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Archive for January, 2009

Bathroom Remodel But a Dream?

Saturday, January 31st, 2009

Our master bath shower has been out of commission for six years, ever since we remodeled our kitchen below it and realized the shower pan was leaking water through the ceiling. It took my husband no time at all to sledgehammer the 1930s yellow tile right down to the studs. We understood we might not retile right away, but six years?

Like most things, we dreamed big. Well, we thought, if we're going to retile the shower, we should just redo the whole bathroom. While the shower was 1930s original, the rest of the bathroom was funky green 1970s tile. And if we were going to retile the whole bathroom, we should think about actually integrating this hall bathroom into the actual master bedroom right next door. And if we do that, we should add glass block into the shower wall to let more light in, and so on and so on.

Is it any wonder that we haven't done a thing? We have a second bath upstairs as well — the kids bath. They take showers or baths at night. Chris and I take them in the morning. Their bath looks out on the back yard. It all works quite nicely, actually. And it's been easy to forget about our defunct shower until we need to tap into our Costco toilet paper supply we keep in the sledgehammered shower stall.

Even without the shower, however, our bathroom had inconvenience issues. The bathroom is so small, with one sink and mirror, that I can't see to blow dry my hair while Chris is shaving in front of the mirror. As part of our future remodel, we talked about making two "stations" in the bathroom. We would stand side-by-side and back to back: Chris would have his razor looking in one mirror, and I would have the blow dryer looking in the other. (Is this too much information? Don't answer that.)

For all these years, I have waited for the remodel that never came. And so, finally, I made a unilateral decision. The other day, I bought a mirror for $16.99 to put up on the opposite wall of the sink mirror. I would have my own blow-drying station, even in a bathroom with '70s tile and no shower.

And that's when a funny thing happened. I asked Chris to hang up the mirror for me. It would need to be cut out of its box, a nail hammered into the wall, and hung.

"If we're going to do that," Chris said, "We might as well remodel."

Uh oh, I thought. Here we go again. If I want to dry my hair unobstructed, I decided, I'll get my own damn hammer. Besides, I think '70s funky is finally coming back.

Posted in Bathroom, Julia, Julia's Mud Room, The Mud Room | 6 Comments »

Rebecca Peragine: Prints to Brighten up a Rainy Day

Friday, January 30th, 2009

One of my favorite things about writing for Lookiloos is finding inspiration from other blogs. I came across these beautiful prints from one of my favorite bloggers, Gabrielle, aka Design Mom.

She found these great prints by Rebecca Peragine over at print*pattern*paper.

I can see these pretty things brightening up my hallway on a rainy day, exuding sunshine and teasing me with what summer might bring. I may have to arm wrestle my daughter for the mermaid print.

Peragine is donating proceeds of sales to a non-profit, PEACE, in Isla Mujeres, Mexico and their important community work. So go on over and buy one or two to support a good cause and bring a little south of the border spunk to your home.

Posted in Art, Looki What I Found, Sheila | No Comments »

Artists Design Modern Kitchen with Stainless Sculpture

Wednesday, January 28th, 2009

Mert Carpenter is an architectural photographer. His wife, Tonya, is a graphic designer and fine artist. So perhaps it should be no surprise that their remodeled kitchen in Los Gatos would have some artistic, sculptural qualities.

But would you actually expect a sculpture — a stainless steel wrap-around, freeform sculpture built into the island?

“People walk in and say,’Wow, what a kitchen,’” Mert said. “Then they walk a little further and say, ‘Wow, wow! Look at this sculpture!’”

The couple bought their 1982 home new. The high-pitched ceilings were perfect for his 9-foot studio lights, and skylights and huge windows made for a bright work space for his wife who paints pastel portraits. But after 25 years, the kitchen with the cream-colored tile counters that opened to the family room was ready for a remake. The oven was kaput and the fridge was on its way out.

So they took a trip to the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles and found a designer that understood them. They wanted a clean-lined, modern feel and they found Troy Adams of West Hollywood.

“He started by having us fill out a questionnaire about how we use the kitchen,” Mert said.

They ended up with a sleek modern kitchen warmed up with wood cabinetry and bi-fold doors in walnut, anigre and zebra. But still, the kitchen was incomplete.

“We really wanted the new kitchen to be pretty and interesting from anywhere in the family room,” Mert said. Adams first suggested a concrete form at the end of the counter, then the idea morphed in a stainless steel rectangular form.

“My wife said, ‘What if we curved it in a big arc and went around the corner with it? It would define the space between the family room and kitchen.’”

It was at that moment when Mert knew it was time to call his old client, Darin Wacs, a sculptress whose work Mert had photographed. Wacs was already known on the Peninsula for creating a huge metal sign for the Palo Alto Children’s Museum.

After Adams designed the curving, stainless steel form for the end of the island, Wacs came in to design the three-dimensional, swirling stainless overlay. To fabricate the project, Wacs went to Therma Corp., a San Jose manufacturing company whose executives have a penchant for the arts. Wacs already had office space there for some of her projects.

The job was complicated and required each phase of the project to be executed precisely.

“Therma came up with a template based on a CAD drawing that allowed everyone to go forward,” Mert said. “When it was all done, it all fit and it was all wonderful.”

And it’s still the big talker when friends come for dinner.

Mert’s Resource List:

Kitchen Designer: Troy Adams Design in LA
Kitchen Contractor: DJ Dowling Inc. of Redwood City
Kitchen Contractor Supervisor: Mark Dowling formerly with D J Dowling and now on his own as Dowling Builders
Kitchen Countertop Fabricators: Avalos of San Jose
Countertop Suppliers:
Imperial White Granite (garage and beverage sink): Integrated Resources of Brisbane
Golden Silver Granite (sink and range): Da Vinci Marble of Redwood City
Sculpture Designer: Darin Wacs
Sculpture Manufacturer: Therma Corp. of San Jose

Photographs by Mert Carpenter

Spanish-Style Bungalow Gets Soho-Chic Kitchen
A Decorator’s Daughter
Google Couple Build Green Home in Mountain View

Here’s the complete slideshow:

Posted in Architecture, Interior Design, Julia, Kitchen, Modern, Peek of the Week | No Comments »

Winter Tips for Pruning Roses

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Yes, one gasping rose may still be clinging to your vine in the deep midwinter of California, like this last great yellow one resting against my screened porch. But as consulting rosarian Teri Hart of the Santa Clara County Rose Society says, smell it, snip it, put it in a vase, then prune, prune, prune. Here, the best time to prune is January through Feb. 15, when the roses are most dormant. Now is also the best time to plant bare-root roses and transplant bushes.

The general rule, she said, is that the earlier you prune roses, the earlier the plants will bloom in the spring. And the higher you leave the canes, upwards of 30 inches, the more abundant the roses will be. Lower pruning — under 18 inches — will give larger, but fewer blooms. In Santa Clara County, rosarians recommend medium to high pruning.

“You don’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t matter,” said Hart, who grows hundreds of varieties in pots arranged on risers on the patio of her townhouse in north San Jose. “I don’t think you can hurt it as long as you don’t cut them down to the ground. They’re very forgiving. Some people try to kill their roses and they can’t. They keep coming back.”

Still, she said, here are some pruning guidelines, including some fundamentals from the late Virgina Masero, who introduced Hart to the Rose Society. Guest speakers usually join the group when it meets the second Friday of each month at 7:30 p.m. in the O’Connor Hospital Auditorium. The next meeting is Feb. 13. For membership information, visit www.sccrose.org.

Tools Needed:

Gloves, good pruning shears, small pruning saw, lopping shears for big canes.

Rose Pruning Techniques:

1. Shape the plant like a vase, clearing out the center to open it up and give it good air circulation.

2. Take out all nonproductive wood and crossing canes.

3. Cut on a slant to an outside “eye,” which is the tiny bud of new growth. Cutting near an outside-facing eye ensures the branches will grow outward instead of inward. When cutting on a slant, cut below the eye to a quarter inch above the eye.

4. Leave the strong new canes and give a fresh cut to the old gray nubs of canes cut in prior years.

5. Don’t over-prune roses that were planted the prior year. Cut them higher and leave more branches.

Here is Masero’s advice for pruning different varieties:

Hybrid Teas and Grandiflora Roses

Decide what canes you want to leave. Three to six canes are about right, depending on the age and vigor of the plant. Healthy established roses can maintain six canes whereas newer roses would have difficulty. Grandifloras and some vigorous plants like Precious Platinum can support even more canes. Peace and its offspring definitely do not like hard pruning. Leave only canes that are the size of a lead pencil or larger.

Floribunda Roses
They will give a lot of color but spindly blooms if pruned lightly. Some can be pruned with the hybrid tea technique, and there will be bigger blooms and longer stems. Floribundas can have six to eight canes with more busy growth than the hybrid tea.

Climbing Roses
Remove all laterals and fan the branches out of both sides, maybe three to four to a side. Leave no spurs on the canes. You’ll have far better flowers. Tie the canes down. Wide plastic tape ties are better than wire ties since they cause fewer injuries to the canes.

Polyantha Roses
These are very low growers and they are best not pruned at all. There might be some shaping of the bush or cutting out dead wood.

Old Roses
For the once annual blooming old garden roses, do not prune until after they bloom in the spring. (You would be cutting off your spring bloom!). Lightly shape the other old garden roses and cut out any dead wood. That is all that is needed to be done.

Shrub Roses
They need very little pruning, just what is needed to keep them contained. Leave them alone so they can give their great bursts of bloom. There is much more color in the garden and more roses for all occasions when you don’t prune too severely.

Posted in Garden, Home and Garden, Julia, Q & A, Q and A | No Comments »

Love and Valentine’s Day Gifts: Rae Dunn Clay

Monday, January 26th, 2009

I was first introduced to Rae Dunn’s work through a very good friend. It was our monthly book club meeting and as a special “treat” Carolyn held a bag in her hand and asked each one of us to reach in and pull out one stone, a clay stone. I remember Carolyn saying “you get what you need most”. Each handmade ceramic stone had a different word stamped on the top. I vividly remember reaching into the bag and pulling my stone out. It said “peace”. Now as a mom of four boys, this is what I needed most. I was amazed that fate or the universe had given me peace. I treasure that stone. It has rested on my bookshelf in my entryway for years. Not a day goes by that I don’t stop and reflect. Peace.

Heart Stones - Love and Valentine's Day Gifts: Rae Dunn Clay

I check out Rae’s site often to see what is new. I think with Valentine’s Day not too far off it would be a perfect time to show you these rustic shaped hearts stamped with numbers. Oh how perfect to count the ways to love! And since we’re on the topic of love… I absolutely LOVE this ring bearer dish. This is one of the most unique things I’ve seen for a wedding. A great way to remember the a special day.

Ring Bearer Dish - Love and Valentine's Day Gifts: Rae Dunn Clay

In this fast-paced, got to have it now world we live in, Rae’s work centers us with its clean, organic lines. Rae Dunn’s art will always be a part of me.

Update:

This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here.

Posted in Art, Looki What I Found, Shopping, Store | 1 Comment »

Updating from Girl Room to Tween Room

Saturday, January 24th, 2009

The precious things started piling up outside my daughter’s bedroom door weeks ago. They weren’t the worn-out shoes or the outgrown clothes. They were my grandmother’s framed embroidery samples that Claire unhooked from her wall, the bedside lampshades with little pink pompoms I had glued around the rims, the grand Victorian picture of frolicking children that had moved from my childhood bedroom to hers.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Mom,” said Claire, who just turned 11. “But it’s just not me.”

I had been hearing this refrain for more than a year. When I first decorated her bedroom almost a decade ago, I thought it looked classic, timeless. But to Claire, it was “old-fashioned.” She wanted it to be “cool.” Night after night, bedside chats we would flip between planning her birthday party to sketching her “tween” dream room. And every layout included a shag rug. (Did I mention that the antique Persian rug on her floor belonged to my grandfather?)

I knew the time would come when sentimental heirlooms would be stowed away, when her room would need to grow up with her. I just didn’t realize it would come this soon – or that the first symbol of her independent style would be a “Text Messaging Glossary” poster taped to her closet door (just to be ready for the day she actually gets a cell phone.)

When we moved into our home in San Jose’s Rose Garden neighborhood, just five blocks from where I grew up, Claire was just a toddler, but her room was one of the first to get real attention. We actually — gulp — hired a decorator. I remember Linda McFalone of Lulu Pom in Los Gatos saying the custom-made, dusty pink, raw silk bed skirt would “look like a ball gown.” While my husband, Chris, complained that our master bedroom looked like a dorm room, without even a headboard for our bed, Claire’s room had become a “temple to Girldom.” Through my eyes, though, it was the perfect setting for the years of charming tea parties to come. Claire would sit on a little green rocking chair (that was mine as a child) and invite Chris and me to sit on the floor with our teacups in hand and pinkies in the air.

Claire outgrew the rocking chair years ago. But when she recently gathered up her assorted tea sets and dispassionately announced she was giving them to our 5-year-old neighbor, Kiley, I knew we had closed a chapter for good.

It was time for (sigh) a trip to Ikea. My mother joined us — as if her presence would somehow sanctify this right of passage and perhaps diminish the pain of the embroidery samples so unceremoniously discarded. I laid down some rules first, of course. We were not repainting the room (our entry hall needed it more). And we were keeping the rug and the old iron bed frame I brought back from Wyoming and, yes, the expensive pink ball-gown dust ruffle.

Unlike the last time, this was going to be a redo on a budget. Nothing lasts forever, as I had painfully discovered in the heap outside the door, and I didn’t expect this next bedroom incarnation to endure half as long.

As we did the first time we decorated the room, we used the Persian rug as an inspiration for the palette. But instead of sticking with just pink, we pulled out the black and the ochre green — colors I had seen paired in trendy shelter magazines.

At Ikea, Claire picked out a white shag rug for $50 — a throw rug to layer on top of the Persian. She chose two green pillows for $12.99, plus a matching fleece blanket. Since Claire had dismissed her flower-shaped ceiling light fixture as “weird,” she gravitated to Ikea’s white artichoke-shaped pendant lamp. The $24.99 lamp was inspired by the Le Klindt light that sells for $435. That stylish update was easy for me to swallow.

At the Alameda Antique Market, I found an old shop sign, black with silver writing, that said, “Claire’s Fashion Salon.” For my daughter who loves to sew tops and purses for her friends, it was a perfect gift. The wicker love seat survived the transition, but a black-and-white fabric remnant covered the pink flowers. We pulled in the round, hot-pink chair from Limited Too that Claire earned for getting good grades last spring. And with a $19.99 zebra stripe satin sheet set from Burlington Coat Factory, I whipped up a trendy duvet cover with my below-average, straight-line sewing skills. A five-armed lamp from Target and a few fuzzy pillows from Ross Dress For Less added some youthful fun. A dress form that Claire received for Christmas showcases her latest fashion creations.

With a helpful hand from my friend, Amy (who is startlingly confident with a staple gun), a little bench got a new, striped fabric top. And my neighbors, Dhelia and Maria, came over to fluff and puff and re-angle the love seat. Claire pinned a newspaper photo of pop singer Taylor Swift on her bulletin board, plugged in her iPod boombox, and invited in her friends.

From downstairs, I could hear them squeal when they entered.

I still feel a pang when I think about the Victorian picture and the little pink pompoms. But not all signs of Claire’s little-girlness are gone. When I tuck her in at night, she still keeps close her Teddy and hippo and blankie. And when I kiss her good night under the zebra-striped covers, I love the confident, independent tween she has become.

Here’s my shopping list:

1. White Shag Rug, Ikea _ $50
2. Antique Store Sign, from Alameda Antique Market (a splurge) _ $75
3. Zebra-striped sheet set for Duvet cover, Burlington Coat Factory _ $19.99
4. Five-headed Lamp, Target _ $19.99
5. Three throw pillows for loveseat, Ross Dress for Less _ $5.99 a piece.
6. Two green throw pillows for bed, Ikea _ $12.99 each.
7. Framed Shoe Picture, Beverly Fabrics _ $3.99
8. Dress Form _ Santa
9. Fabric Remnants, thrift shop _ $15.
10. Ikea pendant lamp _ 24.99

Update:

This post is featured in the San Jose Mercury News Home and Garden section here and the tips here.

Posted in Home Decor, Inside Stories, Inside Story, Interior Design, Julia, Shopping | 2 Comments »

Chateau Saisons

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

Chateau Saisons
Steamboat Springs, CO

Bedrooms: 6
Bathrooms: 5
SqFt: 16,437
Lot: 53.35 acres

List Price: $15,250,000

Chateau Saisons, Steamboat’s premier estate property, is nestled behind private gates on a secluded mountaintop. The estate is situated on a magnificent 53 acre parcel, commanding profound tranquility. A graceful staircase with a Rocky Mountain Forge custom railing dominates the two story foyer which adjoins the great room, library and gourmet kitchen. Of the seven bedrooms, five have their own luxury bath en suite. The majestic master suite features the cozy warmth of a stone fireplace, a secluded executive office with views of the Steamboat Ski Area, a fitness room and a balcony with views of the and surrounding mountain.

Please contact Chris Paoli with Colorado Group Realty at 800.556.6717 for more information.

Posted in Unreal Estate | 1 Comment »

567 Hale St – Palo Alto – Open House

Friday, January 23rd, 2009


List Price: $6,495,000

Open House:
Sunday	1/25	1:30 PM to 4:00 PM

Bedroom: 4	Bathroom: 4	Sq. Ft: 5,718
Description: Own a piece of Palo Alto history at this turn-of-the-century manor on one of Palo Alto’s most desirable streets. The residence boasts ‘old world’ features including four fireplaces, lusterous oak floors, tall ceilings and finishing touches of redwood paneling and white cypress molding. This outstanding residence combines the romance of an earlier era with the comfort one expects today.

Agent:	Linda L Fahn
Company:	Keller Williams
Phone:	650-776-8317
Email:	Lfahn@kwrpa.com

Address:	567 Hale St Palo Alto, CA 94301

Posted in Open Homes, Open House, Palo Alto | No Comments »

142 Glenwood Ave – Atherton – Open House

Friday, January 23rd, 2009


List Price: $5,490,000

Open House:
Sunday	1/25	1:30 PM to 4:30 PM


Bedroom: 6	Bathroom: 4	Sq. Ft: 6,640
Description: 2-Story Contemporary home on 1.33 acres. Main Residence has dramatic 2-story living room, 6 bedrooms which includes separate au pair’s quarters, Family room with fireplace..Study/office..home theater, 1 Bedroom Guest House(Approx 894 sq.ft) 4 car garage Mature Landscaping which includes mature oak trees, pool & spa. Menlo Park Schools.

Agent:	Mary Gullixson
Company:	Alain Pinel
Phone:	650 543 1175
Email:	mgullixson@apr.com
Website:	www.gullixson.com

Address:	142 Glenwood Ave Atherton, Ca 94027

Posted in Atherton, Open Homes, Open House | No Comments »

26173 Rancho Manuella Ln – Los Altos Hills – Open House

Friday, January 23rd, 2009


List Price: $4,998,000

Open House:
Sunday	1/25	1:30 PM to 4:30 PM


Bedroom: 3	Bathroom: 3.5	Sq. Ft: 3,779
Description: Gracious home originally built in 1936 on a magical knoll top. Views! Quiet and private. Well for irrigation. Guest house with 2 br/2ba. Extraordinary lot and location make this property suitable for development of a signature estate.

Agent:	Diane Thomas
Company:	Carolyn Mansell
Phone:	650 328 2087

Address:	26173 Rancho Manuella Ln Los Altos Hills, CA 94022