Casita desnuda

Our pobre casita is naked.  Well, it might as well be since its been stripped of all its light fixutes. At first it was exciting to think that we would be able pick out our own fixtures. But now that we've visited every lighting store up and down Ventura Blvd and all over the world wide web, we're overwhelmed with the possibilities. Do we stick with the same finish throughout the house? What about style; are we Deco? Traditional? Modern? Contemporary? Transitional?  Oooh that word is so ugly. What does transitional mean anyways? It sounds like that sad life stage in which you find yourself after college where the rest of your life is waiting for you to find it. Depressing.  Well, we've decided that rather than subscribe to a decorating style, we would just go with what "moves" us. Easy 'nough....we hope.

We really like this star chandelier from Shades of Light. At 33"Hx29"W its a massive piece that would look great in our dining room. Its currently on sale for $139.  But with shipping costs of $101, we're wondering if we can find something more local. 

The ceilings in the entry and in the hallways are pretty low. Its a good thing we're short.  But we can't guarantee that our guest will be. So with our tall guests in mind, we've been trying to find vertically friendly light fixtures. But its been incredibly difficult to find attractive flush mounts that "move" us. That sounded dirty. The Star Flush Mount and Basil Flush Mount from Circa Lighting are gorgeous. But Ronnie's we're not sold on either one.

 

The Hicks Pendant, also from Circa Lighting, would look purdy above the the kitchen island. Sigh

The estate of things

Our Dream Home isn't perfect.  But, it definitely has potential. And thats why we fell in love with it. Because our house is a foreclosure, the previous owners sold everything in the house that was of value. This fire sale included selling all of the light fixtures and hardware, the mantel, the closet rods and doors, the stove, and even the stair rails. We can’t imagine the despair in which the owners must have been to sell everything in the home; especially since we discovered they had built much of the home themselves. Our Dream Home has good bones, with LITERALLY every room needing to be finished or re-finished. Its going to be fun……

Missing - Gucci Belt Bag

By now, ya’ll know that my purse was stolen in Vegas. Well, here are the details. If you find the culprit or my beloved Gucci Belt Bag, you will be rewarded handsomely.

• Stolen item #1: my cell phone, the absence of which has plunged me into the depths of severe crackberry withdrawal.
• Stolen item #2: my credit card.
• Stolen item #3: my beloved Gucci Belt bag (serial #7363-4733) gifted to me on my 30th birthday by my darling husband, last photographed here:

• The culprit: a mean and nasty bitch, who used my credit card to buy a terribly fugly $227 purse from Brighton Collectables, and who more than likely lives in the San Diego area because she gave the store the following fake address: 2161 1st St, San Diego, Ca 92111.
• Location of the steal:  the Venetian pool deck (near the entrance to Tao Beach), on Saturday, April 24, 2010, at  6:00pm.
• Location of the fraudulent purchase: Brighton Collectables (The Grand Canal, Shoppes at the Venetian), on Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 6:27pm .

Here she is on the store’s surveillance at the very moment she used my credit card:

Green = good luck

The past two weeks have been CRAZY! We've been working with The Broker to apply for our home loan and the process has been filled with calls to the credit bureaus, paying off bills, signing the escrow agreement, reading (and attempting to understand) the natural hazard disclosure statements, meeting with an electrician, scrambling to come up with the deposit money, submitting a request for repairs to the seller, and shopping around for home owners insurance. Of course we also continued with life as usual. Ronnie enjoyed a boy’s fishing excursion in NorCal and I went to Vegas for a bachelorette party. Unfortunately, Ronnie didn’t catch any fish and I had my purse stolen. Needless to say, its been a rather stressful 2 weeks. Hopefully, the rest of this ride will go smoothly.

I also purchased the first item for our Dream Home, a green drawer knob from anthropologie. I hope it brings us good luck.

Are you (sweet) talkin' to me?

We had our home inspection this week. We were present during the inspection, asked a ton of questions and were given the inspection report. But, I still don’t know what to make of everything. There are problems; some bigger than others. Its all laid out in the extremely detailed 5 page report. The house is not perfect. We knew that. But seeing all of our home’s flaws elaborated upon and classified into such categories as safety concern, further evaluation, and repairs recommended seems….. heartless and impersonal. As I read through the report I was surprised that the mold and leaky faucet issues didn’t bother me as much how the rooms were labled in the report. I was angry that our pilates/laundry room was called an unpermitted 3rd car garage. And how the kitchen-adjacent room was arrogantly decided to be the game room instead of the office. And how our sunny guest bedroom as so coldly referred to as the back bedroom. The audacity. I guess the truth isn’t supposed to sound pretty. But some sweet talkin’ would sure make all of this a bit more bearable……

Sale Pending

Guess what? The bank accepted our offer! We are officially in escrow with our Dream House. Last night we celebrated by going out to dinner making soup and panini sandwiches for dinner, filing our taxes, nursing baby Ozzy back to health as he recovered from his neuter surgery, and toasting with a nice glass of riesling. Glamorous, we know. Up next is the dreaded home inspection. Wish us luck! We'll need it.

Home on the range

After watching Phil Michelson sink back-to-back eagles during Saturday's round of the Masters we were motivated to hit a few balls of our own.