I'm SOOO There!

This is one of my absolute fave events in Los Angeles. Not only is it chock full of whimsy, it supports terrific locally made quality products. Hope to see you there if you're in the neighborhood :)

http://uniquela.com

First Floor Framing

The house of cards begins on the first floor.

 I will try to take the photos from the same place every time so that you can see the progress. This is taken from the roof deck garden of my studio, which is above the garage. We rebuilt the garage-studio-rumpus room several years ago thinking we could live in it when we rebuilt the actual house. Well, two kids later that CLEARLY ISN'T GONNA HAPPEN. It's so weird to look down from this angle because the whole thing just looks 'detached'. Well, it IS detached, but I mean it in the way that one's whole life is scrambled and pulled apart and all the things you knew no longer appear to be what they were. And I try to constantly visualize the end result. Looking at the bones of a house in ex-ray is really pretty interesting. Here it looks like those card houses you make with deck cards when you're waiting for your food in a restaurant when you're little. What? You mean your Mom didn't have cards in her purse?

This is the first floor. Wow, that's a freakin whopper of a steal beam!  We did a reverse floor plan because I wanted to save our yard. We're one of the few homes in our neighborhood to actually have 5 blades of grass and unless it's hailing, we eat outside. But all the neighbors around us (we gracefully opted to let them go first in the renovation process) went up, thus sucking our sun with them. The German and I fought to the blood about a staircase versus a yard, and our brilliant architect came back with our plan. We put the bedrooms on the ground floor where light isn't an issue, and the living area is  a second floor loft style open floor plan. The ground level connects the old and new building; upstairs we have a courtyard in between. 

Ancient Lessons

 

I remember taking a trip to Israel with my Dad many years ago. One of the most impressive things for me was when we viewed the excavation sites of the archiological dig sites. I was amazed at how buildings were, and still are, built. Our basic needs of living in a house have always stayed the same.
When I look at how my own house is being raised, it reminds me of the channels and walls of those ancient sites. I have a little more reassurance thinking about this because if those civilizations could be traced by their walls, I guess mine will too.
Here are the foundation areas being defined. I am told that this is not where the actual rooms are, but areas of definition. We are so happy that it is starting to take shape. I just have to trust that everyone is reading the plans, and I will in fact have a closet. And Nils will have his bathroom.

The Hack That Jacked My Maple

Does this look like 900 square feet of wood to you?

So, we decide to pull out the floor a few days before demolition of the building. Erik, the owner of E & K Vintage Wood tells me it will take two days to remove it, take out the nails,prepare it for reinstalling, and store all the pieces in the room where it is to be reinstalled later.

I arrived at 8am to meet the folks who were to do the work armed with the deposit check to get started. Then I waited. And waited. The story just gets worse from there. My own contractor nearly split a gasket with aggravation trying to reason with E & K who not only never completed the work, but turned what's left of my floor into worthless toothpicks without apology. Visions of the 'expert' floor removal guy's inexperienced nephew hacking away at it while the walls around him were being dissolved torture me. He alone braved the task abandoned, as was I, by the company's owner who vacationed conveniently somewhere out of phone range.

Hardly enough vintage wood is left to tease me in my studio space where there was to be just enough to fill the room with pride in having recycled memories as well as an era.

So for all of you reading and wanting some advice, Definitely research all your work prospects! I knew better and just because 'I liked them', I didn't do what I knew I should have. So now my broken heart is lying in my garage with my broken vintage floor.

Heartbreak And The Vintage Maple Floor

Yucky, small, and just plain gross as our little beach bungalow is, it's still our first house. It's sentimental. It holds the memories of our lives together before we were married (yes folks we lived in sin), it is where our future was planned, it's where we raised our babies, fought, made up, laughted, and cried.
There's nothing redeming about it, but I do want to save and recycle as much as I can. On principal if nothing else. My solid wood floor, it turns out, is an amazing vintage maple with fabulous holographic details and the perfect patina. Hey-I wanna save that! And my round window.
No one, not any of the contractors we interviewed were interested in my nostalgia except for Hank (our chosen contractor). He's willing, and I decided to find someone who specializes in vintage floors to take it out and re-install it in my studio where I alone can sniff old moldy wood and re-live my memories.
So, I found E & K Vintage Wood in Venice to do the job. The floor comes out just before the house is demolished.
It all seemed like a good idea at the time...

Let The Games Begin

People keep asking if we'll be there when they tear the house down. I guess for many, that sounds like such a thrill. But I wasn't sure I could watch 15 years of memories go down in a matter of hours. It was extremely emotional.

I ended up having to be there because of the whole floor ordeal, and after the actual walls were down to studs, & it didn't look like my house anymore, I felt detached. THEN I could't believe we lived in a space so tiny for so long! Without the actual walls the space just became one room! This photo is from the back door looking toward the front of the house. This was once 2 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and dinette!!!

I took this photo from inside the existing addition across the yard from the second floor. We toiled over the new layout because I wanted to keep the yard (heck - 5 blades of grass is still grass), but Sweetie-The-German wants more interior space. We had the biggest fight of our marriage over where the staircase would go. The brilliant solution from our architect is to do a reverse floor plan and raise the yard and put the bedrooms downstairs.

When it's done, this view will become 2nd floor french doors sharing the courtyard with the living quarters of the house.

I remember standing on a chair while pregnant with Sophia painting those blue faux "sky" walls! I must have been crazy, but I was so determined to have the babies room finished by the time she arrived.

Now the real sky shines through the ceiling! Ahhhhh...I can hardly see the light as the whole process seems so far away. I wonder if she'll want those walls in her new room. I wonder if I can still get up on a chair to do them!

This is the inside of the living room. I wonder if I shoulda saved that shell lamp?