Almost there.

Noe Valley is getting closer than ever! We move back home tomorrow. Home, Toto.

Guys at the house are furiously preparing for our arrival. The terrazzo steps are being cleaned for the first time since the house was built in 1952.

The stairs going down from the deck to our new Babe Cave are being tiled.

Light fixtures are being installed downstairs.

Big-time cleaning is going on upstairs.

Meanwhile, back at the apartment, packers are packing us up.

Outside, the beat goes on. And on and on and on and on and on and on and on . . .   

The pile drivers are frickin' relentless.

Inside, it is all systems go. And are we ever ready.

Heading into the home stretch. Get it? Home.

"Of all the hardships a person had to face, none was more punishing than the simple act of waiting."
      -- Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

Next week! We move home next week! The wait is almost killing me, but I keep reminding myself we're in the 19th week of a 20-week job. Actually it's 20 weeks of being out of the house. Probably another month of smaller stuff needs to be done after we move back in.

And while Mr. Smarty Pants, quoted above, thinks waiting is so simple, it's anything but that for Rebecca and me. We are still running all over town, picking out knobs 'n grab bars 'n shit.

Admit it. You're transfixed.

We are making arrangements for a "reverse move." You remember we had movers come and move our stuff from all over the house into the living room and dining room? Now they have to come and move it back. 

They also have to move us out of the apartment, which we have to clean big time. I could go through the whole to-do list, but I imagine if you're still awake and reading this, you won't be for long if I go into more detail.

So let's talk about what's gotten done.  The upstairs bedrooms have been carpeted and painted. The carpet in both rooms is the same color, not that you'd know it from these pictures.

The upstairs bathroom vanity is installed, counter top and all.

The tiling in the downstairs bathroom is complete.

The stone on top of the shower seat has been installed. The boys left us a pink thing because we're girls. Just kidding, I hope.

California Closets installed a great big storage unit at one end of the room and Rebecca's work station at the other.

As you can see, the room got painted too. Here's what the whole thing looks like. The floor, remember, is cork, but it's covered now.

A fern garden will go (and hopefully grow) outside this window.

Here is the room with its happy primary occupant.

Lucy Silverstein Gebroe

She and I are quite pleased with how things are turning out. The only one we believe will be less than happy is Miss Lucy. 

We have committed the cardinal kitty crime of changing things. Worse, we have changed her things. Most notably, her door.

Coming together

It's the second to last day of September, which means it's almost October, which means it's almost the last month of work on the house. It's almost time for Rebecca and me to move out of the apartment we've been renting. It's almost time to move into the home we've been owning, but that has, for the last five months, been taken over by (mostly) men with heavy boots and big tools and sharp, clangy things that infuse the very pores of our residence with dust. 

We are champing at the bit. And yes, the word is "champing."

While the beginning of the job was all about the big picture and upgrades to the structure of the house, now we are into the details. Each day, we can see progress and change.


The downstairs shower is being tiled.

The tile man a-tiling.

The brown trim will actually be the trim that you see 

inside the niche. The seat will get a nice stone cover.

The military has been called in to restore order to our upstairs bathroom.

Vanity, thy name is We've Still Got a Ways to Go.

The grate on the deck has been installed, thereby allowing a good amount of light into the new room below.

Before

After

And now we come to the beautiful, exacting and sometimes exasperating task of selecting paint colors.

  

Jill French, on the left here, is our house painter. She and Rebecca discuss things like hues and saturation. 

Eventually, they turn to a higher power for inspiration.

And they receive the Word. Two Words, actually. And the Words are "cloud white." And the walls on either side of the staircase shall be cloud white forevermore.

A day in the life

8 a.m.
Wake to the serenade of pile drivers from across Mission Creek.

10 a.m.
Pay bills, including the latest from our contractor.

11 a.m.

Meet our friend Ellen at City Hall.

Self portrait by Ellen who really shouldn't quit her day job

That's Ellen on the left.

11:30 a.m.
Get married. Yup.

12:30 p.m.
Have lunch at the Hayes Street Grill. We eat there every time we get married.

2 p.m.
Head over to the house to meet the guy who measures the bedrooms for carpeting.

Tape measures are so 2010.
Greg here was able to size up the rooms just by pointing a laser thingy at the walls.

2:20 p.m.
Check out what's been done on the house since last week. That would be a lot. Most notably the floor got laid. As well it should on our wedding day. 

Our new burglar alarm got installed.

And the boys have been taking their sledgehammers outside. This is because whatever was originally holding the deck to the house has rotted away and has to be rebuilt.

So the last bastion of pastoral comfort at the ole Noe Valley homestead is now just another cluttered construction site.

3:30 p.m.
Return a pillow that didn't work out. Because this so-called "king-sized" pillow did not fit in a king-sized pillow case. The store person told me to go buy some kind of super-secret super-king-sized pillowcases that fit the super-special BioSense 2 memory foam pillows.

Uh-huh.

3:40 p.m.

Buy a new pillow. This means I will have to forego sleeping on my back as the new pillow is for side sleepers. I am a bi-sleeper; that is, I sleep on my side and my back. My pillow just can't handle that. Oh, there's a pillow out there for those who sleep on their backs and stomachs. But not one that can accommodate us back and side sleepers. We are separate but not equal.

This revolution's just getting started. The sleepers. United. Will never be defeated.

4 p.m. 
Go to the gym. Yay.

6 p.m. 

Come home and blog like the wind.

And you? How was your day?