OLFs

The OLF*s are here.

They are calling our house home base for the week while their parents jet across the country to a destination wedding.

Today as I sit at my desk shivering because the corporate air conditioning seems to be set to the lowest common denominator... they are at the beach with "auntie".

I believe they are at "aunties BIG beach". This is the beach we drive to (we can walk..but NOT with four year olds...whew). It boasts a concession stand with DORA ICE CREAM, a playground, places to play basketball, tennis or skateboard and a finely groomed beach with lifeguards. The girls LOVE this beach.

Sometimes we go to aunties 'little' beach. We walk there.

Our favorite activity there is to throw rocks into the water. It's a natural beach with no stands or bathrooms and NO grooming. This is the beach we frequent when we are alone. Its also the same stretch of beach where we launch our kayaks.

Near this beach...well technically on this beach is where we get 'breakfast on the patio'. Another favorite thing to do at weese and aunties house.










Then of course there is the playground at the elementary school around the corner. The routine is for the girls to get their purses (in which we have placed a dollar or two) and we walk over to the deli. There they get to pick a treat there - perhaps a cookie or an ice cream, maybe some candy. Then we walk up the street to the school playground (unless like today, its actually a school day).

Then we go back to auntie and weese's house where the fun will continue.


and so it will go until mommie and daddie come home.
I trust there is much swilling going on with mommie and daddie right now.














*Our Little Friends - our neices

finishing touches

When we last left our kitchen renovation - hmm, I believe we were here:

she loves the plywood counters i made her

A functioning kitchen with plywood counters and no trim.

This kitchen... oh this kitchen.
When we first moved in - this was the room we started to demo first. I blogged about that here.
Its been a delightful challenge ever since.

We lived with those plywood counters for a very LONG time. We knew we wanted butcher block - but evidently there was suddenly a huge RUN on butcher block. huh. Go figure.

Sometime during the time we were hunting down butcher block - the giant back window started to leak. As a stop gap measure - duct tape and plastic sufficed.

notice Ferris and the FREE dog do not seem to mind

Plywood and plastic...classy.
Can you see the plastic over the window? We then lived like this for another LONG time. It felt suffocating.

After much research and calling and begging(ok we really didn't beg - we just wrote a check) - we finally acquired some butcher block.
To save some money we spent hours in the garage (later to be the studio) sanding and treating them ourselves.

she is such a perfectionist

They came out pretty nice.

 

 

 

Since that time - we've had (all) the windows replaced.  I trimmed around this giant window myself- and my rather flexible wife installed delicious backsplash tile.

 

And then the finishing touch..

 

We had purchased a counter depth fridge and had our cabinets designed to fit that fridge size - but these are stock cabinets, not custom, and so there was a gap over the fridge of just a few inches (you can actually see it in the first picture above.). So when we had the under cabinet lighting installed we asked the electrician to put a light tucked up under the cabinet that sat over the fridge with a separate switch.

 

Well - in getting good use of her new studio - my clever wife finally found time to pull this all together.

 A close up - because I can't seem to capture the amazing colors and textures of this piece with my crappy camera.

 

 ...more stained glass pieces to come.



the season begins

 

Here we are first day of our kayak season.

Today's activity will be to make seaglass.

First we carefully prepare each new recepticle.

 Once its ready (empty) we launch it.

and thats all there is to it... well other than the retrieval proces - which we do on land.

Judgemental?

I wondered... what does the woman in the hot pink pants suit think of my outfit?

Memorial Day



firemen in the parade

When this dapper fire captain hopped out of ranks to steal a kiss from his gal and then skampered back into line it was a sweet moment.

 

Thats my Bubba*.
And Bubba is happy.
Ah... spring is in the air and love is grand.

Happy spring Bubba!


*Bubba is my big brother.

The Prodigal Free Dog

For reasons we cannot fathom, the Free Dog still lives with us down here by the sea.

Free dog is getting older and slower, as are we. So by the time we all smelled the skunk - it was too late.
And despite previous experience on both our parts - we all succumbed to rookie mistakes.

And so the next several hours into the night we washed and aired and washed again.

We spent the next day airing the house with the windows WIDE open.
Just in time for pollen.
It seems that ALL the pollen came off EVERY tree yesterday.
Our entire decor is now a lovely ochre.

Things are smelling better in here today. The odor is mostly contained to the basement where Free Dog has her bed.
Which is in my office.
Which is where I am now ... I knew I should have gotten a laptop instead.

If you want somthing done right...

First hire a professional, then redo the parts you don't like.

So last year we had the screen porch added.

from last year

We used it ALOT.

For the winter I got an idea to use these heavy clear tarps so we wouldn't have to store all the patio furniture inside somewhere else.


porch bubble

This was was both a swimming success... and a failure.













I say failure because these clear plastic panels were HEAVY, and difficult to put up. I could see right away this was not going to be conducive to my plans of aging gracefully.
That said - the porch was toasty warm on sunny days. Even tho there was tremendous air leakage - it was still very comfortable on some very cold days. This was a pleasant surprise.

So this spring we had two issues to solve.
First, my wife detested the way the contractor had installed the screens. The white outlined effect detracted from the simplicity of the room, and frankly looked cheap. She particularly disliked the white horizontal bar around the entire space just at eye level when seated.
I disliked the screens for the practical purposes of fixing and cleaning them.

So they had to go...

why does it always rain when i work outside

After removing all the screens and trim I reframed the spacing and added a sill plate all around the bottom and making the openings closer to four foot, vs. the eight foot spans originally.

still some landscaping in progress around the base of the porch

We are now ready to order some new screens.
I've got something in mind...
I hope this idea is better than my last.