she ain't pretty without her makeup

All prepped and ready to be painted tomorrow morning! She looks like shit now, but she'll be sexy this time tomorrow. We're painting the body a light adobe color (the middle paint swatch by the door), the red trim will be black, and the blue trim will be a garnet color. Let's hope it comes out looking awesome, instead of like a couple of knuckleheads picked it out!

I really wanted to have the paint stripped off the front door and varnish it instead of painting it to match the house, but it'll have to wait. That makes me a sad panda.

In the doorway is David, holding up our son Nevan's hand. It's either a wave or a black panthers fist... your guess is as good as mine!

p/s - see the pigeon on the center rafter tail?! We're going to have to put something on them to keep the flying rodents away. They just end up crapping all over the little roof over the front door.

let the games begin!

So, what have we got in store for the new abode? The exterior is being painted this saturday and the interior getting new paint this monday, and I plan on taking out all the new doorknobs in the house and replacing them with antique/ reproduction ones. I'm thinking a different one for each door! Other than that, here is a list off the top of my head, sorted by room. I'll include some of the things we've already done:

Living Room
- We are not feelin' the ceiling fixture in the living room. We bought this one to replace it.
- Over the decades, complete jackasses have installed ceiling hooks in the beautiful wood panel ceiling - five in total, of all different varieties. In time, I'd like to remove them and fix the holes as best we can.
- The rich color of the wood is a bit faded and scuffed in areas on the kick moulding and window trim, so I'd like to eventually refinish it.

Dining Room
- The former owner put in track lighting on the center beam of the incredible wood peaked ceiling. I want to take that out and do two small chandeliers (and not of the crystal variety). You can't really see much of the ceiling in this picture, but you can get a decent idea.
- A knob is missing from the built-in hutch. I can't seem to find one like it anywhere. I hate to replace them all, as they appear to be original to the house, but I may have to if one cannot be located.

Bedrooms 1 and 2
Bedroom 1 is my favorite bedroom, and it is clearly the original master bedroom. If it weren't for the fact that the new master has an en suite bathroom, I would be moving my gigantic bed in this one instead.
- That very same beautiful wood window trim, doors, and kick moulding is in both of these rooms too, but is obscured by thick white paint. I am currently researching how to best remove this and refinish all of it. I have found Peel Away 6, made for wood, but I know how paint becomes ingrained in the wood (that'll make it interesting - right? Right?!).
- The former owner installed these hella tacky wire shoe racks to the inside of both closet doors... the original doors! Eek! Off with her head. As soon as I can, I'm going to remove them and eventually get around to repairing the holes. Check out the original doorknob on the front closet door.

Kitchen
Yay! This room needs the most work (see my previous post if the "yay!" confuses you). We're going to completely remodel this room from nearly top to bottom (the chandelier can stay).
- It lacks a dishwasher, garbage disposal, and ventilation for the stove. Luckily, it still has a hole in the wall for the ventilation, which you can see in this picture. We will get all of these installed, including a trash compactor. Hey, if I wanted to be totally period accurate, I'd just leave it the way it is, right?!
- Sadly, someone took out the plaster in this room and put in drywall with your typical texturing. That's gotta go!
- The tile is all going, along with the tile floor. We're going to do a backsplash like this, and a floor like this, or maybe like these people did. The tile floor extends into the kitchen bathroom, kitchen nook, and laundry hallway. We will be using the same floor for the master bathroom.
- Lucky for us, the original kitchen cabinet is still useable, but for some reason it is totally crooked and has thick green paint on it. Also, the cute butterfly hinges are painted over, and someone put on cheapass handles. I plan to repaint it a shiny bright, deep blue (like porcelain blue), strip the paint off the hardware, and replace the handles. Oh, and hanging it on the wall straight... well, that would be good.
- Install lower wooden cabinets to more or less match the color of the wood trim inside the house, and slap on a grey/white marble slab countertop. I was thinking about doing a huge, rectangular, white porcelain basin sink.
- Drop an island on that bad boy, and call it a day!

Kitchen Nook
The nook is one of my favorite parts of the house, and for no reason I can think of. My panoramic is a little deceiving, as the middle window is actually the same size as the other two. We plan on using this space as the pantry and strangely... the office! The desk will go on the empty side. We decided to downsize to one CPU, and being a wireless house, we will make use of our laptops as well.
- This room is another example of the gorgeous wood painted over. Not only does it have the window trim, but chair rails and wood going up the corners, floor to ceiling.
- The upper section painted white is actually paint over wallpaper. Standing in front of the walls, you can see the wallpaper seams under the paint. I'm getting this fixed before we move in next tuesday.
- The cabinets here also feature the butterfly hinges found in the kitchen, which is great, only someone painted over the hinges on the top cabinets. Why those and not the rest?!

Kitchen Bathroom
- We bought this charming brass Victorian "bathroom" sign for the door.
- While the tile is cute, it doesn't match the rest of the house, and isn't well laid to start with. We'll be replacing it with the same tile we plan on using as the backsplash for the kitchen.
- The sink is totally the odd man out. It will be removed and replaced with a nice pedestal sink.
- The plaster in the bathroom was also removed and replaced with drywall, like the kitchen (except for the original shower arch). I will probably get this fixed at the same time we do the kitchen, although it isn't as much of a priority. If the additional cost is prohibitive, I may leave it. Can you hear me weeping as I type that?
- Needs paint!
- We've already bought all new hardware for this bathroom, as the old one was cheap and the towel bar fell off. Instead of linking to all the pieces we bought, I will install it and show you when it's done.
- Look at the original door hardware (outside doorknob and strikeplate)! How rad is that?! There is white paint in the grooves of the hardware, which I want to clean up at some point.

Laundry Hallway
From this point on, you have entered... the ADDITION ZONE! EEK! The hallway has the backdoor, and leads from the kitchen to the master bedroom. Yes, you read that right... you must walk through the laundry room to the master. This, the master bedroom, and master bath all feature drywall with the typical texturing and normal ceiling heights, as opposed to the lathe and plaster and high ceilings in every other part of the house. Although I wish I could fix the ceilings, but it's just not worth it.
- The doorway into the hallway from the kitchen is the complete opposite of matching. I'll be fixing that when we remodel the kitchen.
- This is the ceiling fixture in the hallway. How about NO, you freaky deaky dutch bastard?! We ordered this to replace it - in the bronze finish instead of the copper shown. While period authentic, it's not your typical bungalow lighting, but we decided we're okay with that.
- Replace the cabinets with ones matching the lower cabinets in the remodeled kitchen. That picture was taken when we originally viewed the house, so it appears as the former owner decorated.

Master Bedroom
This room has remarkable closet space, and is wired for a TV inside! My picture came out making the room look small and dark, but it's neither.
- Rip out the pergo and replace with matching dark oak hardwood found in the original house.
- Again... the ceiling fixture makes me want to put out my own eyes and vomit at the same time. We bought this today for the master bedroom.
- Replace the closet doors with ones to match the kitchen and laundry cabinets.
- Replace the drywall with lathe and plaster.

Master Bathroom
- Replace the cabinets with ones to match the master bedroom closets, kitchen, and laundry cabinets.
- Rip out the overhead cabinet and the weird decorative THING over the sink.
- Remove the panel mirror and replace it with a vintage one.
- Install an L-shaped curtain rod (already purchased - will be installing before we move in). Can you believe there has never been a shower curtain in here? I guess they all took showers in the other room, and luxuriated in the jetted tub here.

Outside and Garage
- The exterior of the house and garage are getting new paint within the month.
- The front and backyard are in serious need to professional landscaping, which I plan on doing sometime by next summer. At least there are automatic sprinklers and drip irrigation!
- The driveway is all beat to hell. All the better to replace with cute pavers.
- The workbench in the garage needs replacing. While not my priority, it is definately Dave's :)
- The driveway gate needs automating. Damned if I'm going to get my ass out of the car in all kinds of weather to open and close it.

Need a paint recommendation? Go to House Doctor Painting, Inc., located in San Jose.

an introduction to our bungalow

Hi there! On August 31st, 2005, my husband and I received the keys to our very first home. We had searched high and low for an older home in good shape, with a few odd requirements:

- a two car detached garage (my husband is enamored with detached garages)
- a kitchen that needed remodeling
- something that will accomodate a second child, should we decide to have another
- a designated office area that doesn't impede on our living space
- hardwood floors
- no linoleum! Oh dear God, the humanity.
- a backyard that will accomodate the needs of a growing child
- a playground or park in walking distance

The San Francisco Bay Area has many beautiful older neighborhoods with every imaginable period style. Now take our quirky requirements and try to make it affordable... say, under 700K, which is what we decided our maximum to be. Virtually anywhere else in the country... nay, make that planet... 700K will buy you a cute little fort complete with cannons to call your own - emphasis on the word "fort". Sadly, 700K in most of this area is a cute little condo or ranch style home - emphasis on the word "little".

In Santa Clara county, home of the Silicon Valley, the best place to find a variety of old, charming houses is in Downtown San Jose (or if you're a local, it's "sanozay"). The pro side to the downtown area is that it's lively with lots of festivals, attracts a large variety of people, is where San Jose State University is, is centrally located to most major areas where work is to be found in the internet industry, and is slowly becoming gentrified. The cons: "lively with lots of festivals" means noisy, "attracts a large variety of people" means a bum might make a home under your front steps or there are teenagers cruising around the block late at night with their bumpers vibrating, "is where San Jose State University is" means there is never street parking, "centrally located" means all freeways converge downtown, so there is always a freeway or an entrance/exit closer to your house than you'd like, and "slowly becoming gentrified" means there are still a lot of poor renters/ scumbag landlords/ poor homeowners who do not fix up/paint their houses, mow their lawns, or who put up a chain link fence around their front yard instead of paying a little more for something more appealing. We won't even get into the fact that the public schools downtown aren't as great as others in the area.

Phew. That paragraph took it out of me. Anyways, back to the point - we ended up buying a bungalow downtown. For all its cons, this house was the one and only that floated our boat and tooted our horn all at the same time, so concessions were made. In months of looking, this one was THE ONE, and I knew it from the instant I saw it on MLS (and that was without interior pictures posted on the listing).

A few facts about our home, which we move into next tuesday:
- according to the city of SJ, it was built in 1901, but the former homeowner says she was told 1906 by the people she bought it from
- originally a two bedroom/ one bath, a master bedroom with en suite master bathroom was added to the rear of the house in the 60's (so it's now a three bed/ two bath for all you geniuses out there)
- the house is 1,585 square feet, and the property is 6,337 square feet
- has a deep two car detached garage with workbench and shelving
- house features oak hardwood in the front four rooms (living, dining, and two original rooms), tile in the kitchen, front bathroom, kitchen nook, and laundry area, and... get this... PERGO in the master bedroom AND BATHROOM. Apparently when the former owner bought the house it had wall-to-wall carpet, but it seems she lacked the desire (or funds) to do matching hardwood for the room and tile for the bathroom.
- has a box garden area that is irrigated. The former owner never had the time to do anything with it after she had it installed
- is apparently made from "old grove" redwood, but I don't know how much truth is in that. A spaz my duplex neighbor hired to chase off some raccoons told me that the houses in that area are all made from old grove redwood. The only reason I think it may be true is because some minor termite repairs were just made to the house and the termite guys replaced everything with redwood.

I bet you want pictures. Yay for pictures! I like pictures.

I'll post more later about what is great about the house, what isn't so great, and I want to do (insert insane obsessed emot here). Enjoy the pictures!