Our little house is a shambles right now, though I'll be updating you as soon as we've made some progress on the repairs. So far, we're replacing studs and the header supports that have dry rot. It's much of the same type of work that we did the last time. We hope to have a new sliding glass door installed in the next couple of days, so when my Charles and I attempt that, I'll bring you the play-by-play. Until then, please enjoy my recap of my recent trip to Portland, originally posted on my food blog.I just got back from a business trip in Portland, Oregon. Unfortunately due to luggage restrictions/items I needed to bring, I had to leave the camera at home. Since I didn’t get any Portland photos, I did the next best thing — I’m sharing one of the awesome velvet paintings my friend, Chris, has created for me. Chris lives in Portland, ergo, Portland photo! Erm, sort-of, right? Anyway… let’s move on. Portland is a foodie paradise, and even more, a beer-lover’s dream. I consumed way more beer than was good for me, but I had to pack so much consumption into such a short space of time, you really can’t blame me.
The first evening found us at Deschutes Brewery. There, I had the great presence of mind to order a Hop in the Dark. I was a bit skeptical — a dark ale with hops? The resiny flavor played nicely with the chocolate sweetness of the malt. Who knew the two could be such great friends?
My next stop was dinner. While I’ve been told the restaurant at Deschutes is dynamite, I was overruled by my group, so we moved on. After being disappointed that all of the food trucks were closed, we continued to what appeared to be (at least on the outside) a hole-in-the-wall eatery with some nice, outdoor seating. I have to say, the Dan & Louis Oyster Bar makes a spectacular salad. I enjoyed a half salad of the Dungeness Crab Louis with a marionberry vinaigrette. The vinaigrette was spectacular. I can’t recommend it enough. I’m going to need to replicate it, in fact. Dinner was washed down with a Fish Tale Organic Amber Ale, a beer I know quite well and just wanted to enjoy.
There was no hesitation when it came to our next stop, plus it was just down the street. It’s almost a requirement to get a unique concoction at Voodoo Doughnut when you’re visiting the City of Roses. I had their Bacon Maple Bar. It was… weird — keeping Portland as it should be, I guess. I ate the whole thing, odd or not.
Then it was on to a nightcap at Rogue. By this time my head was spinning, what with all of the, um, sugar and socialization, so I opted for an old favorite — Dead Guy Ale. I did indulge in a sample of Rogue’s ode to Voodoo Doughnut, its Bacon Maple Ale. I’m sad to admit that it was the first Rogue creation I haven’t enjoyed. The liquid smoke flavors coupled with the maple sugary-ness just weren’t my thing.
After a full day of learning, my next dinner excursion was at The Original. Holy mother of … really, there should be a special award for places that make food this delectable. I intended to get the beef stroganoff and had ordered my beer accordingly, but I was wooed by the braised pork shank. I was completely under the spell of the so-tender-it-was-falling-off-the-bone meat drizzled in a brown butter sherry sauce. I have no words. Recalling how staggeringly good that meal was makes me want to weep. Fortunately, the sauce allowed my equally amazing beer to compliment the meal. The Original had Fort George Bourbon Barrel Cavatica Stout on tap. What a gorgeous beer! Black, malty, sweet, and smooth — I wish I had purchased a case.
And that was it, a short adventure filled with brewed and culinary pleasures. I gained a lot of knowledge on new, awesome techniques in social networking, gained some new friends and colleagues, and most definitely gained some pounds. It was great. Stay weird, Portland, and stay yummy!
 In the words of the great Yogi Berra, "It's deja vu all over again."During the process of taking out the siding to fix what we thought (and hoped) was a small problem, that bit of dry rot where the deck met the house, we encountered more of an issue. Just like the other sliding glass door, this one had leaked, and had been leaking for at least a decade. To add to the problem, the previous owners had poured self-leveling concrete and then installed slate tile ON TOP OF THE DRY ROT.
 So here we are again, fixing more than just a line of water damage. We're having to demo the concrete and slate floor back far enough to guarantee that the subfloor is sound.My Charles is building muscle demoing with a sledge hammer, and I'm keeping busy cleaning up bucket after bucket of the heavy mess. At least we know how this works, and we were going to buy a new door anyway...
 Since buying our house, one of my goals has been to create a garden. It's taken some time, assessing potential deer damage, figuring out how to work it into the space, and watching for the best light.
Finally, almost three years later, I came up with a way of incorporating planter boxes into the hillside, and using some other spaces, too.
 The wine barrel we got from a local winery last year got cut in half. My Charles and I used the circular saw. We snapped off a straight line around the middle of the barrel. Then he held the saw as I slowly rolled it, on its side, toward him. The method worked pretty well.
The boxes were constructed from the leftover wood from our old stairs. I salvaged pieces that weren't too damaged.
 Then I screwed in small pieces at the inside corners for stability. Next, I attached the the corners of the wood together. (Did I mention I used salvaged screws from the old stairs, too?) Finally, I attached corner brackets to make sure everything stayed strong and connected.
The hardest part of the whole project was actually getting the open-backed boxes to fit on the hillside properly. It required a lot of digging, positioning, and more digging until I was finally able to get the box level.
 Once the boxes were level, I drove some rebar into the ground at the front of each planter, further stabilizing the box since I knew the earth was going to be HEAVY, and since I was incorporating the boxes into the hillside, gravity was not going to act as a friend.
Originally, I had planned for three planters, but due to the shape of the hillside, I ended up only creating two. The planter shown above is huge, so I think it will be the main, large vegetable box.
 The second planter will hold lettuce and herbs -- all of those awesome leafy greens. Yesterday morning was spent shoveling a special veggie-mix compost into the boxes, and some starts were planted. I'm planning on finishing the planting today and stretching netting over the boxes to keep the deer out.
The front yard is starting to come together. Where the stairs used to be are now graduated planting areas sporting daffodils and the sprouts of wildflowers. Half of the wine barrel is going to be a planter for a small chaste tree. The other half will be a solar powered fountain. My veggie garden is finally underway, and the whole area should be mulched soon. Now I just need to get that clothesline built...
 No matter how many projects are in the wings, no matter how insurmountable certain tasks may feel, there is one thing that stays constant -- the reason why we bought our house -- the view. Golly, I love that view.
 I have been obsessed by updating the lighting in our house, much to my Charles' frustration. (He'd rather we focused on the outside right now.) Since we have the awesome 70s cabin in the woods, lighting is pretty scarce.
Luckily, there are some nice choices, for affordable prices, that spring up on Fab.com, though they can take awhile to arrive. The top light hangs in our living room area. It's white on the outside and red underneath. I love its branchy, artsy qualities. The other light with its modern minimalism is hanging above our dining room table. It's the perfect amount of substantial-without-causing-the-eye-to-stop. That's the ideal quality for our small house with its living room/dining room of shared, vaulted ceiling space.
Next on the list of lights to replace are the sconces in our "great room" and the bathroom light. The sconces are from Amazon, and the bathroom light is also from Fab. They have yet to be installed, as they need to be hardwired, so those will wait for another post. With all of the glorious sunshine we've experienced the last few days, we haven't needed the lights as much, but it's still really wonderful to update our space in every way possible.
 It's finally spring in Nevada County, so I've been climbing ladders and dusting out-of-the-way corners, doing rotation in the pantry, and finding cleaning options on Pinterest. I've really been appreciating the tips and tricks I find on that addictive site.One of the tips I used during my spring cleaning sweep was to refresh the mattress. Make it Do had a terrific how-to on cleaning a mattress. Basically, you dust that giant dust collector with baking soda and essential oil. I used half a box of soda and a liberal sprinkling of peppermint oil. I use the peppermint for other cleaning as well because it has antimicrobial properties.After dusting the entire mattress with the soda/oil combination, I let it sit for a couple of hours. Then I vacuumed with the wand and brush attachment and was amazed at how heavy the canister became. There were a lot of dust mites and moisture that came out of our six-year-old bed. Then the room, heck -- the house, smelled so fresh, and nice, clean aromas of mint wafted up from the bed when we settled in for some intense sleeping. It was outstanding.*I will be working on our bedroom this year, and yes, one of my goals is to make a new headboard so we're not sporting the inexpensive IKEA bed look anymore.
 West Elm is having a sale. Golly that's hard to pass up. One of the things I picked up was a small, sculptural shelf for above the toilet. It works really well in the space, I think. White on white with a bit of interest and texture... it's just what the teeny, tiny area needed. Sometimes it's the little things. Sometimes it's the little things on clearance.I've been a busy bee, writing a lot and creating a cookbook as part of an internship. Other than maintenance, I haven't been able to do much on the home front. The cookbook is almost finished. My Charles and I are soon going to be on vacation. Hopefully, we'll come home revitalized with many photos of our most recent adventure to share and ready to tackle a ton of projects we have waiting -- including a couple of other things I got on clearance from West Elm. I'm taking next week off, and then stay tuned for lots of sparkling, new posts.*Sorry about the lighting. Our bathroom is dark -- even with three lights on. I even white balanced .
 _This trunk and I have been through a lot together. I got it as a gift, a raggedy find that my aunt had purchased at a thrift store. I was about to move away for college, and it was the perfect piece for storage and as an extra seat. I slapped some paint on it and got creative. It's moved everywhere I have moved, but living in Arcata for a decade was hard on it. It got water and mold damage -- not good for blanket storage, so I decided to turn it into a spot for the litter box.
The opening is a bit rough, but it's away from the door and wide enough for the cats, so it works for me. Basically, I drilled a large hole for each of the bottom corners then used a sawzall to cut across the bottom and from the top, down the sides. Easy peasy. I didn't worry about leaving a top for the hole, as the lid to the trunk created that for me. Then I did a quick sanding to the edges so the kitties wouldn't get any splinters.
 The cats now have a safe, enclosed place to do their business that also has enough extra room for litter and scoop storage. The best part is, the litter box is no longer an eye-sore.
Creating a fancy litter box meant that I no longer had a trunk in the living room. I loved having it there because it also acted as a table for reading material and as a window seat for gazing out, over the summit. I have been checking thrift stores and online for months, looking for something affordable but beautiful and hadn't found anything acceptable that was in my budget.
 Then I happened to mention my failed quest to my grandma, and she had the very thing, nicer than any trunk that I had seen, hanging out in her upstairs bedroom. And she gave it to me for free!So now the house has two trunks, both serving multiple purposes. One is beautiful, classing up our reading nook. The other is making our bedroom much, much nicer. It looks like a restful place and not just Cat Land, and when guests come over and glance in our bedroom, they won't be presented with an eyeful of litter box.
Burgundy. Unless it's this guy, I'm just sick of it. Totally SICK OF IT.We have four walls that are burgundy. When we bought the house, I was cool with it. My Charles had always wanted a red room, and here it was. Well, sort-of. It's like an accent wall there, there, and there kind-of thing. The rest of the walls are greige. (Fun fact, in my quest to end the burgundy, we surveyed tons of paint swatches. Charles' favorite gray ended up being the exact color we already have on the walls.) Being a fan of the greige walls should make choosing more paint easy, right? Hold on, there. Of course it wouldn't work that way.If any of you have been following my Pinterest, you know that this is causing me some angst. My Charles was originally thinking of replacing the burgundy with brick red. That would make things richer, but my neutral-loving heart is leaning toward a slightly darker greige for those walls, something that will highlight the vaulted ceiling in the living room while still keeping it calm. It's a conundrum. A silly conundrum, but there you go.What do you guys think? Should my wants prevail? Should my Charles get his choice, or should we choose something else entirely? Should I give up on striving to modern-up our cabin in the woods?
 I love so many parts of the year, all of them in fact, for different reasons and different moods. They're always the most glorious when they are happening, no matter which they are, because of the sparkle in the air or the smell hovering around or because of a feeling that can't quite be explained. Still, I have some favorites, and the false spring at the end of January is one of them.It was this time of the year, you see, when I was in the seventh grade, that I first read The Lord of the Rings. That was the experience that changed my life, the way I wanted to write, and taught me that the world of storytelling got even more rich, beyond the realms of the Blue and Brown Fairy Books.
 False spring is also when I feel a quickening and anticipation for the future. It's when my biggest nesting impulses come to the fore. Last year, there were so many other things that I needed to focus on, I buried those impulses. This year, I'm embracing them and making changes throughout the house. So far, I've brought in two cowhide rugs, and I love them. Their organic shapes play off of the squareness of our house and slate tiles, softening the feel of the space. We also found a lovely dresser on Craigslist for $75 that fits perfectly in the space I had planned for it. I used Morgan's tutorial, as I do with all of my new/old pieces, to bring it back to its former glory. And I still have so many plans! There are so many exciting things to accomplish this year. This is just the beginning. Spring hasn't even started yet, after all, just its promise.
|
RSS Feed
