August 10th, 2010 by Erin

We have two additional bedrooms we haven’t shared any pictures of, mostly because they are currently just used for storage and not really fit for viewing.  One of them contains a bed that the former owner, Crazy Myrna, left when she moved out.  It’s a fine bed.  Full size, with a faux wrought iron frame and canopy.  It’s just way, way too big for the room.  If it had an actual fabric canopy on it, the blades of the ceiling fan would slice into it.   So it just doesn’t work for us.

I decided to post it in the “free” section on craigslist.  I suppose we could have sold it, but I really just wanted to get rid of it and I thought free would be the fastest.  And it seemed pretty fast.  Within minutes, I had five responses.  Within a half-hour, 20.  I decided to use the “first come, first served” principle and emailed the first responder.  He said “I can pick it up RIGHT NOW!”  I said hold your horses, you can pick it up when my husband is home from work.  In the meantime, I will take it apart and get it ready to transport.

His wife called a little later to make sure the canopy material in the picture was included because her daughter had really wanted a canopy bed with a pink canopy for a long time and this would be just perfect for her.  She told me her husband would be here to pick it up in an hour.

Ten minutes later, the husband calls and starts asking questions about the mattress.  How old is it?  What brand is it?  How thick is it?  Is it a nice mattress?  Um, are you forgetting that it’s FREE?  It’s a fine mattress.  It’s not a luxury mattress, but it’s FREE.  It’s not a fancy brand like Tempurpedic, Serta, or Beauty Rest, but it’s FREE.  It’s not a 12 inch thick pillow top, but it’s FREE.  So after 2 hours of back and forth regarding the logistics of his pick up of the bed, during which time I passed up on multiple other offers, he decides to pass because the mattress is not new or a brand name.  Earth to Mike S.: no one is giving away brand new Craftmatic Adjustable Beds on craigslist!

Ok, I am calm now.  Sort of.  I guess I am just irked because he didn’t say, “I’m interested, I’d like to take a look at the bed, and I have a few questions.”  He said, “I want it and I will pick it up RIGHT NOW!”  It seems to me there is a contract there.  I offered to give him a bed.  He accepted that offer.  In reliance on his acceptance, I dismantled the bed and brought it downstairs to the front door.  Reliance is a species of consideration.  Geez, will I ever stop talking/thinking like a lawyer?

Now that the guy had breached his contract with me, I had to get rid of the bed sitting in the entry way.  I decided to abandon the first come/first served principle in favor of looking for responses which seemed to indicate that this person could really use a mattress.  Not some yuppie couple from Walnut Creek who want a fantasy bed for their daughter, but someone who maybe is sleeping on the floor and could really benefit from a mattress, even if it is off brand and not a pillow top.

I chose a college student moving into a new rental home.  She picked it up two hours later and didn’t once ask about the brand name.  In fact, she was really thrilled with the bed, and couldn’t believe that Crazy Myrna had left it or that we were giving it away.  The pick up was kind of an adventure.  I had just put a pan on the stove to preheat, and I totally forgot about it while I was helping her with the bed, so smoke alarms were sounding and Steve couldn’t manage to get them to turn off by flipping the circuit breaker.  She will have an interesting craigslist story to tell her friends, anyway.

© 2010 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

January 14th, 2010 by Erin

I’ve been delinquent with respect to the blog lately.  It’s not that I haven’t been thinking about it; I’ve been taking pictures with the intention of posting them on the blog, but when it comes to uploading and sizing, I’m not too motivated.   

Today, I finally got around to taking down our last piece of Christmas decor: our front door wreath.  Most of it has been down for a while now, but I guess since we tend to go in and out via the garage, there wasn’t a visible reminder that we needed to do something about it. 

To console myself over the fact that we won’t be enjoying Christmas lights for a while now, I’m going to recap how we made our house a little festive last year. 

First, the dining room. We spread a silver and gold accented table cloth on the table, with some burgundy and gold napkins in the center. On top of that we filled a decorative glass bowl with cinnamon-scented pine cones and some metallic ornaments. We finished off the table with a grouping of candles on either side of the center piece.

On the buffet, we displayed a nativity set given to us by Steve’s parents.

I used an inverted stemmed hurricane to elevate the heavenly host up above the holy family and its visitors.

Also, you’ll notice a couple of copies of O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” next to the visiting wise men.

I was given a copy by a friend when I was in college. I actually hadn’t heard the story before, but I had listened to a record of “Christmas Eve on Sesame Street” over and over and over again when I was a kid. Bert and Ernie’s gift situation was suspiciously like the one in the O. Henry story. Every Christmas since then I’ve searched for copies, since I thought it was a great gift. I was never able to find it, though. Until 2008. A bookstore near my work was closing up shop at the end of the year, and would you know it, they had several different versions on super duper clearance! I snatched one up and gave it to Steve that year. In hindsight, I should have purchase several more copies.

We also scattered some metallic Christmas trees, some of which I had collected and some of which I borrowed from my mother, around the manger scene, with more groupings of candles, of course.

Things were a little bit more casual and bright in our family room. We decked out the fireplace mantle with Christmas stuff.

The stockings were inexpensive, plain felt stockings which I dressed up just a bit with an iron-on initial for each of us.

I also swagged a piece of festive ribbon between the two stocking holders to add a few glass ornaments to the display. We scattered some Christmas items we’d collected over the years in with our usual mantle decor. My favorite is the pair of kissing dogs, which was a gift we received when we got engaged, just before the previous Christmas.

In case you were looking for pictures of our Christmas tree, you can stop. We didn’t have one. We found an artificial tree at Costco that we liked, but waited to long to buy it and they ran out. We then decided we could do without for this year and wait for after-Christmas sales to purchase a tree. That idea was a bust because as far as I could tell, most retailers were clearing out their Christmas stuff about 2 weeks before Christmas to make way for Valentine’s Day merchandise. So next year we will be looking for a tree early.

Now that I think about it, this post is probably a lot more timely than I thought at first, since it’s probably about time for retailers to start putting out Christmas stuff for next year.  I mean, it’s almost February, so they better get on it or Christmas will pass them right by. 

© 2010 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

November 18th, 2009 by Erin

My latest project is painting the dining room.  I’m probably about 2/3 done at this point.  Here is what it looked like before.

And I’ve also added a little fall flair.

Assuming I don’t get side tracked, the afters should be coming in the next couple of days.  And I have learned my lesson about putting the old curtains back up, so don’t expect to see those again.

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

November 6th, 2009 by Erin

I recently posted pictures of our freshly repainted bedroom.  The overwhelming consensus among the people who commented (all three of them) was that the curtains suck and they’ve got to go.  Which I don’t disagree with.  They came with the house and I want something new and not ugly.  I just put them back up because I don’t have that something new yet.  But it was pointed out that we don’t really need curtains.  So here is the room, sans curtains.

Better?  Still doesn’t exactly have a finished look, but I have some thoughts.  You know, for when we have money to buy all kinds of new furniture. 

My first idea is not really furniture at all.  I’d like to put some decorative molding above the bed.  I was thinking of creating a 3×3 grid of squares made of half round molding, painted either Silver Tradition, or white. 

As for curtains, I’m not sure we really need anything on the two small windows, but I thought this might look nice on the big windows.  I need to check it out in person to see if the color goes with the accent wall, which is what I was trying to pull from.  There are also some coordinating items that I might consider, like a throw or some decorative pillows. 

If that isn’t enough Scandinavian decor for you, I’m also thinking about replacing our dressers and nightstands with these (in black-brown).  Two next to each other just happens to be about the same length as the space from the side of the bed to each wall.  So I think we should each get two.  That will give us each six drawers for clothes, which should be plenty of space to replace the two mismatched dressers we have now across the room.  Plus they are about the right height for a nightstand, so they will do double duty if we put lamps and our alarm clocks on the top.  And speaking of lamps, I thought it might be a good idea to lean a mirror against the wall behind each lamp.  I’ve noticed that since we painted the wall dark, the light from the bedside lamps seems to get sucked up and it feels very dark.  The mirrors will reflect the light out and make it brighter. 

So, since we won’t be needing the two old dressers anymore, what should we do with that space?  I’d like to put two comfy chairs (gasp! the comfy chair!  can you name that tv show?), a small table, a floor lamp, and an ottoman to create a little sitting area we can use for reading. 

Haven’t really thought about art at all, but there is plenty of wall space for that.  Maybe a Fathead of the Colorado Avalanche logo?  They don’t have one of Patrick Roy.  Or not. 

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

November 4th, 2009 by Erin

The other day, I’m sitting in front of the TV, minding my own business, when I hear a knock at the door.  Shocking because pretty much everybody I know that might even consider paying me a visit is gainfully employed and not hanging around my neighborhood in the middle of the afternoon.  Against my better judgment, I decided to answer it because it was an opportunity for human contact. 

It was a salesman.  A really good salesman, it turns out.  He was selling some sort of earth-friendly all-purpose cleaner.  He just needed a few seconds of my time to show me how great this stuff worked.  What else did I have to do?  He showed me how it can clean windows, streak free, and prevent future smudges and fingerprints.  He showed me how easily it will clean the tile grout in my entryway.  He showed me how it will strip the dirt off the siding of the house with just a wipe.  He showed me how it can even remove rust stains from my concrete driveway.  Pretty amazing stuff!

So now, my front window has a clean spot.  And the tile grout in the entryway has a clean spot.  And the siding on the porch has a clean spot.  And the rust spot on the driveway is partially cleaned away.  Which means I need to clean the rest of the front window, the entryway tile grout, the siding on the porch (and probably the rest of the house, once that’s clean), and the rust spot(s) on the driveway. 

Next time I’m out, I’m buying a “No Soliciting” sign.

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

November 3rd, 2009 by Erin

After three days of painting, I finally finished the master bedroom.  I carried the colors from the master bathroom into the bedroom, with Behr’s Silver Tradition on the walls and Soft Denim on the ceiling.  When it came to the bathroom, I differentiated the the small water closet from the bathroom as a whole by adding some horizontal stripes (check them out in this post).  I wanted to similarly differentiate the bedroom.  So here’s a peek from the bathroom.

I added an accent wall.  It’s Behr’s Provence.  Digression: I bought a quart of the stuff in an eggshell finish, which the guy at HD assured me would be enough for the one wall.  I wasn’t.  So I had to go back for a second can.  The two cans were totally different textures.  The first was watery.  It seemed strange to me because other Behr paint I have used has been pretty thick.  I assumed it was because the color was so much darker than what I have generally used, and the dark pigment affects the consistency of the paint.  The second can, however, was the thickness I was used to.  What’s the deal?  Luckily, I couldn’t tell the difference when they were applied.  So here is the rest of the room.

I’m not quite sold on the accent wall at this point.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the whole bedroom/bathroom combination much more than before.  And it’s not just getting rid of the lime green — the white walls in the bedroom had a lot of poorly-camouflaged Spackle-filled holes, and it was pretty clear the room hadn’t been painted since the house was built (a fact further evidenced by the way the walls sucked up the new paint).  But I love love love the bathroom and I really don’t feel that strongly about the bedroom.  Maybe it’s because the dark color against the light color makes it much easier to see that my edges are not perfectly straight.  Or maybe we just need to update the curtains (the new paint only serves to highlight that the ones that came with the house are Awful with a capital A) and furniture and get some art on the walls.  In any event, we’ll be living with it for a while and we’ll see how it grows on us. 

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

October 30th, 2009 by Erin

When we moved in, our master bathroom was a grotesque shade of fluorescent green. One of our friends said we just needed a black light in the room.

The awesome green paint ranked high on our list of things to change as soon as possible, starting with the WC. I painted it in stripes of Behr’s Silver Tradition and Soft Denim.

I carried those colors into the main bathroom, but not the striping action. The ceiling became Soft Denim and the green walls were covered with Silver Tradition.

The whiter-than-white master bedroom is still in progress, but it’s getting a makeover too. To be continued . . .

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

October 4th, 2009 by Erin

Last weekend, I started a batch of limoncello.  I spent some time looking at recipes on the internet, and decided a combination of techniques that I thought would work for me.  I took the peel — no pith — from about ten lemons and dumped it in a pitcher with a bottle of Everclear (151 proof) and let it sit for a week. 

Digression:  Have you ever read the label on a bottle of Everclear?  I think there are less warnings on common household cleaning chemicals.  WARNING!! Overconsumption may endanger your health.  CAUTION!! Extremely Flammable Handle with Care.  There is a whole paragraph of warnings:

Caution: Do not apply to open flame.  Keep away from fire, heat, and open flame.  Contents may ignite or explode.  Do not consume in excessive quantities.  Not intended for consumption unless mixed with non-alcoholic beverage.   

(Emphasis added.)  So I guess it makes sense that this stuff is illegal in some states, as it is explosive and not suitable for human consumption.  But back to the real story.

Today, satisfied that the alcohol had stripped the lemon peels of all their lemony goodness, I finished the limoncello.  First, I strained out the lemon peels, leaving me with some strong lemon-infused grain alcohol.  Then I made a pseudo- simple syrup.  I decided to make limoncello crema, so I made the syrup with milk and half and half instead of water.  This involved a little bit of experimentation on my part.  I found a number of variations of the recipe, some calling from milk and some calling for half and half.  So I split the alcohol mixture in half and made half with whole milk and half with half and half (say that three times fast).  For anyone that wants to attempt, that was one pint of either whole milk or half and half simmered with 1.5 cups sugar until the sugar is completely dissolved for HALF of the alcohol.  Let the sugar mixture cool and add to the alcohol.  Bottle and refrigerate/freeze.  I haven’t tasted either version chilled yet, so the jury’s still out as to whether milk or half and half is the better choice.

When I was finished, I was left with a sieve full of brittle lemon peels.  One of the internet recipes I read suggested putting them through the garbage disposal to “freshen” it up, which seemed to make sense to me since I’ve heard before you can put some citrus wedges down it to make it smell fresher.  So — and here’s the REAL point of the post — I put the lemon peels down the garbage disposal and fired it up.  Seemed to work just fine, until the next time I used the disposal. 

I washed the dishes later in the day, and when I drained the sink, I switched on the disposal to clear out any stray bits of food.  Suddenly, the water stopped draining and murky black stuff started to come up through the drain.  Insert random expletive here.  I was pretty sure this was not something I could fix myself.  I’m handy, but just not that handy.  And now is really not a good time to be staying home from work to wait for a plumber.  Steve stepped in about here, but he knows about as much about fixing a disposal as I do.  We cut the power to the disposal and I reached my hand in to see if there was something jammed in it.  He pressed the reset button.  Still spewing black stuff.  We were resigned to calling a plumber.

In a last ditch effort to to DIO (do it ourselves), I called my dad for advice.  I explained to him that the motor appeared to be working when we turned the disposal on, but nothing was going down the drain.  This led him to believe it was a clog, not a problem with the disposal itself, and he suggested a plunger.  Five minutes later, water was flowing freely down the drain and there was no black stuff to be seen.  Woohoo!

Dad can pretty much always save the day, can’t he?

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

September 14th, 2009 by Erin

As I mentioned in my last post, we’ve been sleeping on a tiny, hand-me-down bed since we got married.  Here is a look at our little bed in our big master bedroom. As you can see, we haven’t done much in terms of decorating the place. The curtains were graciously left for us by the seller.

Here you see more of those fab curtains, and our mismatched dressers.

And finally a sneak peak at the master bath. Through the doorway, you can see the mirrored doors of Steve’s closet (mine is on the other side). And if you look close, you can see the bathtub reflected in it. Yes, that is fluorescent green paint.

The new bed we purchased over Labor Day weekend was delivered on Saturday.  Saturday morning, I stripped the old bed so they could take it away when delivering the new bed.  The delivery window was from 12-4, and I expected to be waiting around until 3:45 or so at least.  But amazingly, they were at the door at 12:01, hauled away the old bed, set up the new bed, and were gone again by 12:15.  These guys were pros. 

It still has “new mattress smell.”  We let it air out with the windows open and the fan on until just before we went to sleep.  By then we were tired, so we made the bed a bit hastily.  It was like sleeping in a bed from a nice hotel, all plush and cozy. 

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved

August 25th, 2009 by Erin

Yesterday, from my office window, I saw a huge plume of smoke billowing from behind the high-rise across the street.  Eager for a break from the grind, I jumped up from my desk and walked down the hall to see if I could get a better view.  Sure enough, our office turned out to be prime viewing real estate.  We could see smoke, fire trucks and ladders, fire fighters on the roofs, actual flames, and eventually functioning fire hoses.  So that was a bit of excitement in an otherwise typical day at the office. 

Digression:  Someone forwarded me a short online breaking news story on the incident as it was happening.  Not a whole lot of interesting information, two alarm fire, the fire department is responding, no further comments given, blah blah blah.   But here’s the kicker, “a man who answered the phone at Tadich Grill confirmed that the building was on fire.”  Excuse me?  The building is on fire and this guy is still inside answering the phones?

So, the real point of this post: we don’t really have functioning smoke detectors in our house right now.  Of course, watching someone else’s property burst into flames made me think of it.  If I recall correctly, the smoke detectors were disabled when we moved in, and we found out why when we enabled them and tried to cook dinner.  We didn’t even burn anything, but those alarms started wailing, and they are not easy to turn off.  Steve has mentioned replacing them on a couple of occasions.  Needless to say, this is now going to the top of our to do list.

© 2009 The Beehive All Rights Reserved