Palm Springs: day 7

Saturday was our last day in Palm Springs.  Prior to checking out I took photos of our groovy mid-century modern home where we enjoyed a wonderful week.

Street view.  I really liked the over-sized house numbers.

Covered front porch

Front door and side light, both likely original

Living room, converted from a previous garage

From the living room to the kitchen

The kitchen had the original cabinetry (painted grey with new hardware) and a mixture of vintage and retro appliances

Vintage O'Keefe & Merritt oven

Vintage O'Keefe & Merritt gas cooktop.  I love how the burners are in a diagonal position rather than one over the other.

Dining area with lovely vintage table and chairs

I love the shape of the chair back and seat!

From the dining area to the kitchen

From the family room to the dining area. Floors throughout the home were concrete.

Fireplace sitting area in the family room

Other side of the family room

From the family room looking out to the pool and spa

Guest room

Hall bathroom with vintage shower tile and sink

Carl's room

Carl's room with a heart-shaped ottoman under the desk

Our room had sliders out to the pool

Our bathroom with original tile counter, sink, and painted cabinetry with new hardware

Pool from the family room sliders

Spa, lounge area, and fire pit with seating in the rear

This was on the back wall of the house and was lit at night behind the turquoise board.

Dining and sitting areas outside the kitchen door

Fire pit seating area

Spacious back yard

A great thing about this yard's exposure was that there was always sun AND shade.  Later in the afternoon the pool was completely shaded but other parts of the yard were sunny.  Since the sun is so strong there it was nice to be able to get out of the sun now and then without having to go inside.

After photographing the house and loading our luggage into the car, we headed to a marvelous vintage car show before going to the airport.

Project

One of my clients recently bought a furnished townhome.  During the pre-settlement walk-thru I saw a vintage metal patio chair stashed in the attic storage area.  I pointed it out to my client who said that it likely wasn't out on the porch because it didn't match the other furniture.  After pulling it out into the daylight we realized it was rusty and needed some attention.  

She mumbled something like "Hmmm... I'm not sure if I'll keep this or not".  Loving mid-century modern the way I do, I thought the chair was adorable so I said "Well, if you decide you don't want it, please don't throw it away.  I'll take it."

A few days after settlement she texted me that I could have the chair, so I asked her to just place it on the back patio and that I'd stop by within the next day or two to pick it up.  That way she wouldn't need to be home.

Yesterday I decided to start working on the chair.  First I took a sanding pad and sanded the arms and legs which had been sloppily painted white at some point, and were quite rusty.  It actually took less time than I thought it would.

Next I took plastic bags and painters tape and taped off everywhere I didn't want paint.  

I really like the color and patina of the turquoise and cream paint on the seat and back, and despite there being some rust on them, I decided to leave them as is.

Next I wiped down the sanded areas with a rag to remove the dust, and then spray painted the arms and legs with a grey that resembles aluminum. 

I don't think the arms/legs would have originally been painted at all, so rather than repainting them white or black, I chose the grey that resembles aluminum in hopes of making it look more original.

It turned out pretty well.  

Not bad for a $5 can of spray paint and an hour of time!

Off season

We recently bought some new outdoor furniture, and it snowed.

Typically you wouldn't think of buying outdoor furniture in the winter or when there's even a possibility of snow, but that's what we're forced to do now by retailers.  If you wait until the weather starts to turn warm and you can actually use your new outdoor furniture, there will only be scraps and pieces left over.  To get what you want you have to shop 'off season'.

So we went ahead and got the new outdoor furniture for our screened porch (which is currently being stored in our dining room) and within a couple days it snowed.

This irks me.  I hate that retailers of many seasonal goods force you to shop 'off season'.  Go into a department store in January and you're hard-pressed to find winter clothes.  Instead you'll find swim suits and cruise wear.

One time I went into a Dollar Tree store in Aug and saw stuff for Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  In August!!

FYI - the reason our new outdoor furniture is being stored in our dining room is because we are replacing some of our old outdoor furniture.  There isn't room on the screened porch for the new stuff until we get rid of the old stuff, which I'm going to sell, but I don't want to try and sell the old stuff while the weather is still cold enough to snow.

So, for at least a few more weeks our dining room will be packed with our dining room furniture and our outdoor furniture as well as a bunch of new pillows.

Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day!  Make it your goal to hug a veteran today and thank them for their service to our country.

Today was a lazy day for me & Spouse.  Both our offices were closed so we both had the day off, but it has rained on and off so we've just been relaxing and watching TV with the dogs on our laps.

I don't mind having a 'lazy day' like this once in a while, especially if I've also had an especially productive day recently.  Yesterday the weather was awesome so Spouse & I pulled all of the screened porch furniture into the yard.  I cleaned the furniture with a wet rag while he power washed the inside of the porch.  Its always amazing to me how dirty the inside of the screened porch can get!  While everything was drying we went around to the front yard and pulled a few weeds and planted the 2 yellow rose bushes I gave him for our 20th anniversary as well as planted a couple of colorful annuals we picked up Sat evening to brighten up one of the beds.  Its been a good year for our roses!  The long stem soft pink Queen Elizabeth roses, the medium pink knock-out roses, the magenta knock-out roses, and the orange knock-out roses are all blooming like crazy!  In a year or 2 the new yellow roses should join the club.

Then we carried all the porch furniture back into the screened porch and arranged everything.  I even cleaned the 3 lanterns and planted a small basil plant in a pot.  

It was a nicely productive day, and it felt good to be out in the sun for a while considering all the rain we've had this month.  After taking showers and having a snack, Spouse & I hung our new canvas.

Since it looks much more like Marvin then it does Walter, Spouse was concerned that Walter may begin acting out because we hung a giant picture that looks like his brother and not one that looks like him.  I told Spouse that they may be smart, but their not THAT smart. 

Later we went out to dinner with Steven & Thad and I decided to pull my hair back into a Samurai knot.  

I think it looks kinda cool and hipster-like.  I knew Thad would ridicule me for this "age inappropriate" hairstyle, which of course he did.  But I like changin' it up now and then.  Your thoughts on the Samurai knot??

I hope your Memorial Day weekend was good!

Amazon

We bought a sofa off of Amazon!!

It was becoming more and more apparent that we needed to replace the sofa in our TV room.  I convinced Spouse to join me and look at some styles/fabrics at a local furniture store.  After about 10 minutes he declared that "everything is ugly".

In reality he just didn't want to continue looking at furniture.  He said "shopping in brick and mortar stores is passe" and that it takes so much less time to shop online.  I think this is true in some cases, but not for everything.  I'd really like to sit/lounge on a sofa in person before buying one.

But we didn't.  We were looking for something pretty specific so we checked a couple of furniture store websites and then ended up looking on Amazon and found this:

This is not a photo from the website - this is our sofa in our TV room.

It is "bonded leather", which I'm still not quite sure exactly what that is, but Spouse was keen on it because of the ease of removing dog fur with a quick swipe.  Its a deep red, which looks ok with the rug but I don't like the curtains with it.  No worries though - the curtains were super cheap and almost 10 years old so I'm happy to replace the curtains with new panels.

The best thing about this new sofa is that we don't have to fight over a chaise or ottoman because both sides are recliners!

This is a stock photo from the website, showing one side in the process of reclining.

Some might think its odd or risky to make a 'major purchase' like a sofa online, without having touched or seen it in person.  But this sofa was the same price as the sofa it replaced, which we purchased almost 12 years ago, and came with free shipping, so we decided to take a chance on it.  At least so far we've not been disappointed.  Its quite comfortable and reclines to almost a lying down position if you want.  I normally just put the leg part up.

When Steven & Thad learned that we'd bought a sofa off of Amazon they were barely surprised.  When I questioned them about it they said "You bought a 1959 Cadillac off of eBay sight unseen, so why would we be surprised at this?"

I guess they had a good point.

Surprise - the furniture is ready

It was Friday, my catch-up day at work, and I'm thinking about the fact that we didn't hear from the furniture store about the furniture we ordered. We bought it at a very reasonably priced furniture store up at the beach. Although not so convenient for delivery, the price was right AND there is no sales tax in DE. They had said 2-3 weeks, but thought it might be 2 weeks. I was hoping it would be 2 weeks, as we'd be able to pick it up right away. If it were going to be ready in 3 weeks, we'd have to wait another week after that, as we already had plans to be out of town the 3rd weekend.

So since it appeared we weren't going to be tied up with the furniture, I emailed our friends Liz & Robert, with whom we had 'back-up' plans for dinner on Sat, in case the furniture wasn't ready. But Liz & Robert decided to go to Williamsburg for the weekend. They invited us to go, but we really have no interest in visiting Williamsburg so we politely declined. Besides, we didn't have any arrangements for our dog.

So then I began trolling my friends via email to see who was doing what this weekend. Since Halloween is on Mon, I figured some of our friends may want to go downtown on Sat night to the clubs and bars and see all the boys in their costumes. But everyone I contacted either had other plans or didn't respond to my email.

I began to think 'Man, we really are losers. Here it is, Halloween weekend, and we have absolutely NO plans what-so-ever.' So I called Joe and asked him how he felt about just going downtown the two of us and checking out the Halloween costumes. He didn't want to. So I braced myself for a truly uneventful weekend.

When I got home from work on Fri, Joe said "Surprise - the furniture is ready." The store had called and left a message saying the furniture had just come in. Suddenly I was kind of glad that none of my attempts to make plans for the weekend had worked out! We began to make our new plans.

Our existing TV room sofa was going to Joe's brother's house in Bowie. We had hoped he could come and pick it up, but with such short notice, that wasn't going to happen. Fortunately, his house is on the way to the beach, so we put the sofa in our Suburban and dropped it off on the way. The love seat was going to Joe's sister in Alexandria, but we didn't have time to deliver it on Fri, so we left it in the TV room for some future delivery date.

We were both dreading getting the existing sofa and love seat out of the house, as we remembered how hard it was to get in. We couldn't use the front door because the furniture was too big to go around the corner to get into the TV room. We had to bring the furniture in through the exterior door to the TV room, which is not as wide as the front door. It just barely squeezed through - only after totally removing the door off of its hinge. So with great strain tempered with excitement, we finally extracted the old furniture to make way for the new stuff.

When we went to pick up the new furniture we really didn't think they'd be able to get both pieces inside the Suburban. We planned to take one piece home Sat morning, drive back to the beach Sat night, and take the second piece home on Sun. But we'd removed the 3rd row seat and flipped down the 2nd row seats, creating an impressive amount of space, so the loading guys were optimistic. It took a couple tries and several configurations, but amazingly they got both pieces into our truck!

With both pieces of furniture snugly in the truck and the weather forecast at the beach being good, we thought we'd stay up there for the weekend, and then unload the furniture on Sun evening. But after driving around at the beach with that load of furniture for about 20 minutes, we both agreed to just go home. We were excited to transform our TV room.

We got home around 4pm on Sat and unloaded the furniture, took all the protective plastic and cardboard off, and screwed on the feet. Then we placed the furniture on the wall where the TV/VCR/DVD had been, moved the area rugs, and decided to call it quits. It was 7pm and we were both ready for a shower and some food.

This morning we made a quick trip to our local hardware/variety store to pick up a few necessities and got back to work. Since we wanted to turn the room around and put the furniture where the TV had been, we needed to get the cable over to the other wall where the furniture had been. Fortunately I could pull the cable from the basement and poke it up threw a pre-drilled hole in exactly the right place. Then we put the TV/VCR/DVD onto the new entertainment center we'd bought last weekend from the scratch-n-dent area at Ikea (you can't even find the flaw) and placed it on the wall where the furniture had been. We replaced the lightbulbs in the overhead light that were too bright with some more appropriate lower watt bulbs, and slipped some rubber anti-skid discs under the eight feet of our new furniture, threw the ottoman back in and voila! It looks fabulous!

The new furniture is an ivory chenile, two-piece sectional. There is a sofa with a left arm, and a chaise with a right arm. Put them together and add the toss pillows with a graphic red & ivory design and add our existing red ottoman and you get a stunning designer look. (Michael: this is WAY better than the furniture you remember!) We even had time to deliver the old love seat to Joe's sister, and have an early dinner with his mom.

So much for weekends with no plans!