The Pressure Washer ~ Friends with Benefits

It was a lovely day in Seattle yesterday. Mild sunny. Practically spring.

Those of us in the Pacific Northwest are known to rush outside on the first sunny day and lose our minds as we "frolic and detour" out the front door (not in the legal sense, mind you, but in the "it's been raining since October and we've got to get out of the house and put our hands in dirt" sense.) It's true, I've made the mistake of planting basil in April or hurrying to get my starts in the ground. Yup, we're overly enthusiastic about the prospect of warmer days ahead.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote to my friend Zen about how ghastly my blog photos looked when I really looked at them. I believe I said ~ Did you like all the moss and black slime covering my pots, bench, and limestone? I like to think it's atmospheric and not a filthy disgusting mess.

He responded with his very generous characterization ~ I prefer to think of it as having a rich yet bohemian-like earthiness........much like the patina on the bronze bells of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, or the rich sediment at the bottom of a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild.....I'm thinking a '61........

I decided rich yet Bohemian-like earthiness had to go. Here's the rub: my late husband was Mr. Tool and, because he was a fighter pilot, he was also Mr. Redundant Systems. Unfortunately, after his death, one-by-one all of his small engine equipment died as well. The worst was the pressure washer.

Pressure washing the stone around my house is a completely contemplative thing. Utterly Zen. Struggling with a dead pressure washer is entirely not Zen.

Surprise! To the rescue! My friend Karen and her husband Ron arrived yesterday morning via a big honking truck with the most amazing pressure washer I've ever seen.









We all got to work. Pressure washing the stone and the benches, scrubbing the black slime off the pots, planting the pots with optimistic bright pansies and primroses, cleaning out the scruffy dead stragglers in my little kitchen garden and getting it ready for planting basil and tomatoes in May, raking up the mulch in the perennial beds, filling the bags with yard waste ready for pick-up on Monday morning, scrubbing off the awning.

Heaven!

We worked all afternoon. Then, we made a veggie pizza, opened a bottle of wine and basked in our success.

After they left, I went out and walked around the yard. I love the look of "cared for." Cared for doesn't have to be expensive or chichi. It really is often small.

 

I slept the Sleep of the Righteous, the Contented. Of course, this morning, I can hardly walk, but, that is another story.

The Perils of a Prix Fixes Wedding

This is a blog post that when I look back on it in a couple of years, I will die of embarrassment. It's a cautionary tale. Here are the facts: I have a really, really beautiful home. The grounds are interesting and chock full of pots heaping with flowers. The house is on a nice quiet lane and set back from the road. It's lovely.

Over the years, several friends and family members have held weddings and special occasion events here. All beautiful. All successful.

During the financial crisis and economic downturn (or, as those of us in construction say ~ the depression), I decided to use all my skills and make every aspect of my life a "profit center." Uck, buzz words! Loathe them! I put them all in the category of thoroughly stupid phrases that are designed to make you seem smart, but, generally make you sound like an idiot, i.e., "mission statement," "way finding," "on message," "at the end of the day," "impact," "in my thoughts and prayers," etc. But, I digress . . .

So, I posted my ad on our local Craigslist:

Don't let Wall Street put the damper on your wedding plans. What you need, you cutie pies you, is a beautiful, romantic wedding for not much money. Impossible you say? Come with me. I found just the place.

Columns on the Park is a deluxe Bellevue B&B with an Italian sensibility. Columns has put together an amazing wedding package for your small weddings ~ say around 20 people. Your hostess is an award winning interior designer so, yes, she's got the china, silver and the touch to make everything beautiful for your special day. And, best of all, her studio is in a Tuscan Villa. And, I'm not kidding.

Sure you could have your wedding in chambers, but, for $####, you get a wedding in a drop dead gorgeous garden, a keepsake garter, dozens of photos of your wedding, a true wedding cake, a complimentary bottle of Italian champagne, two keepsake champagne flutes, the perfect music, and a coffee, tea, punch reception with china plates and linen napkins.

Oh, the adventures that begin with "Yes." Did I mention the garden in the spring? Book now!

What happened, you might ask? Was it successful? Were you able to turn your skills into a "profit center?" Well, yes. . . and, no.

Having worked my way through college working retail, nothing much surprises me about working with the public. First, there were the calls wanting to know if they could have 50 people. What about 75? Sheesh, what part of 20ish wasn't clear? Those calls were followed by "was there a room for the bridal party to dress?" My first thought was "what part of 'in chambers' sounded like dressing rooms were involved?" Could they bring their hairdresser? Nail artist? Could they come the night before to set-up?

Yes, there are speakers in the garden. Yes, I have lovely wedding music. Sure, I will put your wedding mix tape on. No, I can't time it to sync up with the instant you finish your vows. 

Yes, I provide three cake flavours. Yellow, white and chocolate. No, they are not gluten-free. No, there is no "tasting."

Mostly, it went well. But, occasionally, when my life reads like a story problem, things happened. And, not good things.

Like the time . . .

I'd had back-to-back weddings and there was a lot of clean-up, tidy-up, prepare for the second wedding to do. I'd finished one cake, cleaned up the house, pressure washed the stone, blew off the driveway, dead headed the roses, emptied the trash, washed the napkins, ironed the napkins, started the dishwasher, started the second cake, set the timer and, just closed my eyes for a second . . . and sat straight up in bed!

Oh, my God! What time is it?

Oh no! It's 2:30AM. The cake's been in the oven since 9:30.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

It's burned all the way down. No chance of scraping off the charred edges. It's dead! Utterly, absolutely dead!

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Get in the car. Speed to 24 hour grocery store. What the hell? What are all those police cars speeding past me in the parking lot with lights and sirens blazing? What are all those police officers doing leaping out of their cars with their guns drawn?

Shit! Shit! Shit!

My Safeway is being robbed! Oh, brother! My life really is a complete story problem! Nightmare!

Shit! Shit! Shit!

Find another 24 hour store ~ right the hell now. Thank God, I live in the suburbs. All the grocery stores can't be being robbed in the middle of the night.

And, home again by 5:00AM. Cake cooling on the counter by 6:30AM. Sigh.

I really must buy a lottery ticket.

Design for the Smallest Bathroom in the World

Let's chat about my design philosophy. I believe in saving my clients' money. I believe in using what we have. I believe in using architectural salvage. I believe in creative design solutions. I believe beautiful design saves money. I believe wonderful design is life-affirming and life-changing.

This past fall I had an opportunity to design a small bathroom in the Ballard. A long-time client of mine called to tell me the tile was falling off the walls in her shower and she didn't have a single second to deal with it because her daughter was at Children's fighting for her life. And, she said, "Keep in mind, I'm on a very tight budget."

Here are the "befores" ~ not terribly inviting:

     

When I went in to see the bathroom, I knew we needed to find a beautiful solution for the lack of storage and the very deep window that had turned into an unfortunate catch-all. Custom storage was out of the question. It was not in our budget.

However, without the "problem" window, the storage and the bathroom wouldn't have been nearly as beautiful. Finding a beautiful solution turned a "difficult, problem" window" into a star! Using a couple of sink bases from IKEA, I effectively doubled the storage space and put it all behind doors. Nothing like zapping the clutter of a very small room for a feeling of deep satisfaction. A beautiful solution! 

Every decision was a constant reminder that money was tight; the budget was the major issue. While the contractors gutted the space and restudded the walls, I started looking for a very small, very pretty vanity. I tried all my favorite salvage haunts ~ 2nd Use, Earthwise, the ReStore, etc. and Craigslist. At the first three, I didn't find a thing. On Craigslist, I scored. I found the fabulous marble vanity and sink for $50.










So, we have a lovely vanity and we have solved the storage. Toilet? The existing one was very plain vanilla. I found a darling one with double flush capabilities on Craigslist for $50. Done.

So, what about the tile, the floor, the shower? Well, one of the most wonderful bathrooms I've ever experienced is in a very small boutique hotel in Florence. I mean the room was tiny by anyone's standards, but, it was glorious. It was all crema marfil marble. Certainly, there was no way to do a marble bathroom on our budget but there were things we could do. What we needed was another beautiful solution. I found some very well-priced honed (not slippery) 6x6 crema marfil marble tiles for the shower floor at Home Depot (who knew?) and around the corner from that there was a pile of large scale porcelain tile that exactly matched it ($2.00 sf) Done! And, beautiful.


I did a quick sketch of the tile layout for the installer. For the walls, I decided on what is called in the trade "French Sanitary White" ~ clean white tile in different sizes with matching trim from Home Depot. A beautiful solution! The final effect is elegant and luxurious. Using the chair rail and braid trim pieces along the formerly difficult window sill established a nice line that allowed the deep window sill to really be the star. Following that line into and around the shower effectively expanded the space visually. Done. And, beautiful.

I matched the wall paint to the crema marfil (a wonderful chamois Sherwin Williams color called "Interactive Cream"), added a band of small 2x2 colored feature tiles in a checkerboard pattern around the bottom of the wall in my client's desire to celebrate the family's Hispanic heritage, bought the glass towel bar on Craigslist, found the wonderful Waterworks faucet (our biggest splurge), added a couple of alcoves and a shelf in the shower, new down lighting, a new fan, and hung my client's Scotty dog art and, voila, beautiful bathroom.

Using a combination of architectural salvage, vintage items and an eye to finding a beautiful solution at every opportunity, I was able to create a luxurious jewel box of a bathroom at a staggeringly low price. All good things when we still face recession worries. And, best of all? I turned problems into challenges and challenges into beautiful solutions.

Oh dear! My new home is completely Dead White wallboard!

A while ago, a client of mine moved up to Redmond to be near her children. She brought with her a life-time of wonderful antiques. To her horror, the new downsized home was all the "builder's special-Dead White" painted wallboard. Quelle horreur!

 And, the fireplace? Scary bad.

Rather than repaint the whole place, we decided to concentrate on the fireplace. She wanted a more Old World feel rather than the "Just Out of college" fireplace supplied by the builder. For tile that I turned to Architerra NW for a beautiful solution. Using a combination of their field tile and wonderful trim pieces, we turned to fireplace from "factory ordinary" into a beautiful focal point for her living room.

Often, when we see a lovely old tile job, what we are really responding to is the exquisite trim pieces ~ the crown molding, the ogee edges, the base, the v-cap, the corner moulding. In handmade tile designed by the tile genius at Architerra NW, you get the depth of detail not found in the big box stores and the type of detail that sets the finished project miles above the ordinary.

 

After the tile was installed over the existing fireplace, the change was dramatic. It was a fireplace that suited her French antiques. It made her new place feel like "home."