11:11—T-minus 33 hours until the big event

Our home tour is happening in 1.5 days, starting Saturday morning. The house is looking pretty nifty. It's clean, art has been hung, beds have been made with beautiful new linens, dogs have been banished to doggie camp, the shop now has a beautiful new overhead door (AKA garage door) with frosted glass panels, the new front porch is setting up nicely...almost everything is in good shape.

Paul and team are headed over here tomorrow to take some pictures of the house in it's "done" stage. Watch for them on the PMa website soon!

The only thing that is bringing me down is that I screwed up the fabulous wool carpet in our bedroom cleaning up a giant mess that our dog Django left for us (don't even ask). I cleaned too aggressively and now there is evidence of where I've cleaned. Evidence that doesn't seem to be fading. Evidence that is making me very mad. And sad. I'm hoping that by sharing it with all of you, I will find peace with it. You know that feeling when you get your first ding in your car? And that ding was your fault entirely? That's the feeling I am feeling now. Giant sigh.

But...on with the show!

Are you coming over? I hope so.

Artsy

Picture pages, picture pages

My momma told me you better shop around

Shop! Nice, eh?

It's my party and I'll [X] if I want to

I was trying to think of something witty to say on my birthday, but I'm not sure exactly what I want to do today. Cry? Nah. Smile? Laugh? Pause? Breathe? Something like that. Cautious optimism is in the air...

Anyhoo, in addition to what must surely be a fabulous surprise party headed my way, we are in the midst of several improvements in advance of the open house.

Outside. We're actually doing things to make the outside look somewhat as nice as the inside. We're laying down some gravel areas and are likely laying down some sod as well (as the giant backyard mud pit in which the dogs frolic each evening is becoming suboptimal).

Shop. The shop is awaiting siding and it's gleaming glass garage door. I promise I will post pictures soon.

Decorating. We've added some touches to make the house appear more finished -- curtains, shelving, art (well, we haven't hung it yet, but it's on the list).

I must go and make myself birthday-beautiful now. Yay!

Almost famous

Check it out -- on the updated site page for the upcoming AIA Design Matters home tour, our house is prominently featured.

Admittedly, it does help that our architect is on the planning committee for said home tour. But still...famous! This is a better link to the event that I'd posted previously, for those of you who are interested: http://adfestivalpdx.com/

Now we must start hanging art. And cleaning. And hiding things that are hideous to the eye.

Unpacking and shopbuilding

Unpacking is not fun.

But having a new house with your beloved things in it is fun.

And so we unpack.

We must make better progress in advance of Oct 1, when we are featured in the AIA Design Matters home tour (http://designmattershomestour.eventbrite.com/). Yikes. That is really soon.

Here are key things that'll happen in September:

• Shop is to be framed, roofed, sided, wired, and fitted with a custom garage door. This is already in process. If I were less lazy, I would post pictures.
• Backyard is to be leveled out--the current surface texture is what I'd call "moon-like"--and areas behind the house and beside the house are to be excavated a few inches and filled in with gravel. Vendor is hired, work to begin this week.
• The front door's concrete stoop will be re-poured so that it's a lovely smooth surface again (also currently moon-like, which is not very welcoming). I believe Andrew's setting us up... Andrew, do your magic!
• Betsy's kitchen wall in her mother-in-law suite will start to come together: countertop, sink, refrig, burners and dishwasher will join recently-installed cabinets.
• 1,397 things will be put away in their proper places (or stashed in a closet so as to temporarily disappear from sight).

Later in October, we are supposed to lay down grass seed and straw. And hope for rain. Oh, also we need to transplant some roses. Oh, and master our holiday music compilation. Sh*t. October promises to be as busy as September. Well, at least there's Halloween.

Bills, notes, magazines, flyers, calendars, cards...oh my

Perhaps we've reached the point where I should deal with this.

Argh.

On the plus side, framers are framing the shop! Hooray!!! Will post pictures later this weekend.