Afraid of Bugs – Tales from the Homestead of Casa Chihuahua

First Fridays at The Natural Museum of History

This past Friday we made it to the first of the 2010 First Fridays!

They had a “live exhibit” tour (which sadly we missed) and an extremely interesting lecture by Carol Hayashi on spider-silk.  There is so much I didn’t know – and I’m actually a teeny bit less terrified of spiders – not because they’re any less gross but out of respect for the incredible technology in their little bodies.

After the science geekery, we got to see Tune-Yards and Atlas Sound – while DJ’s played in some of the other rooms.

It was a bit strange having a beer or dancing while a stuffed bison stared out at you but i can’t wait to go back.

Jesse hanging out with the dinosaurs….

Yes, the mustache IS in 3-D

Check out the little spider-goats – yah!

Tune-Yards – simply amazing!

The next one is February 5th – I highly recommend it!!

Table Manners 101

While at my Mom’s over the holidays, Inca Dinka did her best to prove that she was human.  She jumped into Chloe’s booster seat and patiently waited for someone to bring her a plate of food.  She never put her hands (feet? paws?) on the table or tried to grab anything, she just sat there and waited.  My wonderful SIL, Elaine, gave Inca a hand (out) with a few little nibbles.  I have to say, she might be ready to take on cutlery!

“The service here sucks! I’ve been sitting her for 5 minutes and no one has offered me anything!”

Listening intently to the conversation at the table.

“Okay already – you can quit laughing at me now…”

So patient – especially with eggs and bacon within jumping range.

Waiting for the lecture on Spiders to start!

With just a few weeks before we hit the one year mark in our house – i started to comb through some of the photos from our move-in.

This one especially made me smile.  A small charred gift of cooked hot dogs & sausages that was left in the fridge.  The best house-warming gift…..ever.

Yah, we replaced the fridge right away…..

Fantasy Shopping for the Guest Room

Completely in love with the linens and textiles from Les Indiennes , Moroccan wedding blankets, natural distressed wood and Zellij tilework.  I just have to figure out how to bring all these elements together in our guest room on an Ikea budget.

I don’t talk about work here – or really anywhere for that matter- but the last 3 months of 2009 found me flying somewhere nearly every week from the start of november to mid-december.  It was fun (and necessary) in the beginning, but when i finally ended my travels for the year it hit me how exhausting this was.

It makes me really respect the road warriors out there – who for one work reason or another, fly every single week.  It’s a different world, being in another city every week and never really unpacking your suitcase.  My hat’s off to those of you who do this, you are warriors – even though I think I’d be down for this, I know now, that it would burn me out very quickly.

That said, I leave next week for chilly Minneapolis again- and then off to the far east at the end of February – but this is so much easier to handle.  I have ample time at home to “be normal” in-between. (And that backyard isn’t going to week itself!)

I love travel, and always will, but I also really love being at home.

Dreaming of a mantle place by next year…

Here’s some inspiration for what we’d like to do over our old fireplace.  Right now it has a flat stucco wall above and is surrounded by a single simple row of bricks.  We need to knock out a space above the fireplace to fix an area where the stucco has let go (probably happened at the same time the upstairs bathroom floor split into 2 levels…during a long ago earthquake)  The interior of the chimney it’s self is in great condition, the fix is merely cosmetic.  While the wall is open, we’re going to sink 2 long support rods into the wall, so we can mount a giant rustic slab of wood as the mantle….it’s going to be interesting to see how close my fantasy matches up to the reality.

I like the support beam look underneath – just not sure about the stone back ground. If possible i’d love to keep it on the white stucco ground, more like the old spanish homes.

Another look at the idea – without the supports underneath.

Evidence Found!

After reading the Den post – Jesse pulled up these photos from our original walk through – i guess we did have photos from the very beginning!

It’s just a teeny bit different now (but to be fair, at this very moment, the room has a bunch of half-unpacked boxes in it and still no “real” furniture.)

How the room looked when we came to see the house with our realtor – the door was padlocked shut….

If you look really hard, you can see the 8″ long cobwebs hanging off the ceiling.

Who wouldn’t want to buy this house!??

Ah, the glorious “side by side” – it took over a month to bring the room back to its glory and a bit more $ than I care to think about, but in the end, so worth it!  The good news is this is the only room in the house that needed this much work.

This month we’re finally getting a couch, a rug, side table, in-closet shelving, and curtains (the rods already here and waiting to be put up).

When a control freak just can’t let go.

After the windows were installed, the guys fixed the plaster around the window and did their best to level it all out.  The plan was to paint this area to match the walls but after the media room painting experience, I thought it was best for everyone, to just paint this room myself.  It didn’t really need to be totally repainted – but that’s exactly what I did.

Before we moved in, the guys did a lot of work in this room.  They replaced the failing plaster ceiling, fixed the huge cracks in the walls, pushed the exposed electrical inside the walls and gave it all a primer and top coat.  It looked great for a few months – but then i noticed that some suspicious orange spots started to appear along 2 walls.  These stains were all originally there – but the primer couldn’t keep them from blooming through the new paint.  Again, this is something most people wouldn’t have noticed, but it drove me nuts.

I laid down 2 coats of Kilz across the entire room and then used Dunn Edwards Whisper White flat and semi for the walls and doors.  This is the color we’ve used through out the house so far.  It’s a fairly clean bright white and really works with the sunlight and will make a nice backdrop to the riot of color I hope to bring into the house with our art, textiles and furniture.

Prepping the room – I washed the walls down with hot water and made sure to remove all the plaster dust left over from when they sanded around the window.

The room drying.  Once it was dry, I put on white powder coated brass electrical plates over the outlets so they would blend in.   (I did the black iron plates in the media room – but it worked with the wall color)

Later afternoon sun…..this is the room now….

and this is that corner then…yikes.

Since we haven’t replaced the sliding door yet (a bit too spendy for us right now) I weather proofed the door and caulked up the ill-fitting frame so its air tight now.  We still need to buy sconces (yes, almost a year later and still no sconces) – but from then on, its just the fun stuff – decorating!  I want to go with a moroccan blue and indigo color theme for the textiles in this room – and plan on doing a very subtle tile stencil design around the upper edge of the walls.  I’m also going to carry this out to the deck and plan on painting the ceiling of the deck with different moorish patterns in shades of turquoise, indigo and celedon…i’ve pulled tons of inspiration for the project….i just need to start mapping out the steps and the actual designs.

The sunset through the guest room window…..come and visit us soon!!

Stripping the non-toxic (somewhat) way

When I decided to take on the re-painting of the guest room, I took the opportunity to remove the door hardware so I could strip away the decades of built up paint.  In most cases the paint was the only thing holding the hardware to the door.

Here’s the removed hardware – awaiting a good scrub.  Its all facing down – so you can’t see the paint – not sure why i took the photo like that?

The door to the room – revealing brown, cream and white paint – i think there was even a touch of soft green as well. After removing the hardware, I lightly sanded down the paint build-up and then packed the over used screw holes with wood putty.

The closet door – here you can see the green paint.

Ta-da!  This is what a small pot of boiling vinegar, a piece of 000 steel wool, a tooth brush and some dental picks will get you!  I experimented with brass polish too, but it didn’t do anything extra.  I gave all the working parts a good spray with WD-40 as well.  Its amazing how a few seconds in the vinegar turns the paint into a soft skin that just slips off the metal.

The cleaned original inside door knob.

The main handle – paint free.  Happily, almost all the doors in the house have this original hardware.  I only need to find some good vintage hardware for the bathrooms.  I wonder what color these originally were.  Some of the pieces have come up very silver, some very brassy – i’m sure these were plated but its hard to tell what they looked like new.

The inside handle installed.  I ended up buying new brass wood screws for several of the pieces – as most of the screws had gone missing a long time ago.