $13.)

Altogether, the candy buffet cost us about $545. Admittedly, it was kind of an extravagance, and I might have changed my mind if I'd known about the extra $100 in shipping charges from the beginning ... but it turned out beautifully, our guests loved it, and I was really proud of myself for pulling it off. So if anyone out there is planning something similar, I hope you find this useful!

getting back into the habit

Okay, so in between sorting through thousands of photos & trying to decide what to call this blog after the recap posting is done ... I have a few more favorite pics to share.

Me & my hot-ass MOH, Our Lady of the Holiday.
The Mr. & I having a sweet moment at the post-ceremony dinner ...

... and a not-so-serious moment on the beach in Malibu.
I know I've been terrible about reading & commenting on so many of my favorite sites out there. I've got nothing remotely resembling a good excuse -- I've just been hormonal & sulking. But I still love you & I'm shaking off the cobwebs, I promise.

I know, I know ...

I'm being lazy. I know. I'm supposed to be filing daily reports filled with pictures & ancedotes from "the big day" ... and yet, I'm not. I owe at least 3 posts to the good people at Weddzilla, who added me to their team just in time for my Blog Ennui to set in. So what gives?

Mostly, I've just been busy getting back to my regular life. The Mr. is hard at work, and I'm wrestling with the geometry problem of fitting two lives into this 1-bedroom apartment. And anyone who wants proof that this is True Love: I emptied a closet for him. I put clothes into boxes into storage. I put away my cashmere, dammit! (Sure, it's August in Los Angeles, and I'll swap those out with my tank tops for the 3 weeks in January when it gets brisk here -- but that's not the point.)

We've also been overwhelmed with the generosity of our friends. The UPS guy & I are totally bonding (I think he looks tired; he thinks we need an air conditioner -- apparently, I'm literally a hot mess) as he brings us more boxes of awesomeness, nearly every day. I'm itching to get cracking on the thank-yous, but the Mr. has An Idea for those, so it's going to take a little extra time.

Also, for everyone who asks me "when do I get to see pictures?", my stock reply is "as soon as I get to see them!" And after seeing the first few picks from our ceremony in San Francisco, our photographer is forever my hero & can take all the damn time she needs/pleases.

Here's just a little bit of what I'm talking about:

The boys after they finished primping. They clean up pretty nice.

Putting the hat/veil/thingy on for the first of many times (silly wind!) with T -- I can't thank her enough for all her help. (Not just with the hat.)

Checking my ... "dress" ... with His Sis. Double-stick tape is your friend!

More soon, I promise.