Pantry

On our Anniversary post, we mentioned how much we love our walk-in pantry. Now that the guys are out of here, we’ve been able to do a final cleaning and unpack. Eventually the pantry will have lower cabinetry to store small appliances and bakeware, and upper ventilated shelves for food storage. For now, we’re using Greg’s shelves that had no other home to hold food and cleaning supplies, and our old wine tower from New York to hold liquor.

We’ve also been able to move in a few permanent pieces like our wine fridge, toaster and blender, and a hamper for towels and rags next to our tiny trash can (yay composting!)

It’s so great to finally have a clean spacious area to store our food. This set up will hopefully hold us over until we get the money and time to add cabinetry/shelving and a cool barn door to the space.

Curtain Track

They’re gone! Our contractor and his team of workers are out of the living space of our home. They are still messing up stuff on the outside and in the garage but as of this weekend, we have our home to ourselves!

Now that we can actually live in our space, we have a lot of projects to tackle. Within twelve hours of the guys leaving, we were ready to start hanging curtains. We actually had a neighbor comment on our glass house and ask us where we moved from, implying that we’re not used to city living. He’s a little wrong and is probably projecting but maybe our years in Manhattan and lack of privacy have softened us.

We are loving the downtown/Bay Bridge view from our large glass doors but agree that a little privacy every now and then would be nice. Our vision is one, large, simple white curtain that spans the entire 13' opening when drawn but tucks nicely in front of the pocket when not in use. There is no wall space above the doors (only a small amount of trim) and any wall-mounted hardware would necessitate at least one middle bracket, forcing us to have a curtain panel stored on the left side of our door, blocking the view.

We decided the best solution for a large, single panel would be a ceiling-mounted system à la hospital curtains. Our awesome friend Stella knows the business and hooked us up with two 9' tracks and all of the necessary hardware.

So, after a few hours of planning, measuring and drilling (and the help of another awesome friend, Fabian) we have a beautiful, 18' low-profile aluminum ceiling track. The curtain will most likely be a large canvas drop cloth with small grommets along the top... one of next weekend’s projects.

Anniversary

We've had a really long string of bad luck lately, including both of our laptop hard drives dying (with significant data loss), complaints from neighbors, and our contractor threatening to walk off the job. But last night was the first night we actually felt really comfortable in our own home. We had only our third or fourth home-cooked dinner since moving in, but for the first time it actually felt easy and nice.

And that's only fitting, because today marks the one-year anniversary since taking ownership of our property. We certainly never thought we'd be where we are today, with the first phase of construction still yet to be completed and a number of major components postponed. But now seems like a good time to reflect back on the project and think of our favorite things about the home we've created.

1. Bathroom sunlight. Every morning our bathroom is bathed in so much natural light we don't even need to turn on any lamps. It's a great start to our morning.

2. New appliances. They are fantastic and we love them all. Our SubZero refrigerator is spacious and just more sensible and well-designed than every other fridge we've ever used. The range and oven are a joy; so far the first few things we've made with them have all come out great. And the large deep sink is great for washing .. everything.

3. Having two dishwashers. People are usually a bit surprised when we tell them about this, but they have already been super-useful. We highly recommend this setup for anyone who cooks a lot. We will never again be forced to keep dirty dishes in or around the sink, waiting to be put in a dishwasher that's full.

4. High ceilings. The whole upper floor has 9' ceilings, and they're even higher in the dining room. As expected, this gives every room a more airy and spacious feel. And it's one of those things that's not easy to get, so we're happy we picked a place that had them.

5. Media closet. Although it isn't finished yet, it's exciting to be wired for all of our audio/video/data needs. It promises to eventually make high-bandwidth, reliable connections all over the home and banish most of the necessary wires and devices from sight.

6. Picture window. We're so glad we put this in to take advantage of our view of downtown. Living on a hill has its benefits, and we're exploiting them to the fullest. We would add the sliding doors to this list too, because they're awesome, but we're really not able to avail ourselves of them until we have a deck of some kind.

7. Separate guest bedroom and studio. Having these spare rooms is amazing, and we've already been able to make one up to accommodate guests quite comfortably. The promise of more space to be able to use for special purpose is a welcome one; it will be easier to devote time to our hobbies when we already have the space.

8. Shower. We couldn't be happier with the fixtures - the shower head works great, the thermostatic valve is intuitive, and the tiling turned out just as nice as we expected.

9. Large walk-in pantry. This has been especially useful to have as storage during the interim while we're without most of our cabinetry. It holds a ton of supplies and will keep some of our smaller, more rarely used appliances out of sight.

10. Overhead lights on dimmers. Being able to finely control lighting levels everywhere is a simple luxury with a high impact. We've picked up a bunch of these half-silvered bulbs and porcelain fixtures to make for totally reasonable - if utilitarian - stand-ins for what will eventually be chandeliers.

Things are starting to shape up as the rooms are "finished" one by one, so I suspect we'll have some good news to report soon.