Father's Day

It's Father's Day, and Robert decided to celebrate early.  He woke up at 6 AM ready to play.  You gotta love a happy baby!  With his big, little hands, he grabbed at my face and started pulling.  As dawn leaked into my eyes, I focused on my smiling little man.  "Morning, Sunshine," was all I could muster.  He laughed, giggled, and continued to smack me until I got up.  If this is how he wakes me up at 6 months old, I wonder what he'll do when he's older...

We went to Art's Cafe on Irving for breakfast.  We figured it'd be relatively empty, since they opened at 8 AM.  We were right.  Breakfast was great, and Robert is evermore eager to share in the culinary delights that we feast on.  When he has teeth, he will partake, but for now, it's all mama and Gerber! 

We spent the next few hours on Clement street, waiting for various shops to open.  Sloat Garden Center opened at 9 AM, Green Apple Books at 10 AM, and Citikids at 11 AM.  We estimated that we could spend about an hour at each, and it'd be a perfect place to walk around and digest our meal. 

Sloat Garden Center off Clement is a lot smaller than the one on Sloat, and we breezed through it without a purchase in about 20 minutes.  We were hoping to find more herbs for Sandra's little herb garden, a fruit tree, or something else to put out in the backyard.  With 40 minutes till Green Apple opened, we careened down Clement to see what we could find.  Robert, riding in his stroller, was asleep.  Lucky man.  He got to wake us up, play, eat, and now he was lights out but still along for the ride. 

We walked down Clement and turned onto Geary to check out Lamps Plus or whatever that light store's called.  I noticed this little beauty in the window:

and thought that's be perfect for the hallway!  It's got all the benefits of track lighting (positionable lights), but none of the hassle (mounting the track).  We have to someday come back while they're open to check this bad boy out! 

Anywho, we got Robert a book from Green Apple, and looked at car seats at Citikids.  I couldn't believe it wasn't even noon yet, and we had already done all that. 

East Bay Trip

After a fun day at the house, Sandra decided she wanted to see Felicia out in Hayward.  We took this trip out to the East Bay to also stop by Ikea and check out the light fixtures.

I want to get rid of the hanging orb in the hallway since it does such a horrible job of lighting the hallway.  It lights the stair case, but that's about it!  I think track lighting in the shape of an L would be sufficient.  The Ikea Sanda system would work well for what we need.  It will, however, cost about $300 for everything we need.

We passed on buying the lights now and picked up two curtain rods for $1.99 each and a sheer curtain for the dining room.

State of the House Update

Soooooooooooooooooo close to being done! I finished painting the closet door today. It looks something kinda awesome!

I started on the other door, but I knew I wouldn't be able to finish in time for dinner.  The things that needed to be completed in the front bedroom are just the door and the windows!  We're THIS close to being done with it!

I finished what needed to be done on the mantle.

It looks really clean, sitting on top of the mantle like that!

The living room is almost done, too.  The ceiling is about 1/4 painted and the walls are about 90% done.  Once the bookshelf has had a coat of semi gloss, it'll be good to go!  I'll be drilling in some PVC pipe ends that I cut with the miter saw to hold a rod that we'll be using as a curtain rod for the lower half of the shelf.  We're hoping that separating it from the wall by painting it a different color will make it stand out a little more, and cause less of an eye sore.

Chris Samayoa came through to help paint.  He finished the primer on the ceiling and started primering the stairway walls.

Sandra and Yvette cleaned out the apartment and moved all their stuff in to the house and garage.  They were laughing quite a bit, so I wonder if I should be worried.

The bathroom looks REALLY nice with everything painted.  Well, almost everything.  I didn't have a steady enough hand to paint the inside of the window frame without taping it, and it was getting late the night that I had painted, so I didn't want to tape it and just leave it.  The bathroom needs to have the 3/4 inch part of 3/4 pieces of the inside of the window frame painted, and possibly inside the built in cabinet.  Grout, the vanity, and the mirror should be going in this weekend.  The new light looks great in there.  It's REALLY bright.  I still have to get some wood for the door frame.  I should get it sooner than later, so I can paint it before mounting it.  Everything's just so much easier to paint when you can move it around (and nothing's next to or behind it!).  About four more rows of tiles need to get laid down, then it's a wrap!  We're getting pretty close to finishing.  I'm pretty excited about it all.

I still need to figure out what I'm going to do about the kitchen sink.  I got an outlet installed for the garbage disposal, but I forgot to get a switch put on it!  I might have one just installed under the sink, so it's easier to deal with for now - no new holes in the walls or tiles.  I also have to either get a new faucet fixture (something that has a pull down spout), or cut a hole in the sink to vent the dishwasher and garbage disposal.  Like this one to the left.

Flippin Switches!

Somebody please remind Sandra to remind me that if I think something's going to be simple, but I've never actually done it before, we're looking at 2 hours, not 15 minutes!

The plate of switches in the hallway controls the porch light (left), doorway light (center), and hallway light (right). All of them down means they're all off. All of them up means they're all on. The problem is that the doorway light is a three way switch that has the motion sensor on the bottom. If the top switch is off, then the auto feature of the motion sensor doesn't work. So, I decided to turn the center switch upside down! Simple, right?

I removed the wall plate, noticed that the right screws were a bit tight. Odd, but kept going. I unscrewed the center switch, rotated it 90 degrees, and the light turned off! Crap! Was it the wiring? I checked the wires, and they were all secured. After rotating it back and forth a few times, I think there's got to be something inside the switch which keeps it from working when upside down. Like a mercury sensor or something. But, from all my twisting, one of the old wires cracked! Great. I had to unscrew the connection, strip the wire, then reconnect it. Not bad, but I didn't feel like removing the other switch (right). I reconnected it, rotated the center switch, and the left side wire snapped! This kept happening until some of the wiring was too short to be used! I ended up replacing the two connecting wires (they ran power into the other two switches) as well as using a new three way switch for the center. I installed it as needed (on is down, off is up). Perfect.

Now to screw everything back in place... In trying to put everything back, I found that some of the screws were stripped and had to be replaced. Good thing there was a bucket of electrical stuff in the garage! I salvaged some screws from there, and put everything back into the wall. As I secured the plate, I discovered something else! The switches weren't even! I had to screw in the bottom right first, then top left to get everything askew in just the right way, so I could secure the wall plate. 2 hours down, and finally it all works. Time to go to Target!

Repairing the Floor

Remember when the appliance movers delivered the appliances? Remember how the floor got damaged when they brought in the fridge? Clyde from REM Construction came to fix the wood floor. He sanded and refinished the area that got dented. It was pretty quick, too. I met him at the house around 9 AM, and he was done before 10.



He took a look at the holes in the walls that I was plastering, and he said I could use a roller to apply plaster, and that would put the texture on it to match the walls.

How It All Started...

My sister and I got a duplex in SF. After the tenants moved out, I started working on patching the holes in the walls, getting stuff moved in, and all that stuff. Here's how everything looked in the beginning! 12/2/09 is the day we got the keys!

Front Bedroom:
Living Room:
Dining Room:
Back Bedroom:
Pink Bathroom:


Hallway:


Kitchen: