hardware, the Dread Pirate Roberts, boobytraps

I had high hopes for showing you my new sofa, except it was delivered with a large hole in the upholstery, so I did not accept delivery, and my new sofa will be arriving for the second time on Friday, hopefully without holes.

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I had big plans to go to Target and Lowes, but while at Target I was That Woman, the one who abandons a full cart and her purse in the middle of an aisle while her toddler makes a break for it and runs into the parking lot.  Lots of judgmental pointing but no one reaching out to STOP the toddler hellbent on freedom. Except Greg, thank goodness, he managed to stop her with a flying tackle. (But still, in the parking lot.) After that I was feeling frazzled and we came home and I laid on the sofa with a large lemonaide and some chocolate chips to soothe my nerves.

I needed to go to Lowes (which I did after the Mister came home and I went alone) in order to look for hardware for Greg's bed.  Greg broke his third bed in three years, two days before we moved, and so I have been hunting for vintage bed hardware since the day we got here.  Unfortunately I have come up empty-handed, despite much driving all over southern California to furniture repair places and vintage hardware stores.

This is the hardware that I am looking for, and no one who repairs vintage furniture  has ever seen anything like it:

Basically, the narrower side slots into a bracket contained within a hollowed out portion of the leg of the bedframe.

If you have ideas on where to find this hardware online, or if it has a special name beside bedrail fastener, I would greatly appreciate the help. I have tried ebay and every vintage hardware store known to man located in southern California and gotten nowhere.

I am willing to scrap this particular hardware and move on to a more modern/readily available means of fastening the headboard and footboard, but I cannot find a fastener that will fit over this hollowed portion:

I would like to use something like this, but everything modern I have found is too narrow or too short to fit over that hollowed out portion.  My last-ditch option is to drill holes straight through the front of the bed into the bedrails, but clearly that will ruin the aesthetics of the bed and I am trying hard to avoid ruining an 80 year old bed.

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Princess Pegleg stumped around the house wearing this tin cannister on her leg, shouting "I'm a piwate! I'm a piwate!" and then taking off her tin leg and bashing Peter with it.

As you wishhhhhhhhhh....

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Greg found a spool of string and created a boobytrap for unwary marauders and piwates, wherein you might be attacked by ninjas.  There was much jumping over and rolling under. They begged for baby powder so they could throw it on the string, as if to make invisible lasers show themselves, but I drew the line there.

I was unwittingly clotheslined by the first boobytrap, but I limped off to the sofa in the playroom to nurse my wounds, and that spool of string (which is still tangled over every conceivable surface in the living room) provided over an hour of entertainment to my children.  I may go buy another spool of string tomorrow.

my Grandma corner

I think of this area in the foyer as "my grandma corner." It has the paintings my grandma painted, and the chair my aunt gave me that is like my grandma's throne chair.

I will recover the chair again once I get the other fabrics in the living room, but for now its a nice place to put your shoes on in the morning.

new house William Morris Project: playroom

This whole house is a William Morris project waiting to happen. (Warning, there are no pretty "after" pictures today.)

I'm not going to make an exhaustive list today because it will depress me (or rather I could by simply putting one item: house), but I have a few areas I need to focus on.   I wrote this post thinking I would make a short list of those areas, but then this turned into a long, rambling post about the playroom, so I'll just focus on that for today.

Area number one is the playroom.  I purged the playroom when we were living at the old house.  When I unpacked here, I purged again.

I got rid of five trash bags of toys that will go to Goodwill, as soon as I figure out where one is.

And yet, this room is still too full. It needs another round of purging.  I would like to have only the toys that fit in this wall of cubes, and as of right now, there are still some toys that don't fit.  I want the Wii accoutrements to fit in the cubes, the outdoor stuff like bubbles and chalk, and room for more books.

I  would really to find room for the art supplies in here as well.  I hate art projects.  I'd rather poke out my eyeballs with sharp sticks than do an art project.  I'd be thrilled to get rid of the art supplies.  But the kids like doing them (blarg) and so they must stay, and thus I must find a place for them.

I also find that the cubes are very heavy on older kid toys like Bey Blades and weapons, but not very much on little toddler toys. When the boys are home Princess bashes and crashes with her older brothers, but when they aren't around she does like to play with her baby dolls and her (vintage, used to belong to me in the eighties) My Little Ponies.

Its really hard to decide what to get rid of. I feel like what is in here are the toys that get used the most.  I suppose I could combine some categories. Each bin has a separate category of toy: balls, superheroes, cars, playdoh, food for the kitchen, dishes for the kitchen, Legos, blocks, etc.  Food for the kitchen and dishes for the kitchen could go in the same bin (the horror! No, I don't have OCD.)

I would also like a more organized solution for the costumes than the bin they are currently thrown into.  This armoire redo by Rambling Renovators would be fabulous but I don't really have room for that in here.

That kitchen countertop is a William Morris project all its own.

I'd like to put up a corkboard next to the tv to hold the kids' artwork.  Currently the artwork is held up with tape.

Last but not least, I would like to downsize the plastic play kitchen. I found this large plastic one on the curb on trash day a year ago, so I'm happy to donate it and pass it on. Princess does use it frequently, so perhaps DIY-ing something in a smaller scale that could tuck in under the eat-in counter would help.

My "after" picture is hardly any better than the before, but this is going to be a while.  At least its usable now.

I'm linking up to Pancakes and French Fries's William Morris Project.

craigslist, first day of new school

I am selling a number of pieces of furniture on craigslist, and searching on craigslist for an ottoman for our living room.   From the woman who sent me seventeen emails about my dresser only to huffily say OH, NEVERMIND, to the four people who have emailed to ask if I will take $20 for a dresser listed for $100, to the guy who said "its none of your business if I have pets" (I asked if his ottoman has been in a home with pets since my son has severe allergies), craigslist brings out the best in people.

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Greg's first day at his new school was Monday.  I took some "first day of school" pictures (which may remind you of a few previous years "first day" pictures, as you can see here, and here).  Greg is not all that fond of the camera.

His first two days seemed to go pretty well.  He is going to a year-round school, so he only has one week of school before he goes on a three week break.

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The Mister and I often refer to the children's more destructive antics as "Hulk SMASH!!!!"  I came across these Hulk fists in Target and they made me laugh.  The kids want to play with them SO BAD.

what to do with the playroom?

Let the decorating begin!

Oh wait, I have to finish unpacking.

I have unpacked the playroom.  I was planning on buying a new sofa for the playroom, but the Murray sofa I already have from Room and Board is the perfect size, and the kids have broken the springs on the seat and peed on it anyways, so I decided to stick that sofa in the playroom and buy a new one for the living room.  (The new sofa is supposed to arrive on Sunday, so hopefully I'll post pictures of it then!)

Its still a mess. 

The tv is not centered--we couldn't find a stud anywhere in the middle of the wall, and the Mister drilled many, many holes to find it, so we went with off-center.  That puts paid to my idea of hanging something on either side.  Ideas for decorating around a tv stuck randomly at 3/8ths of the way across on a wall?  I am not really the kind of girl who places art organically, I am more of a rigid grid type person.  This is probably going to drive me nuts the entire time we live here.

The playroom shares space with the dining room--its a long, 20 x 13 room.  One half is the playroom, and the other half is the dining room.  I had hoped to do a banquette in the dining room, but I cannot find a seating solution for an amount of money I want to spend that doesn't involve mounting kitchen cabinets to the wall, and thus I am putting that idea aside for a while.

The nice thing about this space is that it gets great natural light.  The bad thing about this space is that the natural light will sear your eyeballs in the morning, especially where the sunlight comes in through the high window and glares off the glass table top.  I'd like some curtains in here.

I am, however, undecided on what color direction to go here.  And whether I should do curtains? Pelmets?  Roman shades?  What to do with that top window, which doesn't have blinds like the others?

This room is open to the kitchen, which has navy blue tile counters, and the toy storage is contained in bright green bins, so I'd like to work with these colors.  The room is also open to the living room, which will have a brightly colored curtain pattern including red, teal, green and yellow.

I'm partial to the Stockholm Blad curtains from Ikea.  I think cobalt blue and bright green are a fabulous color combo, so the curtains and bins would work nicely with each other. 

We had the green colorway in our playroom in the apartment, so obviously that works as well:

What to do?  And what do I do with that window up top?

campaign dresser mystery; observations

The movers arrived on Friday, so we are now firmly ensconced in a zillion boxes in our new house.  The new driver let me know that the old driver "had the ammonia" but was out of the hospital and on the mend.

You might recall that the night before the movers came, I got an email telling us our estimate was over what the Mister's company would pay for and thus I owed a zillion dollars for the extra amount.  I decided that there were a few furniture items that I would be willing to part with, and since the campaign dresser weighs about 200 pounds, I decided to give it to my sister.  I had the movers move it out to the garage, along with a matching campaign desk and hutch, and our china cabinet.  

I'll be honest, I have absolutely no memory of whether the campaign dresser and desk were in the garage when I did the walk-through with the movers at the end of the day.  I had told the movers that once we hit the weight limit they would be walking stuff back off the truck, so they probably were. I truly can't remember.  

A few days later I went to the garage to take some measurements of the furniture for my sister.  I opened the garage door, and.....where the hell is all the campaign furniture??  I guess the movers put it on the truck?  Sorry, sister, you aren't getting a campaign dresser after all. 

Since I thought the campaign dresser was on the truck, I mentally drew up a floor plan using that under the tv.  

On Friday all the furniture was unloaded and the movers started assembling stuff.  I looked around and asked "is there a big white dresser still on the truck?"  

Nope.  

Uh....where the hell is it?  

We called poor Brad the truck driver, still suffering from the ammonia, wheezing and coughing, who claimed he put it in the garage. 

Basically, this means someone stole a 200 lb dresser and a desk and a hutch.  They were extremely heavy, and certainly not the type of items that you would say "ooh, let me carry that home, it will just be a minute!"  Lifting the desk or the dresser would be a two person job, and you'd need a truck. 

Not a clue.    

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Awesome thing about this house:  completely fenced in yard and three walls of windows that means I can see the kids nearly everywhere in the yard from inside the house.

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I thought Southern California was warm year round.  I was wrong.

When we flew out a few weeks ago on our house-hunting trip, the weather forecast said that it would be 72 degrees.  Since it was 30 degrees in NJ, I thought that sounded warm, so I packed a bunch of sundresses.  When we arrived in California, I dressed up in my cute sundress, went to breakfast, and made the Mister turn around and take me back to the hotel to change into the pants I wore on the plane, and then we went to the mall and I bought a sweater.  I wore that outfit for the next four days.  My pants nearly walked off the plane themselves at the end of the trip.

Now we are here in California, and its 52 degrees and rainy, while the weather in NJ is in the high sixties and sunny.  Hahaha.

You would think that I would be all "pish tosh, you silly Californians don't know what cold weather is! This is nothing!"  But these Californians seem to think that rainy and 52 degrees is perfect weather for tank tops and shorts.  I am still bundled up in my winter coat.  I feel somewhat misled.

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My own personal episode of Hoarders.  I didn't get a picture of the first 58 bags we took to the dump. (Its mostly packing paper that the movers used to wrap our stuff in when packing it.)

There's  more where that came from!

At least that ginormous pile of packing trash and cardboard is keeping my kids from catapulting from the second floor.

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Welcome to our chair and small side table convention!

I bought another sofa.  Should be here next Sunday, yippee.

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I have unpacked nearly all the boxes inside the house.  (The garage is a different story and it will be months, if not our entire lease period before we can park in there.)  I have hit that last 10% of stuff, of where the hell do I put this, this will NEVER BE OVER JUST THROW IT ALL AWAY FOR THE LOVE.

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I'd like to end this on an up note but there is just TOO MUCH STUFF here that I need to put away.  Also, there are only three overhead lights in the whole house, so I am putting things away in the evening in the dimly lit ambience of a cave.  I do have plans for some lamps but that would require finding the extension cords and some light bulbs, which are in the garage, and I have not yet braved that hell.

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I think we are going to like living here, but I am not so great at the transitional period, you know?  

no water landings

We are here in California!

Peter, reading at the airport, surrounded by our 400 carry-on bags.

Our flight wasn't bad, although my older two asked every thirty seconds "what if we have a water landing????" I reassured them repeatedly there would be no water landings.  I refrained from telling them, even on the 498th asking, of my fears that we were far more likely to slam into the Rockies than to have a water landing.  Thankfully there were no water (or mountain) landings.

As we were waiting for our flight I got an email from the moving company letting us know that our truck driver had suffered some unknown ailment that landed him in the hospital, and thus our belongings are in a parking lot somewhere in the southwest, and will not be showing up on Thursday as previously scheduled.  They may show up on Friday.  Or not.

Tonight we are staying in the Mister's executive housing (he has been here for a few weeks already), but this apartment has one *very small* bed, and originally we figured that for one night we would suffer it so as not to spend even more money, seeing as all our stuff (ie. our beds, and toys, lets not forget all our toys) were showing up the next day.  Thankfully after tonight the moving company will be putting us up in a hotel until our stuff gets here.

This is not actually the worst thing in the world.  (Except for the truck driver, I imagine he's not so keen on this scenario.  Did I tell you about our truck driver/head of the moving crew? He is the spitting image of Ron Swanson, and talks like him too.  I hope he's ok.)  However, instead of going over to the new house to supervise all my stuff showing up, I will go over tomorrow and clean the house (it will be a contact paper party!), and we might explore the neighborhood, and register Greg at school, and generally try not to be stressed out.

I find a large part of my being stressed out at the moment is feeding Peter.  We eat mostly at home where I can prepare foods that I am certain are peanut and tree nut free.  Peter has had three reactions in the last month, two of them to food from restaurants (the third was a rebound reaction the next day), and I am just very leery at the moment of eating out.  Which is problematic when one is moving and traveling and has to buy food at airports and all of one's kitchen utensils are on the back of a truck in a nameless parking lot a thousand miles away.  

Not related to anything, but as we drove home from the airport I said "goodness, the sun is very strong for 7:30 at night, isn't it??  That daylight savings is something extra here?"  The Mister gently reminded me that it was only 4:30 in California and yes, the sun IS still strong at that hour.

Anyways.  The only way out is through, right?  We are drawing closer to being settled in here, hopefully in the next few days.  The weather is lovely.  And there are palm trees all over the place.  I have sofas to shop for.

It was a very weird feeling getting off the plane, knowing that I was not returning to New Jersey.

Its only 8:30 here, but I know from past experience that I will be awake at 3 am until I get used to the time difference, and my children will probably be up at 2 (or earlier, the horror), so I will stop my inane ramblings and go to bed now.

(As some writerly guy I can't remember right now once said, I'm sorry this letter is so long, but I haven't had the time to write a shorter one.  In that vein, please forgive my excessive parentheticals and lack of coherence or editing. Basically this is a post to let my mother know I'm alive.)

Goodnight, New Jersey. I miss you.  Good night, California.