End of an Era... so long to "His 'n Hers Condos"

Yesterday afternoon, I took one last visit to "His 'n Hers Condos" before they close for sale today. I dropped off my keys and left a Welcome note for the new owners.

It was a mixture of emotions for me: as happy as I am that we sold both condos and closed in a fairly short amount of time, I was also very sad to say goodbye after 12 wonderful years in our home.



Farewell to "His 'n Hers Condos". What a wonderful home you were to me, and to us for the last 12 and 7 years. Many, many years of joyful memories. Thank you.

"So long, and thanks for all the fish!" :)

Free $$ from PG&E

Well, this was unexpected! We each just received a $25 prepaid Master Card from PG&E.

The card came with a letter from PG&E:

Dear valued PG&E Customer:
This past December, you made an important difference for your neighbors in San Francisco and San Mateo counties by saving natural gas. Enclosed is our way of saying thanks for all the help: A Prepaid MasterCard Debit Card from Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

We asked you to conserve natural gas during a period when some gas pipelines on the Peninsula were unavailable or undergoing repair. Thousands of people like you stepped up by doing simple things to reduce their natural gas use. It was a great example of folks across San Francisco and San Mateo counties coming together to help our community.

NICE!

Truth be told, I don't really remember this request, and I'll also confess that the main reason why we used less natural gas during the month of December was because we moved on the 21st, and the condos weren't being used for 10 days.

Regardless, what a nice surprise!

$50 is a lot of money!
(Two condos + Two utility bills $25.00 each = $50)

Thank you, PG&E!

End of an Era

"His" and "Hers" plaques that we had on the front doors of "His 'n Hers Condos". My parents and sister gave them to us as our house-warming gifts 7 years ago.

As much as I LOVE our new home (and believe me, I do!), it's a little bittersweet for me to announce that our beloved condos are now on the market, and will be having their first open house tomorrow (Sunday, 1/30 from 1-4pm). We've had a LOT of great times and wonderful memories there over the last 12 years, and now the Condos are both available to host years of wonderful new memories for new owners.

We've had a LOT of work done on both condos, both inside and out, within the last two weeks, and I think they look GREAT!

Here's the website with all of the info:

http://www.2condosoneureka.com

If you, or anyone you know if interested in buying a fantastic condo (or two!) in San Francisco's fabulous Castro neighborhood, please check it out!


Trina and Dick in front of "His 'n Her's Condos, May 2004

The Great Purge of 2010!!

The Great Purge of 2010 is in full-swing!! I'm being fairly ruthless this time. We moved into "His 'n Hers Condos" almost 7 years ago. I'm getting rid of anything that been in our basement since then that we haven't used or missed.

Dick and I made two trips in my MINI to the Goodwill donation center over the weekend. My parents (the Wonder Parents) came yesterday and today and helped me clear out 3 more carloads in their Rav4. They also brought home a full carload of stuff that they wanted to sort through, give away to friends, etc.,

There's a really good reason why we're going through such a serious purge right now, but I'll have to wait a few more days to spill the beans. :)

I came across some really funny items today that I couldn't resist taking photos of before sending them off.


Cell phone, circa 1995

Here's a cell phone from 1995 or so. It wasn't mine - it was actually my ex-boyfriends. I think he gave it to me when he bought a new one, in case I wanted to have one (I never did use it). It's just so old and HUGE!


Sony Walkman, circa mid to late 1980s

My old Sony Walkman! Wow. I can't even remember when I first got it, but I'm thinking mid to late 80s. It was cutting edge technology at the time. :) I thought it was ironic finding this today, as I remember reading that Sony just stopped making the Walkman earlier this year.


My Tomato!

This was my Little Red Tomato - it was my trusty camera all throughout high school and through ALL of my color guard years - both marching and teaching, I think. I had it for YEARS, and really loved it. Lots of memories with this little camera.


Jaws!

My parents had kept a few boxes of our childhood toys in our boxes. (My poor parents - I'm sure they were hoping they'd eventually have Grandkids to give these toys to.) One of the toys in the box was this old Jaws game that I remember getting as a Christmas gift in 1977.


Green Day Ticket Stub 1995

One of my favorite little finds today was this ticket stub from a Green Day Concert in 1995. My sister and I went to see them together in Berkeley. This was the third time I had seen them in concert that year. I have some amount of pride that I have physical proof of being a Green Day Groupie way back in 1995. I also love that the tickets were only $10!

There's still a lot more purging to do within the next few weeks. As one of my Facebook friends said, "OMG! How much stuff have you been hoarding?" :)

Busted Water Heater

I was going to start this post by stating, "Ah, the joys of owning a 100+ year old house", but then I realized that this issue had nothing to do with the age of our house.

The water heater for the top floor (that's Her condo, for those of you keeping track) kerbusted this morning. I heard a strange noise all morning in the dining room (which is right above where the hot water heaters are in the basement) but neither Dick nor I were quite on the ball well enough to check the basement until this afternoon. The tank was leaking, but luckily, not too bad. We don't keep anything in that part of the basement, so no damage. (Note to self: when you hear a strange noise in the dining room or kitchen, always check the basement immediately!)

Apparently, hot water heaters generally have a life-span of 7-10 years. Who knew? I always assumed it would be longer.

I'm looking through my files, and see that I got the current hot water heater in January, 2002 - about 8-1/2 years ago. I suppose it was time.

Dick checked Yelp for reviews on good plumbers to use. We ended up using "Friendly Plumber". They came out within an hour to give us an estimate, and will return tomorrow morning at 10:00 to install the new unit.

This is one of those times when it's very convenient to own two condos. Two condos mean two hot water heaters. That means that when one breaks, we can still use the shower in the other condo. No harm, no foul.

Midnight Escapades in the Backyard

...or "Things that happen outside while you're sleeping"

The raccoons are at it again.

I've always known we've had raccoons in our backyard. I'm pretty sure they were living out there before we had our backyard redone last year. Now that it's done, and there's no where for them to burrow and hide, I think they like coming out when it's dark to play around in our yard.

How do I know this?

There are a few pieces of evidence: the most noticeable ones being the huge claw scratches on some parts of our fence, but the dead giveaway are the huge paw prints that are imprinted on the inside of our (shallow) water feature when the algae grows a bit. There's no mistaking in - those huge paw prints came from our (not-so-friendly) neighborhood raccoons.

Their latest recreational sport: they've been pulling the flags out of the putting green holes, and trying to drag them around.

It's pretty hilarious. This only started a few weeks ago. First it was only the back flag, but now they've played with two. There are big teeth marks (holes) in the flags. I think they are trying to drag them off, but I assume the poles are too long and tedious for them.

I'm pretty sure I'll wake up one morning to discover that they've found the golf clubs in the storage shed, and they will have made themselves at home in my Cabana.



The Morning After

And while I'm on the topic of our backyard, spring has spring (finally!) and we've had some really beautiful flowers bloom! I know these won't last more than a few weeks, so I'm enjoying them while I can. :)


Two Birds of Paradise that bloomed over the past two days


Pretty Irises!

Champagne Problems

My cousin, Bruce introduced me to the term "Champagne Problems" a month of so ago. The definition of it is exactly what you might think: it's not actually a "real" problem, more of a "we should all be so lucky to have that kind of problem" problem. :)

So, my most recent Champagne Problem is that the heated floor mechanism in our bathroom stopped working last night. It's still fairly new - just over 2 years old.

Anyhow, the thermostat shows that it thinks it's heating the floor, but it also show that the temperature is low, and that it's not going up at all.

Our poor kitty, Noe - she loves the warm floor, and usually sleeps on it all day and night. She's not happy with me right now. :)

I'm planning on calling my contractor tomorrow to see if he has any ideas, but thought I'd throw this out on my blog first to see if anyone has any suggestions of things I should try first.

I did try resetting the thermostat - several times - by turning if off and on. I also tried turning the circuit breaker off and on. That was all I could think of.

Any ideas from the Peanut Gallery?

A New Washer and Dryer!

very exciting!!


Pretty new Washer & Dryer

At last! We bought a new washer and dryer yesterday, and it was delivered (amazingly enough) this morning!

The old washer and dryer were probably well over 25 years. They were here when I bought my condo from Andrew in 1998, and they were here when he bought the condo in 1988. They were still both working fine, so I figured I'd wait until one of broke before we bought a new one.

I mentioned this to my Mom a few weeks ago, and she reminded me how much more energy and water efficient the new models are.

right...

I mentioned the same thing to Andrew, and he cautioned me, warning that I may not want to wait until one of them breaks. What if one of them broke, and it went terribly wrong? Worst case scenario: Our washer and dryer are on the top floor. What if the washer broke, and caused a leak (or flood). Bad news.

So, suddenly, I was on a quest for a new washer and dryer.

I asked my friends on Facebook for recommendations, and got a lot of good advice.

We ended up getting the Samsung 4.5 cu. ft. front load steam washer and dryer. I think we got the Mother of All Washing Machines. ;) It's HUGE (my old washer had a 3.2 cu. ft. capacity, I think) and the controls and functionality are all so cool. Washer and Dryer technology sure has come a long way over the past 25+ years!

We decided on getting white machines, versus the stainless steel. I generally prefer stainless steel for appliances, but decided on white for these because a) stainless steel is harder than traditional paint, and is hard to clean and accumulates lots of finger prints, and b) it was about $100 more expensive per machine. We had also looked at and considered the LG models, which had some fabulous colors that I really loved (candy red, colbalt blue) but since we went with the Samsung, it was only white or stainless steel.

We got a really great deal at Sears. Dick and I really enjoy buying large appliances from Sears - their sales people are always so knowledgeable and friendly, and their prices are hard to beat. I did some online research last week and saw that they were having a 10-20% off sale on all major appliances through this weekend, so I really wanted to make sure that we went this weekend to check it out. We went yesterday morning. As it turns out, they were having a One-day only sale yesterday which gave us an additional 10% off! Score!

Another nice surprise was that they were in stock, and were available for delivery as early as today! Nice! They were delivered this morning at 10:00am, which gave me an entire day to wash everything I could think of to test 'em out!

The delivery guys were pretty amazing. First they took the old washer and dryer out, then brought the new ones in and set them up. All within 30-40 minutes! They had these very clever straps that wrapped over their shoulders, and underneath the machines, which they just lifted and carried down the stairs and out the door. Very impressive.


Out with the old, and in with the new!

What amazes me most (so far) about the new washer and dryer are how very quiet they are. With the old machines, I could hear them from my office (same floor, but on the other side of the house) and even worse: the entire room/house would shake/vibrate whenever the washer was going through the spin cycle. With the new washer and dryer, I don't hear a thing, and I can be in the same room and not feel the spin cycle. Amazing!

So, clearly, I'm a fan so far, and super happy with my new washer an dryer. We'll see how it all continues to go...

Tree Trimming

Every three years or so we have to get the two trees in front of our house trimmed and pruned. Unfortunately, we have cable/electrical lines in front of our house, so the trees have to be trimmed down so that the branches don't grow up into the lines. It's too bad because these are really beautiful, mature trees, and we have to stunt their growth because of these lines. Our neighbors across the street have the same trees as ours (and planted at the same time), and they are all so tall, pretty, and well shaped. Oh, well, I suppose that's part of urban living.

I took this photo from inside our house, through the front window. It's pretty funny to look out the second story window, and seeing a guy in the tree. (as long as you know why they're there, I suppose!)

My new art studio!

or, "why I'm wearing a perma-grin"...

I just spent the entire day out in the new backyard! Came out here around 10:00, and haven't really been back inside the house yet!

I spent the morning and early afternoon building the new IKEA furniture for my new art studio. It turned out really great!

I just called it my "art studio", but we also have a couple of other names for this room.

I also often refer to it as "The Cabana", meaning an outside building. It sounds so very vacation-y.

We also call it "The Shed", because, according to the City of San Francisco, that's what it is. (We are in full compliance of all City requirements, btw)

Dick likes to call it "Trina's Playhouse". He keeps teasing me because I love this little room so much, and because I was so very eager to get furniture and decorate it. He keeps imagining me having tea parties out here with all of my stuffed animals and Raggedy Anns. (yes, we're kidding - that would be creepy!)

Dick also likes to refer to it as "...soon to be Dick's Man Shack".

This is his way of making sure that I really get out here and use the space - hopefully, mostly as an art studio. (I have no excuse now not to get back to painting!)

He keeps threatening that this space will become his "Man Shack" - complete with cigars, kegs of beers and Playboy centerfolds plastered on the walls. You get the idea.

We finished putting together the furniture this afternoon, and everything fits in really well. I've got a throw rug in here that I can easily roll up when I need to paint, and I pulled out my old collapsible butterfly chair that can also be moved around easily.

Dick also just finished fashioning the two CAT6 cables that we have running in here. Yep - you guessed it - I am writing this blog outside from my cabana! :)

I may never go back inside.

Okay, just one picture.... :)

I can't help myself...

I know I said that I didn't want to post any photos of the completed backyard project, but I'm going to cave here.

I really like this photo. I took it last night, which was the first time we were able to turn on and enjoy the new fire bowl.



You can see the fire bowl in front of the curved stone bench with the Japanese Maple Tree lit behind it.

At Last! The Backyard is D.O.N.E.!!!

After 3+ months, the Great Backyard Landscape Project of 2008 is finally done!

We started planning this project way back in October, 2007, started meeting with the architects in January, 2008, had the first clearing of the yard in late February, finalized the plans in July, hired our contractor in August, and began work in late September.

The original target completion date was meant to be in mid-November. Oh, well. Things took longer than initially planned, and that's okay.

Truthfully, the project was pretty well wrapped up by mid-December. We had to wait to schedule the final electrical inspection, which we didn't pass, then had to wait to schedule the electrician to come back to do the work required to pass inspection, then schedule the final inspection again (which we did pass). Got it?

Once we passed the electrical inspection, our contractors were able to finish the interior of the shed. They also needed to assemble and hook up our two gas elements - the gas heater, which will be above the dining table, and the fire bowl.

All of those elements were completed this afternoon! What a joy it was when we realized it was really all finished. It's been a long journey, but very satisfying.

The bottom line: we're extraordinarily pleased with the final product. It's truly amazing, and Dick and I can't believe that this amazing space is ours to enjoy. It's remarkable to think of the amount of planning and work that went into this project.

I decided a while ago not to post pictures of the backyard. I realized that these photos are a little too personal for such a public forum.

If you're interested in seeing photos, I have plenty, and would be happy to share.
Just send me an email, and I'll send you the link.

We're looking forward to many, many years of enjoyment and entertainment in our new backyard! Looking forward to sharing it with all of our friends!

Vacuming the Putting Green

We've had a lot of rain here lately. The putting green installers
(yes, we're going to have a putting green! How crazy is that?!) came
Friday and Saturday. They got about 2/3 done and were planning to come
back Monday to finish the job.

We got a lot of rain since then, and had to call for rain days (no
work) on Monday and Tuesday.

Today is bright and sunny (and cold!) so the whole crew is back today.

This cracked me up: before the putting green guys can continue to
work, they had to dry out putting green that was already installed by
vacuming it. :)

Today's House Project

Dick was in full "Let's get stuff done around the house" mode this weekend!

Today's big project was hanging a set of 4 prints that he's been meaning to hang for 3-4 years now. (it takes us a while to get inspired sometimes.) The prints are Chinese in style, so one would naturally assume that they are family pieces from my side of the family.

Wrong.

They are, in fact, family pieces from Dick's family! :)

Dick's parents family bought these in the 60s or early 70s. They were hung in the dining room of the house that Dick and his sisters grew up in. When Dick's Dad sold the house several years ago, the siblings divided up the family pieces that he would no longer have room for. Dick's sister, Kathy, originally claimed ownership to these prints, but a few years ago, Dick and Kathy swapped out a set of Silver for the prints.

Kathy shipped these to us at least 3 years ago. We've been meaning to put them up in our stairwell, but we weren't quite sure where, or even how.

The stairwell is naturally a tough place to hang anything. I never had anything hung there in the 10 years that I've owned the upstairs condo.

Well, today was the day that Dick woke up and declared that we were going to hang them. My first question: "How do you intend to do that?" I was envisioning precariously perched ladders, with precariously perched people dangling off them them, attempting to figure out where to hammer nail or screw into the wall, over a flight of stairs. It wasn't a pretty picture, and just imagine how many things could go wrong.

And that's when I came up with my brilliant idea of the week: We have picture-hanging molding (which we use to hang pictures from throughout the rest of the house). Why can't we use it in the stairwell, too?

Long story short, Dick fashioned a clever tool consisting of a wire hanger, duct tape, and an extension rod that I had for some unknown purpose. In total, it gave us about 7 feet of extra length, which turned out to be enough for us to reach the molding with.

"The Tool"

First step: hang the picture-hanging clips onto the picture-hanging molding. Dick was able to accomplish this task surprisingly easily with our newly-fashioned, Macgyver-Inspired tool.

Dick using "The Tool" to position the picture-hanging hooks

Next step: While Dick positioned the hooks, I took out the spool of clear fishing line, and strung them to the eyelets behind each frame. We had to eyeball the length, but it worked within the first couple of tries.

Last step: Dick held the frame in position while I used our handy-dandy tool to loop the fishing line onto the picture hook. Worked like a charm! We had to take them down a couple of times to make final adjustments to the length of the wire, but all-in-all, it went very well!

The final product

It may have taken us a few years to get to it, but we're both really pleased with the final product. It really dresses up the stairwell nicely, and we're happy to have them up!

My "Sideshow Bob" Plants

The plants for our backyard were delivered last Thursday, and placed for inspection by the designers on Friday. Our contractor is taking a pre-planned vacation this week, so we're in a bit of a holding pattern until she returns.

The weather has been so nice lately, that I've been going out to the backyard, enjoying the peace and quiet. Even though the job is not finished yet (probably another couple of weeks, easily) I really enjoy looking at the plants, and visualizing the final product.

One of my favorite plants out there is called a Foxtail Fern. That's its standard common name.

I like to refer to it (or them, as we have 4) as my "Sideshow Bob" Plants.

Why?

It's the first thing that I thought of when I first saw them. It's as if someone took Sideshow Bob (from the Simpsons, in case you didn't know) and planted the poor guy in a pot up to the top of his head.

See for yourself:

Sideshow Bob

Sideshow Bob Plants

Let there be Life!

The plants and trees were delivered today! It'll be nice to add some life back to the garden again!

Backyard Progress (Day 22)

There's been a lot of great progress in the backyard in the last few days.

We passed our water and gas inspection on Monday, which allowed us to finally move ahead!

The concrete forms were finalized just in time for the concrete pour on Wednesday afternoon. We were so lucky that we were able to do that yesterday, as it rained this afternoon! Lucky for us, the concrete set overnight, and we were able to take all of the forms off of all of the concrete retaining walls, stairs and pads this morning.


The concrete retaining wall, landing and stairs. The conduits in the stairs are for the lights that will be installed later.

The bluestone for the patio was delivered today. The pieces are enormous, and so gorgeous. It's really shaping up, and we can now get a really good idea of what the final product will look like.


Pretty (and huge!) bluestone for the patio

We should see a lot more progress over the next few days. Here's hoping that the rain won't interfere with our schedule too much!

New water pipes

water pipes - before
You can barely see it, because it's painted to match the back of the house, but it comes from the right side, goes up and around the door frame, then across the concrete, and around a pillar

I am delayed in reporting about the outcome of the burst water pipes from Thursday morning. All things considered, it all went well, and we even managed to find a silver lining amongst the chaos.

The plumber was scheduled to come back Thursday morning anyway to finish up the work on the gas line. While he was here, he did a quick fix on the pipe connection that had slipped of that morning, which caused the leak.

While he was here, I discussed the situation with my contractor. She said that in the future, once we were ready to really tackle that problem, the solution would be to dig out a trench on that side of the patio and put some copper pipes underground. This is something that we knew we'd want to do in the future, but it wasn't on our list of things that we immediately wanted to do.

That's when I came up with a bright idea (I love it when that happens): since we just dug out the trench for the gas line to go out to the yard, why couldn't we use that same trench for the water? After a little more thought, it became obvious that it was a brilliant idea: the water source was already on the same side of the patio as the gas line. The old water pipes had been haphazardly strung along the base of the house, up and around a doorframe, down the concrete patio, around a post, and down to the garden. This solution would alleviate all of the craziness, and would actually make it much more direct.

The even better part was that we only have a very narrow window in which to make this happen. The trench was just dug out on Wednesday, and would be filled again this week after inspection for the gas and water. That's a one week window in which we could take advantage of our situation!

New new copper water pipe and the gas line (yellow) in the trench

So, we made it so: the plumbers came back Friday morning to take out the old pipes (which again, were old, galvanized, and probably ready to burst again any day) and rerouted a new line with copper pipes down the trench, and across the face of the concrete patio.

the copper pipe is strapped across the concrete patio

So yeah, it was an additional expense that we weren't expecting, but a really good thing to do while we had the opportunity. It's nice not having to worry about the old pipes giving us more troubles in the future.

Burst Pipe

if our house were a ship, we'd have sunk...

For the second time this year, we woke up to a strange sound in the house, and eventually found that a water pipe had burst. Luckily (I think), this time it was outside.

I don't think it had anything to do with the landscape project. I know this doesn't sound quite right, but there's a stretch of galvanized pipe coming out from the basement that we thought we'd leave for now, and address at a later date, if we were to remodel that part of the house. Don't know if that's going to happen now. I'm guessing this is something we're going to have to take care of now.

By the looks of it, the thread to the old pipe corroded (no big surprise, given our history with galvanized pipes) and the connection simply slipped out. A little weird.

Luckily, I the contractor had just showed me a few days ago where the shut off valve is for the outside water line, so Dick and I were able to shut it off immediately. It doesn't look like there was any damage done - just a lot of water filling up the trenches.

The plumber is coming back this morning to finish the gas line. Guess we've got another job for him.

New electrical panels!

The Electrical Panels - after

After working hard for 10 hours, the electricians finished installing our new electrical panels and meters. It's was a long process, but really interesting to watch. (I'm kind of geeky that way)

It seemed like a really big job, but we're really glad that we had it done. Many thanks to Alex the Electrician, and his team!