Archive for the ‘Apartment’ Category

Kitchen, Part Never-Ending Ouroboros.

Friday, November 7th, 2014

Backsplash! I’ve started working on it. I waffled back and forth on a variety of ideas but now I have finally decided on this.

backsplash-oven-2014 backsplash-sink-2014-v2 backsplash-twowalls-2014

In order to decide if I liked it I stared at it for several days to see if I would get sick of it. I did not, so I began the painting process. First, a brown paper bag-colored basecoat. Then I did the first layer of splotches but the sponges weren’t diffuse enough.

backsplash1

So I got tiny round sponges on tiny sticks and started painting individual dots. It’s a long way off but it’s getting closer.

backsplash4 backsplash2

After I paint several million more dots I will re-update. SO MANY DOTS.

 

The kitchen re-model, part WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING this is why people hire a contractor.

Tuesday, August 12th, 2014

Ugh, the countertop. I’ve been working on my countertop for like three months now. Painting, sanding, trying to get it perfect, etc. A week ago Cricket and I were going to pour the resin. We did everything right. We taped up plastic and put barriers on the edges to prevent overflow and I cleaned all the surfaces of debris, everything was going great.

Until.

I realized that I need some small cups filled with resin to get in between the tiles in the back. I couldn’t use the big gallon bucket we had mixed up the resin in, it was too big and clumsy and the stuff would splash. So Cricket gets the bright idea for me to put three cups down on the area of the countertop we’re going to pour next so when he puts the resin in the little cups if he overflows it won’t be a problem. So I lay the cups down and when I pick them up THE ENTIRE COUNTERTOP COMES UP WITH THEM. The resin on the bottoms of the cups pulled up all the paint, the spackle, everything down to the plywood. I had an epic meltdown like a overtired two-year-old in the supermarket. I screamed, I cried, I called Cricket a six-foot-three bag of garbage, it was not a good time. I had to take some pills and lay down for a while, I got myself all riled up. If I had been a little kid I would have puked. It was a big bummer.

After I pulled myself into some semblance of togetherness (it took about an hour), I realized that I would pour the resin on the parts of the countertop that did not look like it had been hit by a grenade, repair the damaged area, do a separate pour and then sand and polish the seam so it looked cohesive. This is not what I was hoping for. I was hoping to get a plumber in this week to hook up my sink and dishwasher, but you get what you get and you don’t get upset. Here’s what the affected area looked like after I spackled what looked like a big open plywood wound.

countertop1

I sanded and fussed and painted carefully and got it to look pretty perfect. Then I prepped it and did the second pour. Everything went fine except now there is a 1/8″ lip of difference between the two pours.

countertop3 countertop4

Sigh. I would leave it with the seam but it will gather dirt and nothing will lay level on it so I decided to bite down and sand the countertop into some state of flatness. I’m using about seven different grades of sandpaper from 60 to 2000. (Did you know they make 2000 grit sandpaper? What is that, a piece of terrycloth towel? Does it have any scrape to it at all? We shall find out.) After that I’m borrowing Cricket’s oscillating multi-tool and polishing the afflicted areas to (hopefully) its original shiny patina. Pray for me. I will need it.

Kitchen countertop is painted!

Tuesday, July 1st, 2014

I hunkered down and got some work done this weekend because I am running out of patience. I want to stop washing my dishes in the bathtub. It’s been months. I’m 100% over it. So I spent all weekend painting five fish (below is an example, first the stencil and then with highlights and lowlights added):

fishes-countertop countertop2

And highlights on any part of the circles intersecting.

countertop1 countertop3

I also laid out where all the pebble tiles are going to go. Now I need to glue down all the tiles, grout them and then finally – FINALLY!! – I can pour the resin and then call in the plumber to attach the sink and dishwasher. And then everything in my apartment will be washed and I shall rejoice.

countertop5 countertop4

Kitchen counter progress!

Monday, June 9th, 2014

Remember when I did my test run on my test plank and colors that looked totally fine looked weird after I poured the resin on it? Here, look for yourself. Note the colors pre-resin:

test-countertop countertop-ripples

And post-resin.

resin1

You’ll note the lighter color disappears completely, so I flipped the board over and did further color testing. I had to go really light to get the color I wanted post-resin pour. Which is why you’ll notice the highlight lines on my countertop right now are far too light. They will mellow and the darker tones will darken under the plastic-y resin.

kitchen1 kitchen2

Next: fishies. After that: pebbles. I’ll explain. I wanted something to transition the countertop into the backsplash. I tried a bunch of different techniques, all of which were various types of fail. I finally came across some ceramic tiles that look like pebbles in pale green and dark brown on Overstock.com.

pebbles-green pebbles-brown pebbles-brown2

I was so excited when the tiles arrived. Do you know what the glaze is? It’s crystalline pottery glaze! I collect crystalline pottery. I wrote a blog entry on it. It’s all going to tie together! Huzzah! I proceeded to pull the tiles off of the backing because A) there are no straight lines I can put across the back edge, and B) I want to mix and mingle the two colors. After I’ve finished the fishies I will start laying out the tiles at the back edge of the countertop against the wall. Then I will have them go a wee bit up the wall, creating a less harsh line betwixt the countertop and the backsplash. BECAUSE I AM A GENIUS. Hopefully.

Countertop test.

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014

After much deliberation I came up with a look for my backsplash and countertop. If you remember correctly I originally planned to have giant goldfish as my backsplash.

backsplash-v2

I loved that design, but after I went to Japan I was convinced to go with a less strident look. Now I’m thinking I’m going to do ferns and make the countertop look like a pond. Right now it’s bare plywood so I would spackle and sand it, then paint it and then pour resin all over it. Cricket wisely suggested that before I go all gung-ho on the real thing I should buy a sample piece of plywood and test out all my techniques beforehand. Wise man, that Cricket. I bought a 2′ x 4′ plywood panel and painted it to resemble the pond-y vibe I am going for. Ignore the green dots on the edges – I was trying to make duckweed and failed.

test-countertop countertop-ripples

Pond ripples! Cool, huh? I did that by printing out giant concentric circles, laying acetate over the circles and using a soldering iron to cut out those little islands that comprise the dark part of the ripples. I only burned myself twice, which is pretty darn good in my book. Stencils, they are a lifesaver, I tell you. I tap-tap-tapped the dark islands onto the blue background and then free-handed the light parts. And, if you pay attention, you will notice I recycled my backsplash fish. I used them as a guide to make the ghost-fish you see off to the right there. I might make a ghost-bullfrog too, I’m not sure yet.

Last night (because it was warm and the website I bought the resin from said you should pour it when it’s not cold otherwise it won’t cure properly) I followed the directions and slathered the board with a painted coat of resin, followed by a flood coat of resin four hours later. Here, a video to explain my journey. I’ve watched it more times than necessary. I find it hypnotic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIGV5qugAqg

The first thing I noticed (other than resin is sticky and gets everywhere) is that the middle tones went really dark. The fish almost disappeared except for the highlights on their fins. Gotta take that into consideration. The resin situation did not go smoothly from the start. I mixed up a batch and poured it onto the board. Due to my stellar mathematical skills it did not cover the correct amount. Not even close. Sooooo I mixed up a second batch exactly the same way. However, for some reason this batch was chock-full of tiny bubbles, making it look opaque. I poured it on the unresin-ed half and you could clearly see the edge where the good pour and the frothy pour met. It looked God-awful. I was sad and disappointed. I covered one corner in corn starch to see what kind of look that would be. Maybe it would give it a cool matte finish (corn starch is known to do that to resin.) Then I forlornly went to bed. I woke up the next morning to tentatively check on my resin-blargh.

resin1 resin2

Huh. Everything seemed to work itself out. Wow. Look at that. No seam, the bubbles ebbed, it looks pretty cool. I will wash away the corn starch and see what that looks like. Even though it cost me about eighty bucks in supplies I’m delighted that I did a test board because I learned so much. Alright. Next to spackle forty-some-odd square feet of real countertop.

Update 5/18/2014: The corn starch looks not that great. I can’t just pour it on, I would need to get a sifter or something to evenly distribute a fine dusting. So that idea shall be scrapped. Shiny surface it is.

My kitchen. Progress!

Tuesday, April 8th, 2014

All the cabinets are in! Boom! One thing down. Now the rest of this never-ending journey continues – the countertop, the backsplash, the plumbing. I’ll keep you in the loop.

kitchen1 kitchen2

Japan 2014, Part 4.

Friday, March 7th, 2014

One of the many things that I enjoyed about Japan was the fact that everything was the same as we have here, but slightly off. Here’s a picture of the subway. We have subways. Japan has subways. However, either due to drunk or suicidal people, the Japanese have decided to put barriers that stay shut except when a train has pulled into the station and the train doors have opened.

subway-barriers1 subway-barriers2

Advertising for things: we have it, they have it. The difference is their ads are non-sexual. All of them. Imagine that. This was the most sexual advertising I saw while I was there.

advertising

I always wondered why the Japanese are famous for their eclectic sexual proclivities and I think if most of the females are dressed like FLDS women and none of your ads show even a glance of side-boob, you’re going to need a whole lot more to get where you’re going in the bedroom. Oh, speaking of advertising, someone asked me if I saw any famous American celebrities in Japanese commercials and I saw only one, this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrSd7DqSO5k

I cannot figure out how Elijah Wood and Peter Rabbit are selling this car, but they are so good for them.

Oh look, cake. We have cake. Wait… are those kernels of corn on top of the frosting?

corn-on-cake

Transitioning beautifully from corn, the Japanese are really into poop. It’s a thing. I passed more than one store selling golden turds on pillows.

poop-golden

Then I saw this outside a pharmacy. Imagine this outside a CVS here.

poop-ad

I want elves and Pac-Mans cleaning my entrails.

The pinnacle of this was when I saw a book for Snorth. Snorth reads books to children during Storytime in various libraries, so I glance at books wherever I happen to go seeing if they might be good for her. My first day on my way to the Ghibli Museum I passed a bookstore that was selling a book about a sentient toilet with a Dali mustache who travels through the forest where various anthropomorphic forest creatures void themselves in him. I didn’t buy it and I regretted that for the duration of my travels. I went on a quest to find the book near the end of my trip. I will reveal the result of my journey in my ultimate or penultimate entry (because I’m trying to remain chronological). I’m building toilet-book suspense. Will I find the book? Won’t I? Tune in to find out.

Kyoto! It is a really charming city. It’s a little like a fairytale. During the war the Allies decided not to bomb Kyoto at all to maintain the architecture, so it wasn’t damaged at all. It’s an excellent walking city. In fact, our Frommer’s book gave us a walking tour that I would recommend. We did most of the walking tour our first day there. We started at the Sanjusangendo (SAN-JOO-SAN-GEN-DOE) Temple, home of the 1,001 Kannon (don’t worry, I didn’t know what that meant either). It’s a Buddhist temple built in 1164. It has really nice gardens as well (YAY PINE TREES).

sanjusangendo3 sanjusangendo2

Sanjusangendo is the longest wooden building in Japan. It needs to be really long because it houses a giant statue of the Goddess of Mercy, flanked on either side by 500 golden human-sized statues of her as well (that’s what the word Kannon means, Goddess of Mercy). If you’re wondering why each statue clearly does not have 1,000 arms as intended, I found this explanation:

1000-armed Kannon are equipped with 11 heads to better witness the suffering of humans and with 1000 arms to better help them fight the suffering. Note that the actual statues have only 42 arms each. Subtract the two regular arms and multiply by the 25 planes of existence to get the full thousand.

To me this sounds like the sculptors were like, “Are you serious? 1,001 statues, each with 1000 arms? No. Forty-two arms. We’ll make it a divisible number or something. I’m not carving a bajillion arms for eternity.”

I wasn’t allowed to take photos, but other people have so here’s what it looks like in there. It was beautiful, rows and rows of glimmering figures in the dim light.

Sanjusangendo_9508 Sanjusangendo_Thousand-armed_Kannon

Standing in front of all the golden statues were twenty-eight profoundly disturbing Buddhist guardian dieties. They were disturbing because they were human-sized and while they were carved out of wood, their eyes were made of crystal so they totally resembled human eyes. Most of them had intense expressions and ripped muscles, so the shiny eyes became even more off-putting. I believe they were constructed to put the fear of God in people, and I was certainly afraid. Stop looking at me, Wind Guardian! You too, Thunder Guardian! You’re making me uncomfortable!

114530994_5b892ec9fa Sanjusangendo_statues_kyoto

It’s such a long building that they hold archery tournaments in there. And in January people with chronic headaches can line up outside and be touched on the forehead with willow branches in an attempt to be healed.

Now, here’s something you’re going to hear over and over again. Sanjusangendo burned down in 1249 and was rebuilt in 1266. I cannot tell you how many buildings I visited that had burned down and been rebuilt. I visited one that I think burned down eight times. Hey! Japan! Here’s an idea: don’t build all your buildings out of wood and paper. You have rocks. I saw them all over. You have an impressive clay culture. You can make bricks. You know what bricks are known for? Being not flammable. I know you get earthquakes and the wood probably flexes in a way that works for you, but at least build part of the building out of stone or something so you don’t have to start from scratch each and every time. I’m exhausted just thinking about building these colossal structures over and over.

After leaving Sanjusangendo, we walked a bit down several streets until we got to a house that belonged to a potter named Kanjiro Kawai, and when he died  in 1966 it was turned into a museum of his work. This is important. If you go to Kyoto, you must go here. Not because of the pottery (I didn’t much care for it, too thick and heavy and rough-looking for my taste) but because they kept the house intact and chances you will not be able to walk around a typical two-story Japanese house otherwise. It was so exciting for me to go into a home done in a style that has been the standard in Japan for centuries and centuries. I loved it.

potters-house1 potters-house2 potters-house3

Because space is such a premium, it was amazing how the house was laid out. It was labyrinthine. In the backyard Kawai had built a really impressive series of kilns to fire his work (there was also a dirt kiln built under a covering to protect it from the rain, that was cool too.) Regardless of my feelings for this guy’s work, he clearly cared about making pottery and his care for his craft really shows. It gives you warm fuzzies to be there.

potters-house5

After we left Kawai’s home/museum, we trekked up the side of a mountain. Ugh. It was rough. I am not an athlete and I had to pause several times to lean against something and catch my breath. The only problem is the entire side of the mountain is covered in graves, so more often than not I was leaning up on a family’s tomb. There are cemeteries everywhere in Japan, tucked in corners. I think that because they cremate their dead, there’s no worry of contamination if there’s flooding or something like that, so the graves are right next to apartments or restaurants. First we walked past an enormous crematorium with tons of flowers outside.

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And then the mountain of tightly packed graves. You better know where your family plot is because otherwise you ain’t gonna find it ever.

cemetery-1 cemetery-2

After finally making it to the top of the mountain we came upon the Kiyomizu Temple, but we knew that was going to be covered in our organized tour the following week, so we gave it a casual pass-through. We then walked down the mountain down a great touristy road. It had all kinds of fun stuff to check out – snacks specific to Kyoto, green tea ice cream, souvenirs, fans, yukata and pottery. The Moomins is obsessed with pottery so we had to check out the main pottery shop which was two floors of pure awesome. I would have bought a great many items except the prices of things in Japan are depressing. Here, I took some pictures in the store:

ceramics1

Okay, these are little soy sauce dishes. Very wee. Plain. Basic. There’s 100 yen to 1 dollar, so if you move the decimal point over you’ll notice that the entire front row is $115.00. Why? That was pretty much the case for the whole trip. I would see a teapot I liked, nothing special or extravagant, and I’d say, “I would like to own that! It would be a lovely addition to my home!” and it would be $9,000.00. Seriously. Not an exaggeration. It kept me in check because about 90% of the things I wanted forced me to contemplate selling my car to pay for it, so, not surprisingly, I didn’t get them. Have another example:

ceramics2

That lumpy small rinkydink sake cup that looks like an elementary school kid’s project is $336.00. Yeah, no.

After walking for several hours we started heading back to our hotel room. On the way we passed one of the restaurants specializing in only crab which I christened “crabatoriums.” The Moomins decided after looking at the stellar plastic food examples with claws sticking out of them that she wanted crab for dinner and it’s her vacation too, so even though I’m not heavy into crab I was like, sure, let’s do this. We walked in and realized that this was four restaurants, one on each floor, each one serving a different type of cuisine. We had to mime walking sideways and clicking our pincers so the maitre d’ would understand which restaurant we wanted. We probably looked super-smooth. After we had Marcel-Marceau’d enough, they said they understood and they told us to leave our shoes with the shoe-keeper and go into the elevator to the fourth floor. This was the sign in front of the shoe-keeper’s booth.

crabatorium8

Anywhere else in the world, the act of walking into a building, surrendering your shoes and stepping into a tiny elevator going to an unknown floor feels SO VERY SKETCHY. I said, “If this was happening in New York or Prague or someplace like that, this evening would end with us in bathtubs full of ice missing our kidneys.” But this is Japan and crime isn’t even remotely close to what we’ve become accustomed to. We arrived at the fourth floor where the waitress took one look at us and led us to a Western table and chairs. Then she handed us the menu which blew my mind. You think you like crab? You better. It’s in everything.

crabatorium2

Crab.

crabatorium1

Crab.

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CRAB.

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Craaaaaaaaaaaaaab.

This is my lovely mother doing her best pincer impression while showing the cover of the menu.

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And these sumo-wrestling crabs were on the placemat.

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We ordered something reasonably-priced (no need for the $100 Crabocalypse) and the crab was delicious. It tastes very similar to the fake crab used in California rolls, but much more delicate and nuanced. I had a crab don, which was warm vinegared rice, cooked egg shavings, salmon roe and pieces of crab. I’m going to try and make it at home. I found a photo online of what it looked like. In addition to being yummers, it was nice to look at.

crab-don

Outside the crabatorium was a fire pit with couches around it and a tea kettle hanging down (not unlike what you see in the pictures of the potter’s home above). The Moomins said, “Hey, you’re redoing your kitchen and you have a ton of space above the stove… Why don’t you hang a tea kettle there? It will a cool vertical visual for people to see when they come in.” Since I’ve been to Japan and seeing all their amazing design I’ve reevaluated my fish backsplash idea. I think I’m going to take my mom’s advice and do something with a hanging tea kettle and possibly a giant fish-type thing like you see in the photo, and make the backsplash be something plant-y so it doesn’t fight with the fish/tea kettle situation. I need to make some drawings and get back to y’all on this.

crabatorium7

Next, a temple fair and the Nishiki Market.

Kitchen evolution.

Saturday, January 11th, 2014

I’m so happy, my kitchen is gettin’ done! What makes it even better is if there’s one thing I dislike, it’s complicated instructions and manual labor. Neenernator’s honey-booboo and his friend the carpenter are working on it for me, which makes it as close to magic as I’ll ever get. I leave for work, kitchen unfinished. I return home, kitchen more finished. That’s my Harry Potter experience, people. See, look:

kitchen-w-doors1 kitchen-w-doors2

(The blue is a protective coating. The cabinets are actually white.)

I’ve started working on the backsplash design. It’s going to be a mosaic with goldfish. Over the goldfish will be the pattern of the water ripples. The ripples will be silver tile, but when a ripple crosses over a fish, it turns gold. Here’s the rough sketch I came up with for the oven ‘n’ cooktop wall. You can get an idea.

backsplash

I’m not going to fuss with that until the boys finish doing whatever they’re doing, hooking up sinks and putting on door handles. But there’s nothing wrong with getting a head-start.

Addendum 1/23/2014: I’ve worked a bit harder on a look for my backsplash. Now there are drop shadows. The fish are smaller. I think it’s better.

backsplash-v2

New kitchen! *hyperventilates into a bag*

Saturday, December 28th, 2013

Oh God, I hate change so much. But Neenernator finally convinced me to redo my ugly kitchen that I’ve been living with for seven years. In case you don’t know, it is an homage to gray Formica. Countertop? Formica. Backsplash? Formica. Each and every cabinet? Gray Formica on the outside, peach Formica on the inside. Neenernator’s boyfriend is a spectacular handyman, so he and his carpenter friend are breaking down everything and replacing it with non-hideous cabinets and appliances. This is the Formica tomb.

kitchen1 kitchen2

(That one wooden door was where I thought about getting new cabinet doors, did one, realized how hard it is to do, and said, “The hell with this.” That was about four years ago. And I left it like that because it reminded me of a rapper’s gold tooth and therefore made me feel like a baller.)

Now my kitchen looks like this:

kitchen-empty1 kitchen-empty2

And after my recent $10,000 trip to Ikea, my kitchen will hopefully look like this (I took pictures of a sample kitchen with the same cabinets and handles):

handles1 handles2

And I’ve only considered crying about four times! Change is not a good thing for me. This is what I hear in my head when I deal with change.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGipUIYfQW0

It’s gonna be fine. Everything is gonna be fine. Deep breaths.

Meet my earthly possessions!

Sunday, July 28th, 2013

I was cleaning my dining room table the other day and it occured to me that if I described the items I was putting away, it would really give you a window into my life. “Eclectic” seems appropriate. “Odd looks from strangers” also works. Here we go.

I bought some mugs. Six of them. But not any mugs, oh no. Edward Gorey mugs. I love Edward Gorey. Type his name into Google Image Search and you’ll see piles of his illustrations. I bought two of each mug.

mugs

There’s The Doubtful Guest (far right mug, wearing the scarf), the main character in a book of the same name. It’s about a guest who won’t leave.

dg1 tumblr_lluj394jFL1qkb2g8o1_400 Doubtful-Guest-5

The other two are from The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which is an alphabet book about children dying from various unfortunate circumstances. The far left mug is the cover of the book, and the middle mug is my favorite child/death, Neville.

gashlycrumbtinies ghorey neville+ennui

So that’s one thing on the dining room table. Then there’s the pigeon mask. You know that horse mask that’s all over the internet?

horse-head-mask-1 horse-head-mask-3 horsemanhurricanesandy_616

That one. Well, there’s a pigeon mask just like it! It’s only 24 dollars! And now I own it.

pigeon1 pigeon2

See that second picture where’s I’m pointing? I’m also winking and smiling because I don’t understand how masks work. I realized that after I took the picture.

The last thing was the pyrographic bunny. The Moomins just got back from Africa where she said she saw this little guy and said, “Jessica needs this.” And she was right. This bunny looks CRAY.

psycho-bunny1 psycho-bunny2

What drug do you think this bunny is on? I’m guessing PCP. Or meth.

My collection of things, which already had a Bosch Christmas ornament and a fossilized wasp’s nest, now includes mugs with children kicking the bucket on them, a pigeon mask and a wigged-out wooden rabbit. I have never been so proud.