Raven and Sparrow

First Christmas

This is the biggest Christmas tree we have ever had. Its about ten feet tall. I couldn't reach the top even on the step ladder. After several years of little trees decorated with whatever because the ornaments were in storage, we decided to get a tree that took advantage of the height of our new living room ceiling for our first Christmas here.It has been fun to get out all the old lights and ornaments and see what works in this new context.

Another nostalgic element this year has been the music. When Mike and I got married in the seventies we went out on a limb and bought a pretty nice stereo for the time....a Marantz tuner and Phillips turntable. The turntable hadn't been working for a long time before we moved and I wasn't sure we had even kept it, but when we unpacked our storage unit, there it was. Mike went online and found replacement belts and switches and now it works as well as it ever did, so we can play the 45rpm albums from his childhood Christmases. The records are in surprisingly good shape with hardly any scratches or skips, so we have been wallowing in sixties arrangements of Christmas carols as we trim the tree.

As usual we have a number of Christmas items that used to belong to Mike's family. My parents are still living in their home, but Mike's dad has been in assisted living for some years. When he sold his house, all kinds of family things came to us, like the cardboard nativity scene. It was printed rather beautifully, but it is just flat cardboard cut-outs that you insert into tabs to make the tableau. We still have the original box, and it has been in use since the fifties. Some of the tabs are getting iffy, and the star on the roof is wobbly, but here it is again. It could be considered politically incorrect, designating one of the magi as "colored wise man" and setting him outside the stable with the camels. Still, for traditional decorating, it is wonderful. 

Another decoration I like is the bird santa. It too is flat, but it is made of wood, not paper. It is nice to see him back on the mantel. I bought him at a craft fair years ago and have enjoyed his birdy progress ever since.

The power of these objects to revive memories and maintain continuity amidst so much change is remarkable, Each year that they endure they become clearer messengers from the past and sharper reminders of the irresistability of time. Fortunately they are also triggers of anticipation, helping us to get into the holiday spirit.

I hope everyone is enjoying the anticipation of Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the trees come down

To make room for the new house, some trees had to go. It was painful. The trees on our property have had hard lives, as the soil is shallow and the wind is fierce. Still, many of them have grown large. It isn't uncommon for these (mostly) Douglas firs to have double trunks, since the wind often knocks the tops out and they grow on from what were side branches . That unfortunately makes them prone to rot and disease and they become dangerous. We tried to limit the tree removal to only the ones in the proposed house space, but a few others had to go just for safety's sake, and one beauty was just going to be killed slowly by the machinery that would be working over its roots. The whunk noise they make as they hit the ground is as unmistakeable as the sound of a car crash. Wherever you are you know what has happened.

 

 

The Way We Were

These are pictures of the site of our new house before it was begun. It is a ridge of rock; only these huge but shallow rooted fir trees could think of establishing themselves in such thin soil. Well, the trees and the grasses and the ever invasive scotch broom. In a little depression on this knoll there were also three fawn lilies. A shy and graceful wildflower, they never increased, but each March I would find them bowing their pretty faces to the earth, ready to return after a very brief visit to the sun.

This is not the most beautiful part of our property. It is close to the old house and the driveway. Still, it was pretty and the only place that fawn lilies grew. Now it is completely different. The devastation that home construction has visited on this site is the hardest part of the process. The clearing was especially tough, and more recently the ditching, but more of that later. As the house has taken shape I have realized that it will eventually add to the life here and allow everyone who visits it to participate in the beauty of the land. That is consolation.

New House, Old House

When I started this blog we were planning a new house to be built alongside the old one that we live in now. I originally thought we would just remodel the old house, but it is as unique as it is uncomfortable and when I realized that it would have to be changed completely if we brought it up to the building code, I embraced the idea of new construction. We decided we would keep the old house as studio and workshop and so the new house would not need to be very large. It should harmonize with the old house and most importantly, respect and enhance it's setting. This was over three years ago. I imagined using the blog to document the construction process, but found from the very beginning that it was just too scary to talk about. I love this place so much that no decision can be taken lightly. Also, I feel like I might be pushing my luck, reaching too far beyond the already amazing circumstance of living here at all. Still, spending the foreseeable future in the old house as it is wasn't going to fly, so we took a deep breath and began. Now that the new house is almost done I can finally talk about it.

We placed it on a ridge of rock facing south to the semi-open meadow out front and the wooded ravine in back. It is V shaped, with two rectangles set at an angle to each other, each with part shed, part gable roofs. The shed roofs have clerestory windows to scoop as much sunlight as possible into the interiors. Also, they mirror the roofline of the old house, so that both structures are related. The new house looks big and complicated in the drawings, but in life it is fairly straightforward. It is about 2000 square feet.

Mike slipped on a rock at the beach this fall, smashing his glasses, chipping a tooth and completely obliterating my beautiful camera, so I am reaching back for old photos of the house and other things until I can take new ones again. These are the sketches the architect drew when we were in the initial planning stages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gardens of nostalgia

  Since my new job has a standard Monday through Friday schedule, my social life has re-energized itself with a vengeance. It has been so great be free to go to weekend parties (and when else are parties held?) and see so many of my old friends. I'm not used to it and will have to slow down soon, but re-connecting with my favorite people has been fun.

Last weekend we stayed with our old neighbors on our old street in the suburbs east of Seattle. We moved there in 1988 when our boys were still pre-schoolers, and were delighted to find that many of the other families on the ten house cul-de sac also had children about the same age. Everybody got along pretty well, and some of the women on the street became especially dear friends. Most of us were interested in gardening, and eventually formed a small garden club amongst ourselves. It was a wonderful excuse to visit the nurseries and gardens in our extended area that we might never have otherwise seen, and resulted in some really memorable excursions.

I was reminded forcefully of our old garden club this year because two of my former neighbors had their gardens featured on the local "big" tour sponsored by the very large and active garden club in the nearest town. Between three and four hundred people usually do the one day tour of five or six gardens. I never missed it when I lived there, and was always amazed at the high quality of the gardens shown, so I know the pressure was on for my friends when they agreed to take part. They spent a year concentrating on their yards and the results were just breathtaking. Each garden completely reflected the personality and  taste of its maker even though they stood adjacent to each other in the same woodsy setting. The combinations of texture and color, the careful consideration of areas both casual and intensely cultivated, the sweep and movement through the properties, the small details and the dramatic statements all came together into completely satisfying and distinctive gardens. It was like all the talk and dreams of our old conversations made real.

Visiting the scene of so much former pleasure has made me review what drew me away. Seeing my friends make such beautiful and personal places out of their arbitrary suburban lots reminded me how important this place is to me. To say that I have always wanted to live here is to trivialize the deep connection with this island I have felt since childhood. The longing to return was strong but hardly admitted, since it seemed so unlikely. The day that it became possible to acquire our present home was one of the most powerful, thrilling days of my life. There was no question about where I wanted to be, and there still isn't, even though I now know more about the costs of having my heart's desire. 

My neighbors' gardens show how love and commitment can shine through the landscape and meld together the person and the place. I am re-consecrated to my land by their example. Thank you, Kathleen and Sandra. With love.

    

Ta Da! My new kitchen

Here it is....the new, the fabulous, the clean and mouse-free for now kitchen!!! Yippee!! It is so great to have my kitchen back after all this time. I didn't realize how much I would miss being able to cook and bake. Kitchen chores are so endless that it is easy to think of them as a burden, but I have to admit now that they mostly make me happy. Our remodel was about as plain and simple as we could make it , allowing

for the need to rip the room down to the studs to repair plumbing and wiring and replace the walls and ceiling. The cabinets are off-the-shelf Home Depot specials and the counters are laminate. We thought we ought to choose from the pre-made laminate counters in the store, but I just couldn't stand the selection, so we picked the color we liked and had them made for us. It cost almost twice as much, but I am so glad we did. The other splurge was the sink and faucet. If fortune allows, this kitchen will eventually be a dye

room, so I wanted a really deep sink and a faucet that can accomodate big pots. The sink is 10.5" deep, and I love it. I also love my new stove, in spite of its small size and extreme simplicity. I only had a 20" stove before and debated seriously about buying a bigger one, but realized eventually that the small size actually works pretty well in the room. The old stove had such a faulty thermostat that it had to be replaced; the new oven heats very evenly at exactly the right temperature and never soars unexpectedly to 500 degrees or burns the back corners of my cakes. We did go to a lot of trouble to put in a range hood with ducting, the old one being unducted and entirely useless. Saint Mike fought with it for over a week, swearing copiously, but the new, much larger range hood actually works, and is even fairly quiet. Another blessing is the presence of the refrigerator in the kitchen, instead of across the hall. We got so used to its old location that I still go there by default, but it is so nice not to have to make twenty trips out of the kitchen for each meal. The open shelving is working out well so far too. We chose to do shelving as a cheaper alternative to cheap cabinets, but we also thought it was more appropriate to the simple cabin kitchen we were making. There was something too tight and precious about rows of store-bought cabinets, especially when we realized they would be white. Shelves allow more color, texture and movement. Speaking of color, it was something I worried about from the start. I didn't want to introduce too much, because there is no other painted color in our wood panelled house. I chose a wall color that relates to the exterior house paint you can see through the windows. The counters and baskets were as neutral and natural as I could manage, and fortunately my dishes looked okay in combination with them. Of course, we aren't really finished. The window sill broke during the demolition process, and most of the ceiling trim is still missing. The wall that separates the kitchen from the front hall only has drywall on the kitchen side, so it needs to be completed too. We plan to tile the wall between the stove and the range hood, and have the plain white tile in a box waiting for Saint Mike to be energized. That reminds me to say how grateful I am to him for all of the work he has done. I am so lucky to be married to someone who can and will undertake all of the skilled labor needed for this kind of renovation. Thanks, Mike.      

Too much mess

I swore I wouldn't let the blog languish, but my tiny slivers of time have been completely consumed by wrestling this mess to the ground. This is actually Saint Mike's mess, but the corresponding inside mess is my responsibility. I was handling the chaos of remodeling with good grace (I thought) before I went to work, but since then I just can't bear it. The good news is that progress is being made. I hope to have photos of the kitchen just as soon as the detritus settles into its proper place. I have scrubbed the disgusting concrete floor, washed the impenetrably dusty windows, moved almost everything kitcheny out of the living room into the newly navigable kitchen and rescued the dining table from the hot plate and microwave. There is a host of details still to complete, but soon....

Last week was complicated by jury duty.  I wasn't too pleased about being called so early in my new job, and hoped I wouldn't be selected but too bad, I was. Actually, I didn't mind. I have served on juries before. The cases can be interesting, but the group dynamics of a jury are fascinating. Thirteen people are plucked from their lives and thrust into a new and isolated group with a compelling common purpose. Its weird. This time the other jurors turned out to be charming. We never got to deliberate on the case  (after four days of testimony the parties reached a settlement) so our friendliness wasn't tested, but I really enjoyed the time I spent with these previous strangers. The hours were much better than work, but I did lose my days off, and that was tough. Since the case concerned a back injury, I am now much more knowledgeable about the physiology of the spine.

New sink, clean dog

We just gave Sunny a bath in ta-dah! our new kitchen sink. I would include a picture of the sink, but it is just barely visible amongst the junk still surrounding it. However, the end is finally in sight. The refrigerator has been moved from its former hiding place across the hall to the kitchen proper, the sink is functional, and so is the stove. Now if we could just get all the far-flung kitchen paraphernalia stowed and the construction debris removed we will be almost civilized. It took Saint Mike and I three full days to install the counters and the sink, partly because the sink is over-sized. Eventually this will be my dye kitchen, so I wanted a big, deep sink and a gooseneck faucet to accomodate my dye pots. It turns out that any special size sink costs lots more, but a regular sink just didn't cut it, so I splurged in this one area of our very low-budget remodel. I am anxious to show pictures, but the final bits are taking a long time. 

Kitchen chaos

The kitchen begins to take shape, although it is still a maze. The walls and ceiling are painted, the range hood and stove are in and the cabinets are circling the room, trying to find their true homes. Now that I see everything together, it seems too white. I'm not a white-white fan, preferring lower contrast ivory or off-white, but when budget concerns are paramount, white is the obvious choice. White appliances are cheaper and the white cabinets are cheaper even than the wood toned ones off the shelf at Home Depot. That's the kind of cabinets we have, after suffering sticker shock at the cost of the things in general. I was hoping to get Ikea cabinets because I think they have a little more design zip, but Ikea is too far away for people who need to buy their cabinets one at a time. We had to incorporate our water heater in one, and the sink plumbing got a little bizarre in another corner so we were never quite sure how big we needed each cabinet to be until we got others in place. So our kitchen has Home Depot's cheapest, and they are literally made of paper in some places. It hurts a little to replace hand made wood cabinets with press-board schlock, but don't they look clean? Also, they are closed boxes that will resist mouse encroachment. I like the wall paint color, although we don't have universal approval. My father-in-law, upon viewing the walls carefully said nothing, until it leaked out that he would have picked something brighter. I actually like grey, but in this case I think it is required. There is no other color in the house besides wood and stone, and no other rooms have drywall. The grey I chose is related to the color of the outside of the house, the only other place with paint. The whiteness of the cabinets works against me, but I am trying to blend this room into the rest of the place. I think once it gets pulled together it will be interesting and colorful enough. I hope so anyway.

Light disappointment

When choosing the lighting for our kitchen, my main criteria were using compact fluorescents and (of course) price. Track lighting answered for both, if we chose the clunky seventies-style fixtures. I could live with that, I thought, and congratulated myself on being green. Then, with tracks adhered to the ceiling and fixtures ready to go I inserted one of the R20 fluorescent floods and flipped the switch. Yuck. The light was so harsh and cold I shuddered. It was supposedly a soft white bulb too. I am so disapointed. I dragged my feet on switching to fluorescent bulbs because I absolutely hate the quality of fluorescent light. After reading that warmer bulbs were available, I finally gave them a try in my table lamps and was really pleased with the effect, including the rosy glow I got from doing my part for the environment. I chose that feeling over aesthetics for the kitchen (a rare victory for function) and now I just don't know if I can stand it. I'm thinking of using both compact fluorescents and incandescents on the tracks, but it seems like such a failure.

On a happier note, Saint Mike has installed the range hood (a challenge that threatened his sainthood on the grounds of really bad language) and is almost finished with the paint. When some of the junk littering the room has been removed I'll post a picture.