Unleaded

Huge sigh of relief. Our daughter's lead level is absolutely normal. The more accurate blood draw test from the lab gave totally different results than the finger-prick test. Not sure why, but who cares. Whew.

Atlas office

My friend Tanja pointed me toward this lovely, Elfa-like (but seemingly higher quality) modular hanging office system. It's modular day here at Parkhaus!

Kithaus

I saw this in the New York Times today. It's a flatpacked, freestanding 9'x13' room for around $45,000. That works out to about $385 per sq. ft. Insulated and pre-wired for electricity, it's not a bad option for an extra bit of space. Not as cool as a renovated Airstream in your backyard, but definitely more subtle.

Elfa master closet

Here's some photos of my closet build. Please note my awesome hand drill (also a Christmas gift from Mom and Dad) and the little magnetic level I got at the hardware store. The beer is optional.

Our Burbank door

David, of Crestview Doors, has designed our door, and even named it the "Burbank"! We're ordering it, finally, and can't wait to get it on the front of the house.

Light tent

I shoot photos for my Make magazine articles, so I built this light tent using these instructions.


I used about $12 worth of PVC pipe, three $8 lights, and a $9 shower curtain liner from Target.

Onion art

I poured this latte art this morning. Not great, but an improvement over my usual blob.

Roasting coffee

I got some green coffee beans and a stovetop roaster from sweetmarias.com as a gift for Christmas from my Mom, as well as a book on home roasting from my sister Silvia. These are the fruits of my first labor -- I under roasted them, so I may actually try to see if you can bring them back up to temperature to darken them up just slightly.

Feeling guilty

Contains Lead by cindy47452

Our daughter, who's now 20 months, failed a lead screening. Even though we were out of the house for the worst dust, I have to think it's because of the demolition/construction, which encompassed the first 16 months of her life. Her finger-prick test was 17; the cut-off is ten. I'm taking her for a blood draw this week, which is a more accurate assessment. In the meantime, I'm trying to up her iron intake, and have ordered a HEPA-filter vacuum, because our current vacuum is old and dusty, no matter how new the bag is. In addition, I'm going to wipe down the walls and windowsills with disposable wipes and wash all the toys.

Out pediatrician says this isn't such a high level that we need to freak out. I'm crossing my fingers that this will resolve itself without too much fallout, but if I had to go back, I'd have bought a HEPA-filter vacuum before construction and used it frequently.

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