Day 13: How to Hang Wallpaper and Stay Married.

Earlier this year, we wrapped up our very long home renovation.

We had turned our garage into a family room. A room where Mr. KK and I could relax, watch TV, have cocktails and sit by the fire. This room was a Max-free zone. This didn't mean Max couldn't be in the room, however, his toys needed to stay OUT.

Until recently, this big room pretty much housed a couch. Then shortly after I found a secretary for our keys, cell phone chargers, etc. In September I found am amazing coffee table and end table for a great price. And just last weekend I scored a rustic side board with a rolling barn door at HomeGoods that was helped make a very blank wall feel very homey.

Part of our renovation included built-ins along the front wall, and a built-in bookcase. I love me some built-ins!

Inspired by HGTV, I decided that the back of our built-in bookcase must have wallpaper.

I know wallpaper can be a nightmare (and I watch enough TV and people trying to remove it), so I opted for the peel and stick variety. I found one I liked on Etsy, and was even able to customize the colors.

It took about 6 weeks to get here, because I seemed to overlook the fact that it was coming from Latvia. (Geography = not my strong suit)

Today's nap time was going to entail putting up the wallpaper.

Do you do home improvement projects with your spouse? Well, we do them often. To be successful, you must be very aware of what each other's strengths and weaknesses are.

We used that strategy today.

Here were the criteria:

Mr. KK's strengths: measuring, cutting, building, hammering, screw gunning, sanding, lifting, constructing

KK's strengths: painting, reading directions, holding things, creative vision

So putting up wallpaper fell under my camp because:

1. It was my project, and if it got screwed up, I would have no one to blame but myself and 

2. I have more patience

And so the project began...

My beautiful wall paper! 

Our bookcase BEFORE

Our bookcase AFTER

Aside from some measuring, this was all ME.

The tricky part was, that the wallpaper wasn't wide enough to fit across the bookcase so we had to cut and line up the pattern, all while making sure there were no wrinkles.

If I had to do a whole wall, I'd probably shoot myself.

But look how awesome that looks!

Day 17: Renovating, renovating, renovating.

We've in the throes of a renovation at our house.

The project started in August, and has slowly taken over our lives (and our house!). We hope to be finished by the end of the year (fingers crossed!)

Our project consists of turning our current garage into a family room, and then building a new garage next to that (and opening the wall between our current dining room and new family room). 

Mr. KK did some high-tech drawings with measurements and all that with his fancy computer program, but here's MY blueprint of what we're doing:

Not drawn to scale.

We're VERY excited at what the finished product is going to be, but I'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't ready for it to be done already.

We watch a lot of HGTV (a lot) and there's a reason why people hire designers and architects to do their renovation projects for them: it's a full-time job.

While we have a contractor and team doing the work, all of the planning and designing was done by me and Mr. KK

And at 9:30pm, after Max has gone to bed and we're cleaning up our dinner dishes, the last thing I want to do is stand in the new room in the cold, shivering and holding a tape measure and doing math. 

(I have news for you, there is NO time a day – no matter how warm it is – that I want to do math, let alone in the dark when I'm exhausted)

That being said, I'm excited to share where our renovation currently is, with before and after photos!

I'm not sure why this photo looks like it was taken in 1972, but here's where we started.

We also replaced windows on the far right of the house in one of the bedrooms, too.

Oh, and why not re-side the whole house while we're at it.

First up, framing up the garage to be the new family room.

 This is the back of the room; we're turning that doorway into a french door.

The front of the room.

Digging up the old garage floor. You know, there's just 

a huge piece of equipment in our old garage. No biggie.

And digging the foundation for the new garage. 

We have foundation!

And the garage is going up!

Shingling the house. Never-ending shingles. For weeks.

It was time to take down our patio off our kitchen.

And...voila!

The former front wall of our old garage, 

getting framed up for the front of the new family room.

The new front wall of the new family room. 

Our fireplace insert is being installed this week!

The wall in our dining room that features our family tree of old photos 

(that was put up during the blizzard a few years ago).

Aaand...there goes the wall. 

 Vito can't WAIT to get into the new room!

And perhaps the WORST part of renovating...the dust. It's everywhere. 

And now that the wall is open, Vito loves to explore the new room...

and leave his sheetrock-dusted footprints on our couch.

More pics to come as we get closer to the finish!

The Sunday Dinner Tradition

If you're Italian, you probably grew up going to "Sunday dinner" with your family. 

There was macaroni, wine poured into juice glasses, crusty bread for mopping up sauce. You'd eat a big meal early in the afternoon and then, there was probably napping of some sort.

For me, Sunday dinners were spent at my grandparents' house. I would run up the stairs and burst into my grandmother's kitchen, shoes scraping on her linoleum floor. The entire house smelled amazing, a mixture of garlic and tomatoes. She'd be at the stove, wooden spoon in hand, wearing her apron. I'd rush to her, throwing my arms around her legs and just breathe everything in. And when no one was looking, she'd sneak me a fried meatball and send me on my way to play.

Sundays meant time with family.

They still do, but it's so hard to find the time to dedicate an afternoon to cooking and relaxing, and just enjoying each other's company. 

There's always an errand to run, a load of laundry to be done or a chore to be finished.

But I want Baby M to grow up surrounded by family and traditions. I don't want him to ever feel we're too busy to do something, or that weekends – the time we'll really get to spend with him – is for rushing around and mindless tasks. I want him to feel like that time is all about him. Spending time with his family. I want him to know family traditions, so we have to start now.

This past Sunday, I hosted a Sunday dinner. 

I was up early at the grocery store, buying the cans of crushed tomatoes and the meat for the sauce.

My father-in-law made two big batches of homemade pasta.

I fried 50 meatballs and made the most delicious meat sauce with pork, sausage and braciola.

We had two servings each and bottomless red wine.

We played bocce.

And it was a perfect afternoon to bring back tradition.

Life at home. A laugh a minute.

There’s a subject that’s taboo in our house: the butcher block counter top.

When we renovated our kitchen three years ago, Mr. KK wanted to build a butcher block counter top in our island. I’ve seen the inspirational photos…it will be gorgeous! Key thing to note is the future tense here: WILL BE gorgeous. Because it hasn’t been built yet. 

But we don't talk about it.

So in the interim we have a lovely piece of plywood serving as our counter top (sexy!).

But we don't talk about it.

And because this construction isn’t perfect, there’s a small opening in the counter top area that goes into the abyss between the cabinets.

But we don't talk about it.

Because we clutter this counter top with everything from dishtowels to snack mix to fresh-picked vegetables, it’s no wonder one of our tomatoes went rogue and rolled right off that fancy plywood into the dark abyss.

Crap.

So I did what any self-respecting woman would do.

I left my husband a note.

And the next morning, he took the plywood counter top apart and rescued the tomato.

But, hey, we don't talk about it.

Animal Hoarding*

Let me start this post by saying that if you know me, you know I love dogs (especially one 4-legged Wonder Dog in particular).

But there is a such thing as ‘too many animals’.

My neighbor, whom I will refer to as Dr. Doolittle, is on animal overload.

In the last two weeks she's tried to pawn off offer me a chihuahua, a miniature pinscher and a parakeet.

Here's the zoo next door by numbers:

Dogs: 10

Ducks (full-grown): 6

Ducks (adolescent): 1

Ducks (baby): 1

Birds: 4

Fish: 2 tankfuls

And with a house that’s close to the size of mine, you’d wonder how she keeps them all inside.

Well, she doesn’t.

Those dogs are outside ALL.THE.TIME.

And the dogs bark ALL.THE.TIME.

Public Service Announcement: if you have too many animals to fit in your house, you have too many animals. 

Pictured: 8 of the 10 doggies.

I was able to sneak this photo before their barking alerted my neighbor to come outside 

(where she proceeded to talk my ear off for a half hour).

The older ducks are penned at night, and spend the days wandering around outside. They LOVE our yard. They’re harmless, and they eat bugs so I’m cool with them spending as much time in the yard as they please. 

(In fact, can you guys do some clean-up near the patio? The mosquitoes have been horrible! Thanks!)

Lately there have been some scarring events going down. A few months ago, I came home to a DUCK GANG RAPE going down right in my driveway! The male ducks – who were rather aggressive, I might add – had pinned down the female and were having their way with her, biting at her neck. I doubt this lewd act was occurring after a romantic dinner date of bugs and grass. And they weren’t even gentlemen enough to take her on some soft hay.

Caught in the act! Pornography in my driveway!

The younger ducks can’t be with the older ducks yet because they will get eaten (her words, not mine), so they live in plastic tubs in the dining room. No need to clean your glasses, you read it correctly. Ducks. Plastic tubs. Dining room.

The baby ducks have attached themselves to her so much, that they think she’s their Mommy. They follow her everywhere.

Which led to this actual conversation with my neighbor:

DR. DOOLITTLE: “One night this little duck wouldn’t calm down so I held him against my neck and went to lie down in bed. My husband was like, ‘You aren’t bringing that duck to bed with us’. I guess he draws the line there.”

I take a look around the menagerie of dogs, ducks, fish and birds.

KK: “THAT’S where he draws the line???”

*Dear officials: she isn’t really an animal hoarder. She just has lots of animals, and I took some creative liberties.

Yard Tour!

There's always something going on in our yard.

And it's never quite finished.

The house we currently live in belonged to Mr. KK's grandmother. We bought the ranch in 2010 and gutted and renovated it for almost a year before moving in. During that time we concentrated on the inside of the house, tearing down walls, putting in my dream kitchen, and discovering about a zillion termites (good times).

The house was built in the 1960s on a double lot. This means the we have one house and twice the yard – all ours. When Mr. KK was growing up, his dad would use the second lot as his 'wood lot' for his small wood business. During that time that yard contained mostly a log splitter, enough wood to fill the Redwood Forest, and all of the junk stuff my father-in-law had collected over the years.

My father-in-law – God love him – is a collector. And not only does he collect his own stuff, but he collects stuff that other people are going to get rid of. Old windows? Put them in the wood lot! Doors with broken knobs? You never know when you might need them! Boards from a ripped up deck? Sure!

And all of this stuff accumulated in one spot: our soon-to-be yard.

When we were renovating the inside of the house – and even after we moved in – I would drive down the long driveway whistling the theme song to Sanford and Son. It was that bad.

But over the last few years, my father-in-law and my husband have turned our yard around. Gone are the 27 drain pipes that we might need one day. No longer will you find plastic containers in varying sizes, shapes and colors. All those windows? Gone!

We're by no means done, but we've come a long way baby.

Here's a photo tour of our yard(s):

the backyard

the "wood lot"

the bocce court

(regulation size, thank you very much)

the garden!

(see all those planters? built from wood scraps!)

See that fence? 

Built from the wood planks of someone's torn up deck.

The cucumber trellis?

That used to be a french door.

the hops arbor

Our antique tractor. 

I've been known to ride around on this bad boy once or twice.

the tractor pulls double duty:

1. easy yard travel 2. quick ride to the beer fridge

our wild raspberry bushes

the herb garden

The next post: All About My Crazy Neighbor