Fresh paint

Okay, so we started painting over the horrible pink in the new house, but I'm not totally convinced we've improved things.  It was a long and very unproductive (although totally enjoyable) morning, so we didn't down to business until after lunch.  Then we had issues getting decent quality paint, and I might have made some impulsive, lets-get-this-over-with color decisions.  Well... see for yourself.

At least it's only the bathroom.

Actually we both kind of like the green, I think it just needs to be toned down a little.  The nice thing is that the bottom half is white (painted) tiles, so it's not completely overwhelming.

Painting this room was kind of ridiculous.  We bought the paint at Ace since it's so close to the house, but this particular store only carried their brand of paint which, as it turns out, is pretty crappy.  It went on 'like watercolor,' as Sam's mom described it, and took 3-4 coats before it looked basically solid.  After all that work I'm definitely going to give it a fair shot before thinking about painting over it.

We also tackled the dining room, with much nicer paint this time around.  The goal here was to paint an accent wall that would distract a little from the pink without requiring us to paint the whole room (which would be a little silly since the kitchen is definitely staying pink, too many cabinets to bother with).  I initially chose a nice rusty reddish/pinkish color that went well with the walls but was a little less... pink. But that was the cheap paint, and when I went to get the better stuff, I ended up with something a lot rosier.

Before:

After:

I think it looks like a little girl's room.  Sam thinks it looks like a candy cane.  Either way it's definitely more feminine than before, but we still both kind of like it.  We'll see.

The next step is the living room, where again I'm worried I didn't buy quite the color I initially planned on (idea: pale smokey blue; purchase: pale oceany blue).  We also need to paint the hall (the previous tenant did a TERRIBLE job spackling, and unfortunately spackled just about everywhere... so even if I didn't hate the pink we'd have a lot of painting to do) but I think I'll just go white or gray for that.

So Sam is going backpacking to collect some samples, and I'm going to spend a couple days painting and cleaning/waxing the floors.  Here's hoping it all comes together.

House pictures!

First I would like to say how relieved I am that the house is basically as awesome as we remembered it. I mean, our only viewing before we signed the lease was a five minute walk-through in which the previous tenant was following us around in her nightie. I did have a slight feeling that we were snatching her home out from under her, especially as she hadn't really packed much and this was maybe a week before she was due to leave. But that might have been total paranoia, as she did leave us a nice selection of potted plants, a reusable grocery bag, and a partially used roll of "A Christmas Story" wrapping paper.

But anyway, the house is amazing, and I'm so excited to personalize it. Step one is definitely going to be paint... all the interior walls, bathroom excluded, are painted this horrible pale pink that I'm already sick of. We got the go-ahead from the landlord to paint over it, although he did seem a little concerned about my color choices so I think I'll have to be careful. We can always paint over it when we move out, but it'd be nice not to have to.

See?  Pink.  You'll hate it too by the end of the tour.  So this is the view of the living room from the front door.  That's a functional wood-burning fireplace and fabulous wood floors.  They're in bad need of waxing, but supposedly that's all they need to look gorgeous and new again, so we'll see.

Going to the left, we get out to the back patio.  The previous tenant left us a LOT of stuff back here, including this cheerful mat...

A lot of plants...

And a lot of trash.  Oops.

The state of the roof, like I said before, is not ideal.

But the yard is beautiful.  A little overgrown, but there's a lot of potential here.

Dining room/kitchen as seen from the living room.  I forgot to get a picture after we put our table in - the only furniture we've moved over so far.  It's a good fit but it's in even worse shape than the floors.

Kitchen with a gas range!  Even the cabinets are pink... Pale pink with dark hardwood is bad enough, but with pale yellow tiles??  It's like an Easter basket.  Unfortunately the kitchen will probably stay these colors, because it would be way too much work to paint all those cabinets and drawers, not to mention moving the appliances out of the way...

And so is the hallway.  That little nook is for a phone... not sure what will go in there.

Bathroom.  Not very exciting except that it's a nice relief from the pink.  Only we'll have to paint this too since there's spackle blotches all over the place..

Oh, and everything in there is set really low, like it's intended for small children.  It's kind of strange.

Don't let the yellow cast fool you.  The bedroom is also pink.

That strange black mark on the floor is a burn in the exact shape of an iron.  Hmm.

I have more bedroom pictures but it's just a big empty room, so not very exciting.

So that's the new place, at least for now.  I'm going to skulk around the paint store tomorrow and get myself an insane amount of paint chips.  If most of the house were white I'd probably only paint the bedroom, but with all that pink it's going to be a full overhaul (minus the kitchen).  Sam has some fix-up plans too, mostly for the garage I think, and then of course there are the floors.  So it'll be a good couple of weeks before the place is really ready for us to move in, but that just makes it even better that we're double-renting this month.  If we get to keep this place for the next four+ years, it'll be so worth it.

No longer beachside

As of this morning I officially live in two places at once... yup, signed a lease for a place in Menlo Park, going the double-rent route for various reasons. That is, we're staying in the Santa Cruz house until the end of August, but we'll be slowly moving over the hill during that time (and Sam will make use of the lab over there, but mostly I just care about having lots of time to organize and decorate...). Meaning this will be a VERY expensive month for us, but I think it's well worth it.

The house is AWESOME. I'll post pictures as soon as I can take them (Monday) because I'm just too excited. It's a 1930's-era duplex a block away from downtown Menlo Park and is by far the cutest, most liveable place we've seen since we started looking. Let me recap...

A month ago, we thought the best possible place for us was a $2000/month converted poolhouse literally across the creek from campus. Despite the fact that it was a one-room studio with less than 600 square feet of space and two walls entirely made of windows, which look into the backyard of the main house. Oh, and it didn't have an oven. We were stoked about it but before I even had a chance to see it in person, someone else made the cut. Our first experience with the competitiveness of the market.

Shortly after that, when I was actually back in Santa Cruz and visiting places together was a possibility, we really went for it. Then the #1 place was the 500 sq. foot studio (which actually had a wall between the kitchen and bedroom, a feature we found quite refreshing) with a decent side yard, a garage (!!!) and a really weird green concrete front 'yard.' We were, again, stoked, but the guy was on vacation and we still have never heard back from him (meaning someone else got it and he didn't bother to tell us). That place was $1500/month, a total steal for Menlo Park pricing. The same day, we saw a remarkably bright and cute apartment in a good Palo Alto neighborhood for $2000/month, but despite being told that we were 'top of the list,' we lost out to someone else. Probably someone who actually has a credit score (I don't).

Despite the disappointment of not actually getting any of those places, we felt pretty good about our options after seeing them. Then for some reason we had a string of pretty shitty spots. The bottom of the barrel was the $1350/month top-floor unit in a duplex behind a small house, in northern Menlo Park. The yard between the two buildings had some discarded kitchen appliances for decoration, there were some really funky jury-rigged electrical situations inside, and all the power/phone/whatever cables came right to the front corner of the house - as in you could stand on the balcony/front porch and just reach out and grab them (I did not actually do this). The view from the front door, living room, kitchen, etc. was of these cables and the backs of some similarly craptastic houses.

But then... then we found the holy grail. Okay, it looks kind of dumpy from the outside, mostly because the roof looks like it was abandoned in the middle of being re-shingled, but it's surrounded by glorious plants, and the inside is all lovely, rich hardwood floors. The living room is a remarkably decent size, with a working wood fireplace; there's a charmingly tiny dining nook attached to the kitchen, which has a gas range; and there's a little alcove in one wall of the hallway which was built there to house, yup, a telephone. 'Cause that's how they do in the 1930's. Even better than that: there's a wooden bench built onto the porch, with storage under the seat for firewood; this can be accessed through a hole in the dining room wall, so during those bitterly cold Menlo Park winters (I know, I know) you don't even have to go outside to stoke your fire.

I should probably say that if Sam were writing this, he'd list his favorite features starting with the garage. That's perhaps the one thing that has been giving us major trouble in the housing search, is finding a place where we can store all those bikes without cordoning off part of the living room. Which is why it's a dream come true that we not only found, but managed to secure a place which has multiple rooms (after all those studios we were starting to think it couldn't happen for our budget) AND a garage AND a backyard. And the perk of gas cooking.

So the place is at the top of our price range, $1950/month, but the landlord pays water and a weekly gardener. We both think it's well worth the price, not only for its innate fabulousness, but for its location (literally one block from Trader Joe's and a Sunday farmer's market, not to mention the entirety of downtown MP) and the subsequent easy bike route to campus. In driving around looking at places, we quickly discovered that it's much more pleasant to get to campus from Menlo Park than just about anywhere else in the surrounding area. This is mostly because MP is south of El Camino Real and west of Page Mill/Oregon Expressway, which are the major roads that make getting to Stanford from Palo Alto kind of a pain. I'm sure locals would disagree, but keep in mind that I've been commuting by bike for 4+ years and I'm still not comfortable in heavy traffic on Santa Cruz streets.  I was having heart palpitations watching people ride on El Camino.