Spanish style home in L.A.

If you share my love of Spanish revival style houses then you should definitely head over to Cococozy and check out this gorgeous L.A. home. It is a little too much house for us, but I love how bright and airy it is.

Funny thing is I didn't show this to Andy because I figured he's probably sick of hearing me talk about houses. A few days later he came across the same house and showed it to me, saying that he really liked it!

DIY - Headboard Edition

I've been wanting a headboard for a while now and I've finally decided to try and make my own! The first time I looked at headboards I was hit with major sticker shock. So when my old roommate and friend Megan made her own I was inspired. I may not be quite as crafty as her, but I figured it's worth a shot, especially if it means saving a few hundred dollars!

I plan to keep it simple by making a rectangular headboard, no fancy sawing and upholstering involved. It's also important to me that it be a full length headboard, not just a small version that gets hung on the wall. First, I prefer the look when you can't tell that it ends right below the pillows and second, I like to avoid putting any extra holes in the wall whenever possible.

As far as the fabric, I was envisioning a neutral fabric color such as beige or light green that is likely go with whatever bedding we have. Something like the photos below:

However, during a recent trip to Jo-Ann fabrics to get an idea what our options are Andy rejected my neutral idea in favor of something bold with a cool pattern. My main concern is that if we have a bold headboard our bedding options will be limited to a solid that compliments the headboard and finding bedding is difficult enough without any color and pattern constraints.

Now, I will admit that Andy usually goes along with my decor choices so I'm trying to hear him out on this one. I turned to decorpad to see if I could find some bold headboards for inspiration. Here are a few I found:

Never one to jump into anything, I'm still mulling over all the options. (This is where Andy would jump in and tell you about some study that concludes that too many choices make people less happy because they continue to question their decision even after they've made their selection.) In the meantime I'm also drawing up plans for the headboard and making a list of all the supplies I will need.

DIY - Done!

I'm torn - I love to decorate and to have a home which truly reflect our style, but I can be incredibly frugal. So, what's a gal like me supposed to do when we have a perfectly good coffee table that just isn't working for me? Besides a few minor scratches my only real complaint was that the color was too light for my taste and it didn't seem to go with the rest of our darker, more contemporary furniture. I decided I would try to give it some new life with a little sanding and staining.

Before I get into all the details, here are the before and after photos:

{Before}

{After)

See our beige carpet in the second photo? Before, the light coffee table blended right in. Now, it pops!

I expected this to be a quick weekend project, but it ended up taking me a month or more, off and on. First I had to sand the table, removing all the old polyurethane. I bought an electric sander which I used for the top and some of the sides and sanded the edges by hand. I'm still not sure if it was the sander I bought or my technique (the more likely of the two), but I spent at least 2 hours sanding and except for a few spots I didn't get all the way down to the bare wood. I knew I needed to get it all off, but at a certain point I stopped caring and moved on to the staining process. 

For the stain I used Minwax wood finish in red mahogany. My first mistake here was going with the stain brush recommended to me by the guy at Home Depot. The brush was fine for the top, but too wide for the rest of the table so as I tried to paint one side of the leg the bristles would bend around the corner and some stain would get on the other side of the table leg. This resulted in the stain building up near the edges. My second mistake was not wiping the stain off soon enough so the whole thing became sticky and took forever to dry. And my third mistake (yes, I made a lot of mistakes) was not using a wood conditioner before I applied the stain. When I saw the wood conditioner at the store I figured it was a waste of money, but apparently it really does help, especially for a soft wood like pine. Live and learn!

The initial color was a beautiful lighter reddish color, but due to the splotches (from lack of conditioning) I knew I needed to apply a second coat. After letting it sit for a week I figured it was dry and with some cheap foam brushes of various sizes I set out for coat #2. The foam brushes worked much better than the fancy and more expensive stain brush. 

After letting the stain dry for another few days it was time for the polyurethane. I went with Minwax fast-drying semi-gloss polyurethane. After the first coat there seemed to be a whitish haze, possibly from not stirring the can enough. After sanding the top I realized that some of the stain at the edges came off so I applied the second coat of poly to the top, but left the rest with just one coat.

The final step was replacing the wooden knobs for some more modern looking brushed nickel ones. When all is said and done I think it turned out pretty good. It's not perfect, but it was a good start and I learned a lot along the way. In fact, Andy is so impressed with my work that he wants me to tackle the bedroom dresser next! However, I've got a totally different project in mind. 

So, have you ever tried your hand at refinishing a piece of furniture? If so, how did it turn out?

Career choices

Are there any other careers that you considered pursuing before you ended up where you are now? What else would you consider if you weren't in your current field?

I always felt a little lost because there were a number of things I considered before I decided to pursue optometry, unlike Andy and most of my friends who always seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do. Some of the other careers that interested me:

• Genetic counselor 
• Photographer
• Wedding/event planner
• French teacher, or English teacher in France

I was just thinking about this as I was browsing a well known photographer's blog and thinking how I wished I could take such beautiful photos or at least had more free time to get out and practice. Maybe I just need to make some time!

Vacation, Day 10

Sunday, May 9th

We heard from numerous people that we chose the perfect week to visit San Francisco since it had been cold and rainy before our arrival. Most days were cool and crisp - perfect for wearing a light jacket during the day and layering up as the sun disappeared. On Sunday we woke up to a dreary looking sky and felt a few sprinkles as we got into our car to go to the airport so it seemed like a good time to head home.

We chose to visit California for two reasons. First, for a fun vacation and anniversary getaway, which it definitely was. The second reason we chose California was because it is one of the places Andy would like us to consider living and I didn't want to make such a big move without having ever been there myself.

All in all it was a great trip! I feel more comfortable about the idea of moving there now that I've visited. It's still far from home and expensive, but the weather is nice, the people seemed friendly, and I love that you can have the best of both worlds - beach and mountains within a few hours of each other. So, while I'm not saying that we will move to California, it is within the realm of possibilities.


Just for comparison, above are graphs of the monthly highs and lows, with our current locale on the left and San Francisco on the right. San Francisco gets about 10-20 degrees cooler in the winter, but even in the coolest months the lows are still well above freezing. In the summer, it gets to be in the 90s here (it's currently 91 degrees and I feel like I just opened the oven door when I step outside), but it's in the 70's there! Oh, what I would give for 70 degree weather right now!

Vacation, Day 9

Saturday May 8^th

Our last full day in San Francisco! We started the day with breakfast at Café de la presse (so good we had to go back). This time we split pancakes and French toast which was absolutely delicious!

From there we walked through part of China town.

On our way to Coit tower we realized how out of shape we are. We had to walk up a very steep road to get to the base of the 210 foot tower and by the time we made it there we were totally winded. However, the walk was well worth it.

 

Inside at the base of Coit tower are a number of murals done as part of the Public Works of Art Project.

 

An old fashioned manned elevator takes you to the top. From there a short spiral stairway leads to an outdoor rotunda with amazing views of the city.

Our next destination was Lombard Street, also known as the crookedest street in the world.

A charming house near Lombard Street.

From there we walked down to the Pier 39 area and rode a street car back to our hotel.

This was our view as we walked from Lombard Street towards the Pier, with Alcatraz in the distance.

A Segway tour group passed by. After all of the walking we did we were feeling a bit envious! 

Seeing the street cars pass by always made me laugh - they look so old that it makes me feel like I've gone back in time! Every car has the city where it was made stamped on the side. The one we rode on was made in Milan, Italy and it was packed! There were 2 rows of seats on either side of the aisle and 2 rows of people standing down the middle. 

And of course, no trip to San Francisco would be complete without a ride on one of the famous cable cars, which we boarded at the cable car turnaround right next to our hotel.

 

We hopped off at Mason Street and toured the cable car powerhouse and museum which was very interesting. Inside, the winding wheels can be seen pulling the cables along their tracks.

The cables for each of the 3 lines are pulled along continuously. If one of the strands in the wire becomes frayed an alarm sounds and that night they must cut out the damaged part and splice in new wire. They have a window of a few hours each night in which they can make repairs to the lines.

We tried nearly every means of transportation while we were in the city: subway, taxi, bus, street car, cable car, rental car, and towncar. And to say we did a lot of walking would be an understatement!

In the evening we took a 45 minute bus ride to Twin Peaks and took photos. From the top of the hill the wind was so strong that we had to hold onto everything to prevent it from blowing away. Our new, lightweight tripod, while perfect for carrying around, was no match for the wind and most of our photos came out a bit blurry. In addition to the strong wind, the temperature had to be in the 30's. As a true Floridian I was wearing thick socks, leggings under my jeans, tank top, long sleeved shirt, 2 jackets, mittens, and a scarf and I was still cold!

Where I'm At

I'm in the process of finishing up my last post about our vacation and hope to have that done within the next couple of days so keep an eye out for that! Tweaking the photos in photoshop, resizing, uploading, and aligning everything is the time consuming part of things.

In other news, I will finally be able to take down the "Coming Soon" sign that you see when you click on that little DIY link at the top of this blog since I finally finished the DIY project I've been working on for the last month or so. Phew! Naive me thought I would have it done in a weekend! Maybe if I had properly done my research I would have, but I'm more of a dive right in type of gal. Now I just need to take the after photos and write it up! Annnd...I've already got another DIY project in mind, but no promises as to when I'll get started with that. 

And on a sadder note, my trip to Jamaica has been cancelled! I was really looking forward to going, but there were safety concerns due to the current violence that's going on in Kingston. There's still a possibility that we may go later, once the violence has died down, but it's still up in the air. The upside to all of this is that it frees me up to possibly go with Andy to visit some of his family out of state. (Andy and I have known each other for 9 years now - we started dating over 5 years ago and have been married 1 year and there are still a lot of family members I have yet to meet! Can you believe that?)