Here I am in Southern California

Camellia Espalier on the Front Patio

Much progress has been made around the homestead since my last entry: we finished Dan's studio; the three bedrooms were divested of their mold and two of them got new flooring; we installed new interior doors and some crown molding, and most of the painting is done. I also started a small garden in the back corner of the yard that I see from my office window.

We still have a couple of good-sized projects ahead of us - new sinks and counters in the large bathroom and kitchen, lots of yard cleanup, and eventually some new landscaping in the back yard. And while I'm on sabbatical, I'm working on some of the smaller projects: finishing up the painting inside, a couple of refinishing projects, sorting and decluttering of the last of the garage contents, and organizing our kitchen and garage storage.

I've got my work cut out for me! While i get going on that, here's a photo of a recently completed project.

For some time now, we have wanted to have something on the back wall of the patio as a focal point. It's what we look out on from our kitchen table, so it really affects the feel indoors as well. I hit upon the idea of a small tree on an espalier a while ago, and the plan has finally come together. I found the right camellia variety at a local nursery late last winter, then had to find a planter that worked. That took a while, and we had just about given up on the container we had special ordered when we got the call that it had come in.

It was worth the wait. The planter is a great fit for the space, and the look of it is just what I wanted Once we had it in place, transplanting the camellia and starting the espalier was pretty easy. It's pretty young now, but should fill this space nicely when it's mature.

L.A. Story

The patio is finished, and furnished! The last piece was the chairs to go with the table. Well, OK, the very last piece is finding cushions for the chairs so that our backsides don't go to sleep instantly. But I'm gonna call it close enough.

As you can see, we got some nice bistro-style iron chairs, just what we wanted. Simple, right? No. Evidently, bistro chairs are not in style at the moment. We had a heck of a time finding any that didn't look rickety and/or cheap. That's where this becomes an L.A. story. When Donna was here, one of the things she wanted to do was go to L.A. to see some of the museums.

I do not like LA. When driving down the 101, my jaw starts tensing up just about when we get into Thousand Oaks. But I do like museums, and I'm game for almost anything that includes a road trip with Donna. It was our early road trips while we were in college that cemented our friendship, and we've had many adventures since then. We decide to go for it, planning to hit the Getty and LACMA, then Ikea on the way back. Dan won't set foot in an Ikea, but I needed to get some pieces for the new shelving for my office.

So we're planning our day in L.A. Dan says, "hey, since you'll be down there, maybe you can check out the Moroccan import store. They had a lot of chairs." Hmm, good idea. It's a great store, and we got a lot of our living room pieces from them. And it's about 1 mile from LACMA and 2 doors down from the La Brea Bakery. That started to sound like an itinerary: Getty, then  La Brea for lunch,  pop over to get some chairs, then LACMA and LA.

It was a good plan. We made it to the Getty pretty easily, though not very early, and enjoyed the setting and some of the exhibits. We stopped to have some lunch in the cafe because we were starving, then headed off toward the import store. Again, it was pretty easy to get there. But that's also where the day took a turn. We found excellent parking - it seemed too good to be true - right in front of the store. I rifled through the car to find enough change to make sure the meter was well-fed. At this point, it was maybe 3 pm. We weren't really paying attention to time.

We look around at the chairs they have, and I found some that I really liked. They were a little different than what Dan and I had talked about, but the price was fine. I told the shopkeeper that I needed to talk to Dan, but would probably want to take them home. I asked him about how to protect them from the weather, and he kindly offered to seal them for me, I could come back at the weekend to pick them up. Well, no, that wouldn't work, I tried to tell him - I can seal them myself, just let me talk to Dan and see what we want to do.

Donna and I head down to the bakery for tea and cookies, and I call Dan. We talk it over, and decide that I should go back and sit in them for a while to make sure that they're comfortable. Ok, good plan, except that  as I'm talking to Dan, Donna says, "Um, what are they doing to your car?!"

I look up and see my car getting hitched to a tow truck. What the heck? The meter can't be out already. But my first thought is, I've got to get them to take my car off the tow truck. So I go over to the guy from the towing company, and the parking enforcement agent and say, "OK, what can I do to keep you from towing my car away?" Figured that was a better strategy than starting by arguing about the violation, especially since I had no idea what I might have done wrong. The tow guy tells me that I can pay the fine on the spot, and get my car back. Great, so my next question is, "can you tell me what I did wrong?"

Apparently La Brea is one of the new anti-gridlock zones. No parking after 4, or you are subject to immediate towing. At this point, it was approximately 4:03. I ws kinda over a barrel, so I decided to pay the fine - $150. You have to pay the tow charge, even if the car does not in fact get towed. At least the tow guy and the parking enforcement agent were friendly. The tow guy took one look at my license and said "Santa Barbara? If you live in Santa Barbara, what the hell are you doing coming to L.A.? I hate it here. I live here and I don't want to come to L.A." I laughed and told him I wasn't very fond of it myself, and that the $150 fine was not raising my opinion of the place. Still, better that than pay the fine AND be stuck 100 miles from home with no easy way to get my car back. Lucky thing Donna saw what was happening!

We re-parked the car around the corner, and now I was determined to bring patio chairs home with me. We go back to the import store, where I see the shopkeeper painting sealer on the chairs that I wanted. Oy. So they weren't going to come home with me.  Not to worry, he can hold them for me until  Sunday. But of course, I had no intention of making another trip down there that week. And by the way, the foot is broken off one of them, there are no more in that style, and he's not sure if it can be fixed.

By now, I really felt like crying. We told him that we would have to think about what to do, and perhaps would take some other chairs. That's fine, he said, but he had to leave in 15 minutes for an appointment. Ack! More frantic calls to Dan, and we decided I would just take the two that you see above. They're not as unsual as the other ones, but they are pretty, more or less exactly what we had in mind originally, and not broken!

We got them into the back seat of my tiny little Nissan, and then just sat in the car for a few minutes. I finally got to drink my tepid tea and eat my cherry tart. It was delicious and also comforting. By now, it was too late to go to LACMA, and we decided to just head right to the Ikea.

By now, it was 5 p.m. - right smack in rush hour. It was a long, slow drive to Carson, but when we got there the Ikea was pretty much deserted. And the staff was helpful, and knew what I was talking about. This was a far cry from the Ikea in Emeryville.

I found the shelves I needed, and a few other things (duh, it's Ikea!) and then it was time to get the stuff into the car. Most of the shelving and the other bits and pieces went into the trunk, but the side pieces had to go into the car. I was counting on them fitting vertically between the driver's and passenger seats. Not quite. But after some wiggling and jiggling, we got them in - only to discover that one of the two pieces was cracked. So it was wiggle and jiggle back out, back into Ikea to exchange it, then more wiggling to get the un-broken one in.

How did we make it fit? We got one of the gaps in the side piece to go over the passenger seat, and Donna crawled under it, so her head and arms were above it, and the opening was around her torso. That's the mark of a true friend  - being willing to sit that way for two hours back home. And also to squirm in and out a few times, because we had to stop at Target, and then at In & Out (Donna's first time) on the way home.

So here's the first round of staining on those shelves. I've spent the better part of the last two weekends on this. I'm enjoying it, but it sure is time consuming, mainly because of the wait time while things are drying.

On the tarp now is the 24 shelves for the long wall unit. They're just about ready be flipped over for to get the second side done. Here's hoping the office looks as good as I'm imagining it will when I'm done!

Front Walk and Patio

Boy, I need to get this posted today, because soon we'll have another update.

So, this is the front walk. A while back, I tiled the front stoop with slate tiles. There was much kneeling, crawling, gnashing of teeth, and even some crying. One of the hardest parts was dealing with the inherent unevenness of the tiles. Before tackling the walkway, Dan and I did a dry run (literally!) of the tiles on the driveway. We arrived at a layout that minimized the height changes between tiles, and marked the backs with a coordinate system.

The large tiles went down quite easily, but the small tiles were once again a royal pain in the tush.

I spent about half the day trying to get them on straight, and bailed entirely on the ones along the patio-side edge. Now that my brother's here, I unloaded that task on him. (Thanks, Don!) They've continued to be problematic, and some of the ones he laid down popped off or were so uneven that he had to rip them up.

He's ready to tackle the last stragglers today. Presuming those set well, it's on to grouting (messy and tedious, but a least no tiles will be sliding around) and then sealing which should be a piece of cake. We will all be very relieved when this project is finished. I will not be taking on another tiling project any time soon.

Also exciting is the patio:

Don has finished the fine-tuning of the leveling, and has swept in the decomposed granite in the gaps.
Once the walkway is done, we'll pour decorative gravel around the perimiter, and then we'll have a patio!

Slate Tiles on the Front Step

This is the first part of my tile project on the front step and walkway. It was, well, a learning experience.

The tiles we chose are very uneven in height - they vary as much as 3/8", and they are supposed to be 1/2" thick.  Levelling them was a challenge, and I think that I mixed the mortar a little too wet and squishy which didn't help.

But, the colors of the tiles are beautiful. Once I scrub off the excess mortar on the tops, and get the grout and sealing done, I think it's going to look great!

And here's a longer shot, which includes the walkway leading up to the step. That's this weekend's project!