Dirt colored houses

Dirt coloured houses are popular in Southern California. I don't mean dirt in the US sense, as in, soil. Although soil coloured houses are quite popular. I mean dirt as in the color of grime, or dust. Sludge is a popular house paint choice too. So is clay. Also bile. Oh, and anything that suggests putrefecation.

Don't believe me? Here is a truly random selection of homes within a mile of our place.

Our house was the colour of dirt when we bought it. Dirt with a grubby blue trim.

This picture is a little bleached out but in reality the colour of the stucco wa akin to the colour of dirty sea scum after a heavy rain. Or the wax and sea salt layer on top of TLOML's surfboard.

Uncanny, isn't it?

Well, our grimy days are over. We just repainted. White! Clean, coastal, soft white.

TLOML was a little concerned that it will show the dirt. But I think we can all agree that even a dirty white house is preferable to a house the colour of actual dirt.

Californian closets

It turns out bedrooms are not required by state law to have a built-in closet. Which surprises me because realtors will say stuff like 'It's really four bedrooms but they've listed it as three because this one doesn't have a closet'. As if a closet is as essential as a door and a window.

Requiring a closet might not be the law but it is pretty common practice. All the houses we've lived in or snooped around have built-ins in every room. And most master bedrooms have walk-ins. To the extent that I now think that closets like this are normal.

I'm not showing off when I saw I know people with closets like this. I've been in closets like this. I think this is how clothes ought to live (now I'm a Californian).

Sadly our new house, despite its ample storage, does not feature a walk in closet. I know. It's pretty unbelievable. Instead our clothes are stored in a series of closets in and around the bathroom. I've learned to live with it by calling it a dressingroom-cum-bathroom but the more aspirational real estate I see, the harder this cross is to bear.

Our closet-cum-bathroom. I know.

I daydream about ripping the whole dressing-room-cum-bathroom out and replacing it with a walk-in and a wet room. But I also daydream about a pergola, new dining chairs and a new bannister. Meanwhile TLOML not only dreams of (but actually sorts out) termite-free fencing, and new window cranks.

So for now I've had to go for a cheaper facelift. It's hard to describe just how happy I felt on achieving this transformation.

BEFORE: The horror of mis-matched hangers

AFTER: Aaaah

I guess I don't need a fancy walk in closet when $30 worth of hangers makes me feel so good.

No change

I haven't posted for a while because, honestly, I've got nothing to say. Nothing's changed. But then I got an email at work entitled 'Changes taking effect October 1' which contained this brilliant message:

Well, if it's good enough for Big Corp, I suppose it's good enough for me. So here's a run down of some of the things that haven't changed here.

It's still warm and sunny here every day. We are still spending lots of time at the beach. And we are still delighted with our new house. Every weekend since we moved in we have had friends come over for a beach afternoon followed by happy hour drinks on the deck. Every single weekend: eight in a row so far and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

As for Lady P, she is still enjoying school. She also still loves apples. So every day I pick her up with an apple for us to share on the way home. Also a new tradition I don't see changing.

In the six years that TLOML and I have been together and I've been telling Transatlantic Tales, we've been in an almost constant state of flux and discovery, always with some new adventure to blog about or some new finding to share. While this period of 'no change' has left me short on blog material, it's still rather nice.

What a difference a lick of paint makes

We’ve been busy moving house this past week. It was our shortest move ever – just ¾ mile down the road from the much loved Sugar Cube into our shiny, new house. Shiny and new because we had a little cosmetic work done before we moved in.

We just refinished the floors, and had the whole place repainted. so it really was only cosmetic, but what a difference it made to the way the house looks and feels. Most of all, we made it our own.

We flipped the dark kitchen and dining room into something altogether lighter, brighter, and vaguely Skandi looking. With the bonus of American appliances, natch. Oh, and my upcycled table of course. 

Someone else's dining room

Someone else's kitchen

Our kitchen/ diner

We turned the 1980s law library into a cheery workspace befitting a SoCal beach lover and his Brit bookworm.

Someone else's home office

Ours

And in Lady P’s room we created a sunny homage to the Sugar Cube, complete with a scaled down front door.

 

Lady P's 'little house'

The Sugar Cube, seen through palms

We painted pretty much every inch of the rest of the house white, which makes it feel clean and fresh and new. And ours.

We do miss our rambling back garden but are consoled by sunset drinks on the deck. Lady P has done some naked sliding into the paddling pool on the astro turf, and planted some chard seeds, so I feel that she isn’t too badly off either.

One week in and we are almost unpacked. We are still waiting for our new king mattress to arrive so we can move into the mater, and we have the small matter of 40 pieces of art to hang, but other than that I’d say we’re home. And this time, it’s for the long term. It’s a very very nice feeling.

An orderly home

I love a system. A way of working, and a place to keep things. Preferably labelled.

We have a basket which gets taken to (containing snacks, for example) and from (perhaps with a printed out recipe in it) our home office each day.

My books are shelved chronologically (by author, and by their most significant works if they wrote for many decades).

And I file my underwear by colour.

TMI?

I think Lady P has the same compulsion. She spends hours putting things in order, with a great sense of urgency and a very serious, determined expression on her face. As a result, I keep finding things out of their usual place. I guess according to Lady P's system, they are just where they ought to be.

The doll must be placed right in the middle of the door step.

All of these rocks - but absolutely no other rocks - need to be put in to the orange bucket.

The shampoo, of course, goes in the buggy.

Quite why she was rushing to the end of the garden with a bottle of vanilla extract I do not know.

But I'm sure she did. A place for everything and everything in its place.

Furnishing the Sugar Cube

Furnishing the Sugar Cube itself is no great challenge. Its modest size will happily accommodate our modest furniture. We had to buy some bookcases and a new sofa bed and that's about it.

Furnishing the garden which surrounds the Sugar Cube is not so easy. As well as the lovely, pebbled backyard we have a patio alongside the living room, and a newly landscaped area next to the office.

The backyard, complete with grape arbour

The office's backyard

And to fill all these various, spacious spaces, we have... a small bistro table and two chairs.

The right thing to do, for the long term, is to go and buy a good, solid teak dining table and chairs. The arbour is about 15 foot long, and is crying out for a long Italian-style table. Then we need a picnic table or a bench, or both, for the space by the office. A breakfast-sized table and chairs for the patio, which is closest to the kitchen so a natural spot for morning coffee in the sunshine. And maybe some lower seating there too, so we can chill outside while Lady P learns to walk / ride a bike/ skateboard on the patio. Oh, and a couple of loungers for this sunny spot in the backyard.

My guestimate suggests that to furnish the entire outside space the way we'd like, we'd need to sell the baby, or a kidney, or both. So it's time to be creative (or, as some might put it, cheap).

I know, I know, first world problems.

Settling In

As you know I do love a routine. A rut  is a comfortable place for me to be. And we've quickly established one here. I often get up early to work, and take work calls in the evenings too. So I always walk away from my desk around 7am for a leisurely breakfast and lengthy conversation about animal sounds with Lady P. I love that time together, when she's full of the news from her dreams and her décor ('hoo hoo' for the owl, and so on), and thrilled by the birds flying over the patio, and her morning milk, and pushing her little cart around. It's also the perfect time to skype my much-missed little sister and catch up on her news, which is more intelligible.

Whenever I can, I log off early too, so I can dispatch Dani, the nanny and get some more quality time with Lady P. We usually go for a walk, run some errands, and wander along the Strand. There's a swing set there that Dani won't use for fear of the buggy being stolen (it's not very sand friendly, so you have to leave it by the path while you use the swings which are about 30 feet away). Dani's from Rio, so I can understand her concern – I was once mugged by a 6 year old on Copacabana beach – but this is Hermosa, so I park up the buggy and forget about it while Lady P kicks excitedly as soon as she sees the swing set. That wade across the 30 feet of sand must feel like an eternity to her, and she's usually fit to burst by the time we reach the swing set. Sometimes we go home via the shops, sometimes we take the scenic route up a walk street or along the woodchip path. Whatever we do it is a highlight of my day, as Lady P is such good company and so full of wonder at the stuff we pass: overhead phone wires, dogs, people playing volleyball and the apple stand at Von's are all sources of delight.

Trundling along the Strand

The swings I like best

So the fact that I'm away with work, on the East Coast from Sunday night till Friday this week, is making me a bit miserable. What's worse is that our container is finally ready for delivery, which means TLOML has to deal with the hassle of that on his own. That's a double blow because I feel guilty for not being there to help, and also anxiety about where he'll put things without me there to micromanage the unpack. I have delivered a strict briefing about the kitchen system, but fear some of the details may have fallen on deaf ears.

Ah well, it's not all bad news. There are at least three silver linings in the cloud: 1) I get to have dinner with my favourite New Yorker 2) When I'm back we will be truly settled, sofa, egg timer and all. And 3) I intend to clawback all the extra hours I'm now 'owed' from this week of travel and spend them all hanging out with Lady P. In a fully furnished Sugar Cube!

When our ship comes in

Our shipment is en route with all our stuff, presumably chugging slowly along the Panama canal as I type.

In the meantime we have a small perfectly formed house in which to live. We are making do with some gap-filling bits and bobs. I've described it as camping but it's better than that. Still, I miss our stuff and am looking forward to being reunited with lots of material possessions. Yes, I'm that shallow.

But our ship is carrying all the little things that make a house a home. Not just the sofa and dining table, and all our clothes. Also a lifetime's worth of books, a lovely orange plate from my granny, TLOML's childhood baseball glove, and you know, tchotchkes. And useful things that we could replace, but it seems wasteful to do so when the ship will be docking in a couple of weeks. For example, my clever egg timer that cooks in the pan with the eggs. Last night's devilled eggs were a little on the soft side. And, for another example, a cheese grater. I guess I might be taking Von's up on that offer after all.

When our ship comes in we can watch TV from a sofa, not a rug.

When our ship comes in we will eat at a dining table, seated on dining chairs. The office chairs will be deployed to the office, where they belong.

When our ship comes in the beach towels will be for the beach, and our nice bathroom will get the fluffy white towels it deserves.

When our ship comes in we can relegate the sofa bed to the guest room and sleep on a Queen again.

When our ship comes in I will have more than three pairs of trousers to choose from. And I can keep them on coathangers too!

And perhaps most importantly, when our ship comes in Lady P will have a proper cot, and all her toys and books. We can throw out the Pampers box and install her toy box, and instead of reading stories sitting on the floor, we can get cosy on her daybed. We may even have replaced the crappy paper blackout blinds with something pretty by then too.

Hurry up, ship!

The cull

It's always nice to have a clear out and get rid of some clobber. Having moved 4 times in the last 4 years we have had that opportunity plenty. Still, stuff accumulates. So before the packers came this morning to pack and load our stuff up, and before we pay through the nose to have it all shipped out, we did a quick cull.

This is partly about throwing out possessions that have outlived their usefulness. Clothes, old baby things, books that have been read and aren't worth keeping, that sort of thing. But there's also a category of possessions which are perfectly useable - but we just won't need to use them.

Some of the things we won't need in California are:

• My large collection of Oyster card holders, including this limited edition gem from an old Arts Council promotion. We're not going to need a lot of public transport accessories where we're heading.

• Our little milk pan (scratched and worn from overuse). We use it for warming TLOML's milk for coffee, as we don't have a microwave. And we have a special freezer-friendly plastic bowl we use to store ice in, since we don't have an icemaker. It's actually against Californian property law to rent out a property without an icemaker. I think. So both of those items can be left behind.
• Socks. When we last lived there I think I wore socks for a few weeks out of the year. So any substandard, slightly worn out, fall down too easily pairs are going to go. Best socks only make the cut.
• Coats, gloves, and hats too.  When you don't wear a coat every day for months on end, you don't need a few options to rotate. So I'm waving goodbye to the older, less favoured coats. We'll keep some for when we go away. After all, we're visiting Saltburn again in June. Just kidding: I was bare legged and sleeveless all summer this year. I'll really only need winter clothes for travel: winter visits to cooler cities, July jaunts to San Fran, and that one week of the year it's actually a bit chilly in LA and everyone gets excited about being able to light a fire. For the rest of the time we'll be like everyone else in LA, and keep our winter warm layers mothballed in the attic.
• All stationery items designed for standard ISO paper. As in, the paper size system that is used across the whole rest of the world. You know, the perfectly logical system where an A0 sheet folds down to make A2, A3 and so on, and all our envelopes and folders match up. North American favours a quirky system of two competing and very similar sizes of paper ('Letter' and 'Legal') and so all my C5 envelopes and A4 folders are being culled. American paper sizes is one of the things of the things that makes me sad about America (along with gun control laws and the religious right. But I'll keep politics out of it).
• All the little plastic drawers and wire hanging trays I've bought to supplement our bathroom and clothes storage in our rented places here. Even the most basic US rental will have proper built in closets, and a bathroom with a decent storage. Of course, that's because they were all built within the last 50 years. For what it's worth, I'd always happily trade in convenient closet spaces for characterful period properties. But as characterful period properties are in short supply in California, I'll embrace the spacious, many-shelved closets of the 1980s bungalow instead.
• This parking disk, for use in a scheme beloved by those who run Yorkshire's market towns. 'Free disk parking' signs completely baffled TLOML when he first saw them, though I'm proud to say he adapted as quickly to disk parking in Northallerton as I did to valet parking at The Grove.

It's almost a shame we are culling this stuff, as in our new, walk-in closeted, two-car-garaged* lifestyle we'd actually have room for all the crap we've thrown out.

-------------

*This is the kind of house I picture us in, purely fictional/ aspirational at this point pending actual house hunt and lease signing.

Nesting, for real

Having used the cot as storage furniture for the past few weeks, TLOML and I were finally consumed with an urge to do a little more to set up the nursery. Knowing that we were just a few short weeks off 'full term' gave us that nudge.

So in the week before Christmas we washed all the newborn clothes, toys, blankets and swaddle cloths we have acquired. Then I was overcome with a burning desire to organise them all into tidy little piles. Which involved a major overhaul of our linen drawers, a fair amount of rummaging around for cardboard boxes to store surplus sheets and towels, a lot of huffing and puffing and an immense sense of satisfaction.

Cleaned, categorised, piled up tidily. V satisfying.

I guess this is the thin end of the nesting wedge. So it seems I'm not immune, after all.

Christmas has been a great distraction. All that baking and cooking. The organising and wrapping and putting into logical piles of gifts. It's good displacement activity. Even so, on Boxing Day I did find myself frenziedly stitching little ribbon hooks onto tea towels 'so they would hang better'. I think this might be what nesting feels like.

Now the seasonal jollities are almost over I can get on with this nesting business in earnest. Hmm, I think that rocking chair would benefit from a quick going over with some Cif. 

Nesting... or not?

I have landed safely on the shores of my third trimester. I understand there are some certainties in this land.

The first is heartburn. Check. Having hardly suffered at all I am now paralysed with acid reflux every time I bend at the waist, no matter what I’ve eaten. The good news is that since it doesn’t seem to be any better if I eat like a bird all day, I’m not bothering to eat like a bird at all, ever. Given that I’m going to suffer whether I eat pizza or salad, I’m eating pizza.

Speaking of birds, the second certainty is apparently nesting. Apparently I should be seized with a compulsive urge to dust the curtain rails, make a quilt, and clear out the cellar.

Sadly the only thing I feel a compulsion for is whisky, espresso and other banned (or severely limited) delights. Maybe all nesting really is displacement energy, distracting pregnant ladies from the stuff they really want to be doing – like sipping Perfect Manhattans - with boring household chores.

Well, the nesting instinct may not have struck but I’m not totally ignorant of the needs of my unborn child. I know she, and her parents, will need a lot of clobber. So TLOML and I did a big spree - mainly so we could avoid shopping in the Christmas or January Sales crush.

For a couple of weeks the clobber stayed piled up in a big mess in the corner. Which, despite my nesting-trimester status, did not bother me one little bit.

 

Then, this weekend we went on a birthing course and suddenly the reality hit us. We really are going to have a baby, a real live one of our own, and she could be here in just a few weeks.

So TLOML got all organised and built the cot – mainly to use as storage, admittedly. So our baby’s clobber is now all neatly tucked away in the corner of TLOML’s office. We’re planning to leave Fox Corner in the spring - because we just haven't moved house enough lately - so the baby isn’t going to get a room of her own until we move I’m afraid.

I still don’t think this counts as nesting. I mean, I couldn’t even be bothered to take stuff out of boxes or categorise it properly. (And you know how I like to categorise.).

Is there something wrong with me? Will I ever truly nest? Or is our child destined to enter a world where her monitor lives in a box, she shares her storage space with a printer, and she wears her John Lewis clothes with the tags still in?

The spoils of love

Married life, happily, continues pretty much in the same vein as pre-married life.

But there's one big exception. Thanks to the generosity of friends and family, married life is considerably more comfortable and better equipped.

Now, let me be clear: TLOML and I wed for love. Oh, and the fun of throwing a party for the people we love. But mainly because we wanted to do that thing with the lifelong commitment.

Still, it is rather nice to be given lovely new things for Fox Corner. Especially after moving 4 times in 3 years, with the inevitable 'stuff culls' that take place: we were down to old favourites and absolute essentials only. Frankly, in some areas, we were lacking the basics.

We now have a bistro table and chairs, which we use almost daily. Finally, we're getting some use from the kiwi-encircled patio. We never used to walk up the garden to the big table unless it was for a proper long sit-down meal. Now I sit outside with a cuppa in the morning, or we munch on a kitchen cupboard smorgasbord at lunchtime. Positively life improving.

My first salad spinner! The leaves get so dry, so fast! I love it. With these Tricana anchovies biught on honeymoon in Lisbon (because who doesn't go tinned fish shopping on honeymoon?), and the help of the new Magimix, I made a lovely smooth Caesar dressing in half the time it usually takes. And the scales are so accurate: the set they replaced used to jump up in increments of 4 oz, which is not idea for precision measuring.

And that cute little Denby jug matches our new dinner service. Never again will we suffer the indignity, as we recently did, of having to ask a guest to bring their own plate when they come for dinner (we used to have these lovely, old plates which belonged to my Granny. Alas, there were only 5 dinner plates).

We are now so well equipped in the kitchen, we need never dine out again. And with our new cosy blankets and cushions, the sofa has never looked so inviting. So, married life could get rather dull. But it'll be a very very comfortable rut, I must say.

Fox Corner: Phase 1

At last, Phase 1 is complete.

This means not only that books are unpacked, and hooks and cabinets mounted. Nor that our lovely sofa arrived, and our new dining table and chairs. Cable TV and the interweb are finally wired in. And the rocking chair refurb is complete.

The art is hung, and that's huge. A long rumbling debate has been settled: can TLOML's taste and mine co-exist in harmony? I characterise his taste in home decor as being 'dark and Asian'. Whereas I favour a Skandiwegian look, blond wood and bright, light colours. Oh, and lots of pictures of Middlesbrough. We had talked, half seriously, about having a 'his and hers' approach to hanging our art. So he could have a room for all his exotic masks, and I'd have one for my pale blue pictures.

Happily it turns out not only can our stuff live together, it actually melds pretty well together.

His buddha, my vase

His masks, my Poole pottery

His blue lady, my blue sky

Perhaps the biggest improvement from Phase 1 was the clearing out of excess furniture. The landlady had left a couple of fairly substantial bits of furniture behind. As a result our dining room had a look reminiscent of Hoarders.

Just one sofa and one dining table too many, in my opinion

On Sunday she took them away. Now we have just the right amount of furniture.

A table you can walk around!

 At last, we can relax and feel at home at Fox Corner.

(As I type this, TLOML is doing a happy jig about having TiVo again. I suspect we may have a difference of opinion about what the best part of Phase 1 is).

Rocking chair update

In case you were wondering about that 'vintage' rocking chair that I was refurbishing, here's an update. And for those of you wondering if I will ever branch this blog out from general musings to crafts and home improvements, this may set your mind at rest. I am clearly not qualified.

So, the chair looked okay from a distance. But...

Up close it was a little scuzzy

And the madhead who sold it to me had 'fixed' the wobbly leg by hammering in some oversized screws

I had to make a multiple trips to Kentish Town's premier home improvement outlet, to get what I needed to fix the chair up. Some jaunty yellow paint, sandpaper and wire wool, screws, a roller and tray, and a brush: I spent almost as much as the chair cost...

B&S DIY: all manner of stuff  packed into a very small shop. Strangely brilliant.

On the first trip I used the stripes on my t-shirt to measure how long a screw I needed (three yellow and two grey stripes). I returned to get some longer ones.

That was a mistake. That dent right there? That's a too-long-screw poking through from the other side.

TLOML went back for some wider screws. He was there anyway for a sink strainer, a fuse, and some gardening gloves. Fox Corner is not exactly 'turnkey'.

The chair is still a bit wobbly. It needs another coat too. But we're so busy doing actual home improvements I suspect we might never get around to it.

So £90 (if you count the chair, the materials, and the cab to get it home), and several hours later, I have just saddled us with a wobbly, under-painted chair.

Still looks okay from a distance though, doesn't it?