Billie's Folly

We're approaching a whole new level of homeyness!  The cabinets are arriving and I'm recognizing all the details I obsessed over.  They look great in natural wood, but almost all will be painted, with a few stained countertops.  This is one end of the dining room.   Here's the butler's pantry and bar below. A long window seat in the upstairs hall and the laundry room. The master and a guest room, which will have a twin(bed)-size window seat.  

Living in the Bay Area since 1973, for the most part I thought of wildfires as a Southern California problem.  In recent years it definitely became a serious Northern California problem too.  But moving to the wet winters of Portland, I thought wildfires were in my past.  Not so.  With the hot, dry summer we've been having (much different from my childhood summers visiting my grandparents here), and the high winds of the last few days, the fires are nearby and on everyone's minds.  And, even though my friends and neighbors and I are still safe, we can't escape the reminders of how near the fires are.   This first photo shows how blue our skies can be.  By contrast, here are the skies today.  You can imagine the air quality!   I'm definitely new to being at Mother Nature's mercy.  (I somehow escaped the San Francisco area after 45 years without experiencing a major earthquake.)  My heart goes out to those who the fires have hit and d...

  I'm amazed and excited by how much is happening every day at the house.  But then I realize how much more needs to happen--if I'm really going to be in by the end of the year.  Skip is still saying Christmas, but I'm trying to be realistic and reasonable.  It will be great if I'm actually sleeping there on New Year's Eve.  But if everything isn't completely ready, I'm prepared to wait until it is.  I have some leeway on my rental lease, but I'm keeping that information close to the cuff.  No need to ease the pressure! I've had the tile for the kitchen backsplash and the living room fire surround for a couple years already.  But the five bathrooms have taken my tile decision-making to a new level of obsession.  With wallpaper choices in hand, I made the mistake of heading to handmade tile shops first.  I found some beautiful options, but they had long lead times (handmade) and high prices (handmade).  Riddled by guilt, I tried to ...