House Made

Beth here.

Merideth and I have not had more than a trickle of cold water from our kitchen sink for the past three years. There was plenty of hot water, but cold? For cold water, one had to visit the bathroom sink or the hose. We tried everything we could think of, namely checking to make sure the cold water cutoff was open, but came up with a blank and learned to like lukewarm drinking water for lack of plumber-calling inclination.

We’re not proud of our poor problem-solving skills, but there just seemed to be bigger things to do. We had to fix windows, level stairs, landscape the yard, and watch Project Runway.

When my dad last visited from Colorado in October, he and I had a lively “discussion” about the cause of the no cold water situation. His contention was that the faucet was broken. Mine was that it was something in the pipes, an argument based solely on the fact that I replaced the faucet 2 1/2 years ago, and there wasn’t cold water on the old one, either. 

Spurred on by my need to prove my father wrong, I got under the sink last weekend to stare at the pipes. I did the only thing I really know how to do: I turned off the cold water and unscrewed the connection to the faucet. For want of anything else to do, I looked at the connection. There was a rock in it. I removed the rock and put everything back together. We have cold water now.   This may be the only house project that was easier than I thought it would be, and that just made my week.

Also, I’m all warm and fuzzy with smugness because my dad was wrong.

pressure washed and ready for paint


planted wall

The front retaining walls have not been pretty for awhile. They do however hold back the hillside and since our house sits on top of that hill, I’m gonna go ahead and call that one little heroic set of walls. All that hard wall-work deserved a little pampering so I took the pressure washer (seriously, buy one) and gave it a little spa time, blowing off all the peeling paint and discovering in the process that the side retaining walls and the front ones had been poured at different times and by people with VASTLY different ideas of the definition of “quality work.”

We waffled on what color to paint the walls and ultimately decided on a basic brown, both to hide the inevitable city grime and to kind of downplay the wall altogether. We don’t want to look like a fortified battlement after all.

Once the paint went on, Beth planted the narrow beds between them and the sidewalks with Bay-native and drought-tolerant species. Oh they’re tiny now, but as they fill in they’ll further hide the wall and contribute to the lovely “wild native hillside” thing we have going on.

There was an article in Newsweek yesterday with more details for those of you who are curious (Lisa).

http://www.newsweek.com/id/67352