A house up the street hits the market soon (post on the way) and the owners just held a garage sale. It was a 7:30 am start, on a Sunday –crazy-early for us. Predictably, we arrived ten minutes late, missing out on a vintage bullet planter for $35. Oh well. Technically, it was Karen’s fault. …
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lost and found
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light work
A while back, we ordered some colored cord samples from the (logically-named) Color Cord Company. After limited deliberation, we picked turquoise cord for our first lighting project, which will grace our (almost finished) master bedroom. Our plan was to build two matching lighting fixtures, mounted either side of our bed. We’d love Nelson sconces but …
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home search
We’re extremely happy in our Eichler, in Sacramento. But that wasn’t quite the plan. We wanted to buy in Concord, CA, home to about 175 of the Bay Area’s most affordable Eichlers. And this time last year, we traveled there (from Boston) to tour our first Eichler for sale. This was a beautifully preserved Eichler, …
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solar shade
We’ve been itching to install a covering for our master bedroom sliders, ever since removing our hideous outdoor curtains (yeah, you heard right). The sun beams through here every afternoon, which is great in winter, not so welcome in summer. We wanted a blind to cover the whole width, but most cost in excess of …
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first floor
Back in our master bedroom, time to tackle the floor. Neither of us had installed VCT before, but it seemed straightforward…at least on YouTube. First we removed underlay, revealing our concrete slab, in good shape. You can see where 10×10 inch cork tiles were originally placed. Cork was the Eichler-specified flooring, running throughout the house. …
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building permit
Not long after moving here, I managed to get hold of the building permit for our lot. Interestingly, the square footage is stated as 1564, when ours is more like 1725 …
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master paneling
We’ve been tackling some master bedroom projects, which I’ll need to spread over a few posts. With no need to insulate, we skipped ahead to restoring (yet more) wood paneling. We actually started this a while back, before we’d painted the ceiling beams gray. We planned to restore this wall from the start. It faces …
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walnut creek
Just before Christmas, we took a trip to Walnut Creek, to check out Rancho San Miguel –home to about 375 Eichlers, built from 1955-59 …
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master plan
Sorting our guest room created a ripple effect. It gave us somewhere to store our books, meaning we could remove an unsightly built-in bookcase. This led us to restore the living-room paneling. It also gave us somewhere to sleep, allowing us to tackle our master bedroom. This is, naturally, our largest bedroom, at about 16 …
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