Elfa cafe

We've been waiting for the 30% Elfa sale at the Container Store to strike! Today we went down to the store in Pasadena and got a bunch of storage for the espresso machine, wall-mounted pull-out drawers in the pantry for each family member to stash their lunchboxes/bags/hats, and an entire master closet setup.

I picked the low-hanging fruit and assembled these two carts tonight. They're great -- Erin is wildly happy to have a drawer for all the paper Trader Joe's grocery bags, we put kitchen side towels in another, and I imagine I'll fill a couple with coffee related gear.

Workbenches from doors

I've got a two stage plan:
Stage one, clean out the garage in order to clear enough space for two large workbenches.
Stage two, build two workbenches from house addition scraps. The scraps are two solid core doors for the worktops and a bunch of original 8ft. long 2x4s from the 1939 part of the house.

Secret hollow book

This has nearly nothing to do with the house, but I wanted to share my secret hollow book. I made it as an enclosure for my Make Controller (a microcontroller board that can serve as the brains and input/output for robots and other fun creations). I was inspired to do it by Bre Pettis's Make Weekend Project video.

Prep for landscaping

Our landscaper came in and put some very nice, low maintenance stuff in the planter boxes next to the garage and behind the living room window. I haven't taken the "after" photos yet, so here's the "before".

1. next to the garage, 2. papyrus staging area, 3. kids watch the landscaping, 4. leaning tree, 5. planter box, 6. plants in waiting

Tile guys appeared

The tile guys returned today to patch up the border around the replaced shower glass. I haven't seen it yet, but their work is always flawless, so I can't wait to go home and check it out.
This means that we have just a few large-ish punchlist items remaining, and a bunch of tiny little ones. I still haven't had the energy to compile a list, but I'll try to get to it very soon.

No tile for us yet

For some reason our tile guy, Severio, never showed up to replace the tile around the shower glass wall. I haven't talked to J.D. yet to see when we can reschedule for, but we've just got a few small things like this left that we'd like to finish before the year 2008.

Cracked glass has been replaced

This is a photo of the cracked glass in the back wall of our shower. The tile got pulled, and the glass has since been replaced. This time there is a small metal frame and gasket to float the glass away from the tile. Tile should be back in tomorrow. Hurray!

Desk installed in guest bedroom

My friend Curt was visiting, and Erin suggested he help me install the fold up/fold down desk in the guest room. I wonder if that should become a new condition of visiting us; all guests must help install something.

High class speaker hole covers

Needing to cover ten in-ceiling speaker holes until we actually purchase speakers, I came up with this: a pack of 35 paper plates for $4 and some double-sided mounting tape.

That lived-in feeling

We put up some framed prints in the hallway and studio. They really add that feeling of, how to say, people actually living here.

The prints are five pieces by Shag that he did for Disneyland's 50th Anniversary.

Scooba issues forth dirty water

Having sent our floor-cleaning robot on five successful missions this past weekend, it's difficult for me to say what the best part about the Scooba is. The results are excellent -- the kitchen floor looks much cleaner than when we Swiffered it. Watching him navigate around objects is tons of fun, "Go little guy, you can figure out how to back out from under the bed!". But I think the kids, Erin and I agree that watching the dirty water pour out into the sink afterward is our favorite aspect of robot ownership.

Robots will clean our house for us while we sleep

I'd like to repeat that, since it makes me so happy:
Robots will clean our house for us while we sleep.

Alright, it's actually "robot", singular. For now.

It's an iRobot Scooba, a hard-floor cleaning robot. It'll do our kitchen floor in about a half hour. It should be safe on:

• our bathroom tile and slate
• sealed hardwood
  
• concrete floors

It should be unsafe on:

• the cat
• all those who threaten us

and, eventually, (when it becomes self-aware on December 20th, 2019)

• us

Crank it up

One of the painters showed up this morning with a bucket full of window cranks. Hurray!

Up until this point we've only had two cranks, one upstairs and one downstairs. Every time I wanted to alter the state of window openness in the house I've had to run around with one crank, using it on each window like a hand tool. Well, those days are over!