Narrowing It Down

Ok. I've chosen the bin pulls for the cabinet and the finish I want all the kitchen hardware to be. Here's the bin pulls:

The finish is brushed nickle. I want the lights to be like that too and the faucet. I still have to pick out the knobs for the cabinets though. I can't decide if metal, glass, or porcelain would be best. Rejuvenation has a bunch of cool ones, but for some reason their online store doesn't seem to have many options in the brushed metal finish. Here are some choices, what do you think??

Metal #1

Metal #2

Glass #1

Glass #2

Porcelain #1

Porcelain #2

Salvage Building

My sister, Molly, and I went to a great place this weekend in East Palo Alto called Whole House Building Supply and Salvage. It's this place that takes apart houses that are going to be demolished, piece by piece, and sells the recycled materials to the public. They also get a bunch of donations. The place was amazing. It was kind of like an organized junk yard that went on and on forever. They had absolutely everything...wood, picket fences, antique and modern windows, doors, toilets, sinks, tubs, bricks, ducks (yes, really), hardware, lights...everything! I'm definitely going back there with all my door measurements and buying a bunch of old doors that belong in a house like ours. There were also a bunch of cool bricks that caught my eye and some glass french doors that I want to make into mini greenhouses in the vegetable garden some day. Getting lost in isle after isle of doors was fun, but the best part of the day was when the guy who worked there told us that they were actually doing a house demolition that day and gave us a map to a nice neighborhood in Palo Alto. We decided to drive by and check it out and I'm so glad we did. When we got there the ladies in the garage gave us a price list with over 200 items on it all corresponding to something in the house. It was so weird! All these people were hurrying around (kind of like vultures) tearing out every last piece of the house. There were big holes in the walls where window used to be and bathroom cabinets with no more sinks in them. Some guy was taking out the front door when we were there and there were sold stickers on nearly everything. I even got caught up in the excitement and bought an old wooden potting bench for the back yard!
The sale lasted Saturday and Sunday, and then on Monday the house would be demolished and anything that wasn't sold gets taken back to the shop. It's actually a pretty great concept. Recycle, Reduce, Reuse, right?

A cell phone pic of what was left of the master bathroom shower!

My new potting bench!

Slow and Steady

Here's a little update on the house. We've been here about 3 weeks and it's great. We have hot water now, a closed up kitchen floor that's not a hole to the underworld anymore, and most importantly, internet. We've still have a lot of boxes to go through, but we've gone through enough to finally consolidate them all in one room (the "kitchen"), which means we can actually use the others! My old wood shop teacher from junior high came up on Wednesday and we signed a contract to get our cabinets done in the kitchen, which I'm extremely excited about. Finish date for the cabinets is Feb. 28, but he said more than likely he'll get them done sooner. It seems like a long time away, but I have a feeling it will go by quickly. I have yet to pick out the hardware for the cabinets, kitchen lights, or a faucet so I guess having some extra time is a good thing. The weather's been so nice lately that all I want to do is work in the yard, but I've have to make myself stay indoors instead and work on house.
The house is starting to feel more and more like home. Things are finding their places and the house is starting to take on our personality. It's all coming together!

The front entry with a great rug from Jose's dad, Javier.

The living room.

Another flea market find from Javier.

The dining room, looking into the living room. We still have paper on some of the hardwood floor to protect it. I can't wait til we don't need it anymore, though.

The front room/office. The oak desk is from my dad's workshop in Hollister. I love it.

My camera collection, finally displayed properly (thanks to Jose's great suggestion). Maybe I'll even use them more now that I'll have to look at them everyday!

The multi-purpose bathroom sink.

My garden table fits perfectly on the front porch.

The succulents also found a home on the porch.

A flea market find from Jose's dad. I need to find the right plant for it.

Hammering the final nails in the kitchen floor.

Ceiling Fans

Right now we have a couple ugly ceiling fans in the house. The one in the living room belongs in a tropical breeze house, and I just don't like the bedroom one. I've been looking for some other fans. Here's a few I like.

Our current living room fan.

I like the simplicity of this one. I think it's my favorite one, but it has not light on it :(


This looks cool, but I'm worried it might look cheap in person.

This might be too big for the space, but it's cool.


I like this a lot.

Another nice one. It may hang too low, though.

How's this one?
Or this?

Temporary Kitchen

Since we have no kitchen right now, we've set up a little temporary kitchen in the dining room. It kind of reminds me of a hotel room, only without the mini-fridge stocked with mini liquor bottles and candy bars! We've got a microwave, a coffee maker for Jose, and some non-perishable food items. It was weird shopping for only food that could be microwaved...I didn't know what to eat! I settled on baked beans, many cans of various soups, chips, out meal, and peanut butter. Now if only we could find the can opener...

Hardware Dilemma

I have to choose hardware for the kitchen (sink faucet, bin pulls for the drawers, and knobs for the cupboards). The only other pieces of hardware we've bought so far for the house are the back door dead bolt and knob, which are black. I think I want all the door knobs in the house to be black like those (I think the look is called oil rubbed bronze). So my dilemma...if all the door knobs are black (and maybe even eventually the light fixtures, light switch covers, etc), do the bin pulls and knobs in the kitchen need to be black too? And does the kitchen faucet have to match or is it ok to be chrome or some other metal? All the appliances are brushed stainless steel, so I don't know if that makes a difference. What do I do??

I love the look of this one, but the color probably won't work. It also comes in chrome, brushed nickel, and some others. Not black.

I really like this one. I like the tall, movable pot filler spout. It comes in chrome, polished or matte nickel. Matte nickel might be cool. Not as shiny.

This one is cool, but the faucet may be too low to fill pots.

Brushed nickel bin pull from Rejuvenation

Same one in black.

Another Rejuvenation pull. You can choose any metal finish.

I like the rustic look.

Some more options.

I like the shape and color of this one.

I like the matte finish on these door sets from Rejuvenation (all their door knobs are ridiculously priced though!)

Some more cool, expensive sets.

I love this one. I'd like it for the front door.

We Moved In!!!

Yep, that’s right! It felt like it would never happen, but just in time for Christmas, Jose and I moved into our new house! Never mind that we have no hot water and our kitchen is still just a hole in the ground. The other ¾ of the house is livable so we loaded up Jose’s van and started moving in as soon as the floors were done Tuesday night. I don’t think we slept at all that first night though. I was scared of creepy, crawly things coming in through the kitchen hole so I made sure the plastic covering where our bedroom door was supposed to be was sealed tightly. And the fish tank that has been living on the bathroom sink was noisy, so we had that door closed too. Unfortunately, this made our bedroom into a sealed, hot bubble of varnish fumes, and in the middle of the night, I felt like I was suffocating and had to rip all the plastic down so we could breathe! I woke up tired and with a headache, but it was totally worth it!
Now the fumes and the plastic are gone and we’re working on finding places to unload all of our many, many boxes of crap! I can’t believe how much stuff we have. We’re trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible and next weekend we’re going to have a yard sale, but letting go of things is never as easy as I think it’s going to be! We’re slowly getting through it though, and with each box emptied, the house is looking better and better! We’re so excited!!

Our first night in the house! Note the plastic on the door.

Piles and piles of boxes!

Our new flea market clock and lamps. The clock actually works, which is more than I can say for one of the lamps!

My dad's in the process of building new shelves in the closets.

I was hoping for a real tree this year, but these will have to do!

For an old house, the closets actually aren't too bad. Lots of room for clothes!

My new flea market lamp fits in well in the bedroom.

The fish finally moved out of the bathroom! It's not a perfect set-up, but it'll do for now.

Jose is VERY happy to have a place to listen to all his records again! They're the first things he unpacked.