Painted Lady

Painters have been working on our building since May, giving it a much-needed new coat of paint. We changed the color scheme too--now the building is a blue gray "October Sky" and the accents are white, navy blue, burgundy, and a bunch of other blues. We have nine colors on the building in total, including a lot of real gold leaf on the woodwork.

Here’s what she looked like before:

On Monday the scaffolding came down. Here she is!  It was a long road to completion, but we are immensely happy with the finished product.

Clustering Paintings

Visually, there is a lot going in our living room (zig-zag sofa, donut painting, cheerful yellow walls, “spider” chandelier). Consequently we decided to only hang pictures on one additional wall in the room (besides the donut painting wall).

I clipped these images from Vogue eons ago—they are designer Kate Spade’s Park Avenue apartment. I love how Kate mixes artwork of different mediums and framing styles on one wall. It is such a great way to display your treasured pieces.

Kate Spade's guest bedroom.

Kate Spade's sitting room.

I also recently read an article on NY Times about a professional art installer, David Kassel, who helped a woman display an extensive photography collection in an 800-square foot apartment. His client said, “I have such an eclectic mix of stuff — flea market pictures, fine art photographs and old mirrors. If I put it up in the wrong way or don’t group it well, it would be a mess.” I thought he did an inspiring job.

David Kassel and his client, in her 800 sf Jersey City apartment.

Because I do watercolor and oil paintings, and also have a soft spot for collecting artwork, Dean and I decided to attempt something similar. We had seen an HGTV episode of “The Antonio Treatment” where Antonio organized his framed artwork on a giant piece of butcher paper on the floor, just as he would like them to hang on the wall. Then he traced the frames, taped the paper to the wall, and knew exactly where to drive all of the nails. This seems like a very precise and proper way to hang pictures. Knowing that this was the best way to do it, Dean and I threw method to the wind and just eyeballed it!

And it turned out beautifully! Over time we may add one or two more pieces to our art wall, which gives us room to collect (my fav activity). Because the art wall is very representative of my artwork and my “finds”, I was happy to have a little room for Dean to add to it when he finds something that strikes his fancy.

Our clustered paintings wall.

-Andi

Welcome Home, Mr. Eero Saarinen

Being an architect, Dean appreciates modern designers and their product. So he is thrilled to have one of Eero Saarinen’s vintage pieces in our home!  This week I scored a 1960s Saarinen tulip side table on craigslist for $350, with the original Knoll sticker on the bottom.

The marble top has both gray and tan marbelized lines. Which makes it easy to match to stuff. Ignore

the unfinished loveseat!

It has a sturdy iron base and weighs about 50 lbs. The marble top and lines of the base give it a floating sensation. It is so pretty that I am hesitant to put anything on it. Maybe that is why the modernists have clutter-less interiors—their furniture is too beautiful to cover with books and lamps and miniature dog figurines.  

Also note our new Ikea nesting coffee tables: KLUBBO. $69.99.

Eero was a mid-century Finnish American designer known for his “machine-like rationalism,” according to Wikipedia.  Like Dean, Eero grew up in Michigan.  Unlike Dean, Eero hung out with kids like Ray and Charles Eames and Florence Knoll.

-Andi

Meet Our Garden

Mark Twain famously said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.” It’s true—the summers are foooogggy, and the tourists all look miserable on their double-decker buses. But the fall is glorious. This week it has been around 75 degrees and sunny every day.

This weather is thrilling because about a month ago I decided to do a second planting of vegetables in our garden, hoping to harvest by early November. We planted radishes, turnips, butter lettuce, red leaf lettuce, kale, spinach, and more carrots.

Last time we planted seedlings I unwittingly confused many of the sprouts for weeds and yanked them. So this time I drew a garden map for our plot, which is about 4 by 15 feet.

The turnips and butter lettuce are coming up rapidly, as is the kale. Stay tuned to see how those turn out. Tonight Dean made homemade mint chip ice cream (his specialty) with mint from our garden. We will eat it this weekend when we have friends over to enjoy it with us.

Giant chard! Though we are not huge chard fans we have figured out how to make chard & sausage fritatta,

halibut fillets wrapped in chard, and chard risotto.

Dean really wanted to try growing corn. All in all, the stalks produced two very sweet ears of corn.

Yummy, but not a big yield in the foggy Inner Richmond.

Our baby kale is sprouting! Notice the summer broccoli behind it, which has been picked and sauteed

already, with some red pepper flakes and olive oil.

-Andi

Our First Harvest

So, we've mentioned before that we have a plot in a local community garden. We inherited a ton of spices in our plot--sorrel, oregano, tarragon, chives, rosemary, thyme, spearmint, and an enormous sage plant--and an inordinate amount of chard. And we don't really like chard, especially inordinate amounts.

We've also planted our own veggies since we acquired the plot in May. We planted various lettuces, corn, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, basil, and cucumber. Some of the veggies didn't take and some are thriving. And some needed picking. Badly.

Below are pics of our first major harvest beyond the occasional pickings of herbs for dinner and such. (And by "our first harvest" I mean "Andi's first harvest" since she does 90% of the gardening.)

Our haul from left to right: chard, spearmint (flowering in back), mini apples from the community orchard,

carrots, arugula.

The first truck load of chard.

Arugula.

The carrots. They're not long, but they have girth.

We are very new at this gardening thing so we purchased a book that was recommended to us by a friend: Golden Gate Gardening: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area and Coastal California. It's been extremely helpful such that it tells us what plants thrive in the crappy summer weather of San Francisco, it spells out planting schedules, and it helps us identify weeds (although, another community gardener gave us an even better way of identifying weeds: if you don't want it in your garden, it's a weed.)

If anyone has any advice on how to grow big and tasty veggies in our garden, please feel free to comment!

Dean

Just Movin' In

It's been a hectic day. We are now in the new apartment! We woke up at 7:30am this morning to make sure we were ready for the movers at 9am. I know, I know--DIY bloggers should never use a moving company. But let me tell you a story...

When I moved in with Andi in July of '09, we moved my stuff ourselves. I packed my things in re-purposed boxes, loaded them into her double-ought VW Jetta, moved them in about a hundred trips, and still had about 15% left to do with about a week left on my lease. And then I had to take a last minute work trip to Singapore. I was gone for that last week leaving Andi to pick up the slack.

She was not happy.

She moved the rest of my stuff, sold the stuff I didn't want on Craigslist, and helped my roommate clean the apartment. The ordeal nearly ended our budding relationship before it really began.

This time we wised up and agreed to hire a moving company to save our sanity and avoid numerous "arguments". At the same time we were supporting a fantastic program that helps rehabilitate those who were homeless or have served time, typically because of drug and alcohol abuse, and get them the tools they need to not only survive, but succeed in their endeavors. The organization is called the Delancey Street Foundation and in SF alone they run a restaurant, a cafe, Christmas tree lots, and a moving company, to name a few of their services. If you'd like more info, check them out here: www.delanceystreetfoundation.org.

So now we're in. We're still in boxes. We have to set up all of our utilities. I'm posting this blog from my iPhone! But we're extremely excited. We're already finding many DIY tasks that need to be completed as soon as possible (although gorgeous, our new place is in shambles). List of potential pitfalls coming soon.

Dean