Summer 2014 Road Trip - Leavenworth, Washington

Smack dab in the middle of Washington State is a little town known as Leavenworth. It's a kitschy, fun European village with gorgeous vistas and fun beer gardens. We spent one night in this town on our tour of central Washington.

Children peeking through the gingerbread house windows....

Completely out of place, but insanely delicious Latin restaurant..

Nutcracker market.

Then the sun starts to set and the people disappear...

and the whole thing takes on a creepy vibe. Why are there so many sausage restaurants? Where does the meat come from? Where did the tourists go? Is this the ultimate tourist trap? Have I seen Motel Hell one too many times (you know, the bad 80's movie where the people check in, but they never check out)?

No, that nutcracker isn't scary!

So, I double locked our door that night before the sun set, and woke up the next morning feeling extremely silly. Would I return again? Yes, maybe on Halloween with a group of friends, or in the middle of the summer with relatives for some great outdoor fun. 

In the meantime, we checked out the campsite we had originally planned to stay in, before I decided I needed a hotel room for one night.

and then I saw this sign. Um, Grizzly? I draw the line there. Black bear, maybe, but Grizzly is a whole new level of bear issues. No thanks!

But wow, what a day we had on the river. 

Windows, Part 2

I love open houses. They're a great way to get not only design ideas, but a real life visual of old house architecture. I lucked out one day and happened upon a house that looks almost identical to our house. This one had original, well preserved windows.

They also had mostly casements on the first floor (the realtor gave me permission to take photos). I love casements, because the operation of the window is easier, and there is less of a chance of window failure in the future. A simple turn of the handle and the window is open. Because so many of the windows on the first floor had been replaced and changed, we had a great opportunity to start fresh.

Here is the front window from the open house:

Our windows looked like this:

On the left side of the house, we had three double hung windows, all replacements, two of which had busted their springs. These were the high end wood window replacements by Marvin. It's possible that they were installed incorrectly, but nonetheless, they would not stay open and were hazardous to little fingers.

On the right hand side of the house, the windows had been replaced by a large single pane vinyl insert. 

Both sets of windows had to go.

I drove around neighborhoods all over Portland looking for inspiration. I even knocked on some doors. I didn't know how to size the middle picture window with the flanking windows. 2/1 ratio or 3/1? Finally, I went back to the first house and left a note on the door. "Please let me measure your windows! I have a similar house and would love to know the ratio of center to side windows." She responded quickly and I was at her house the next day with measuring tape. I then applied that ratio to my opening. Then I headed over to our local Loewen dealer for some beautiful fir replacement windows. I love Loewen, because the quality you get for the money is unbeatable. These windows are solid fir, with gorgeous hardware and interior screens on hinges.

We went from this:

to this:

Wow, what a difference! No more center strip of wood impeding the view, and you really get a nice picture of the orchard.

and from this:

to this:

Here is the view from the front of the house. WOW!

I'm not sure why none of the first floor replacement windows had divided lights. I like divided lights. They're appropriate for the age of the house, and they frame the view to outside in a really nice way. Since there were other original windows and doors with divided lights, I decided to go for it. It's possible that the original windows did have divided lights. 

The windows were a source of frustration for me from the beginning, and it is one of the main reasons I decided to move on from my relationship with the design team. I am thankful for the floor plan they provided for the trades, but it was clear to me after this experience that I was on my own when it comes to really important, functional details. Thanks to the incredible support of my local Loewen windows rep and Versatile Sash (in an upcoming post), we were able to make it happen. And I think it's great. 

Maybe, since I have an untrained eye, I have possibly made some kind of design faux pas. But I am really happy with the results, and for heaven's sake, it's a farm house, not a design house! Never underestimate your ability to make things happen, and never settle. 

Summer 2014 Road Trip Part 2

If you live in the Pacific NW, you have access to absolutely insanely beautiful forested hikes and campsites close to city centers. Our first night of road trip 2014 was a campground about 45 minutes outside of Seattle. It has bathrooms, tent sites and cabins, super clean. Here are some pictures from our hike. The mossy forest was absolutely stunning.

We started out at a vista point,

and immediately entered a lush forest.

My Cherry Obsession

As cherry season nears, I think about my complete obsession over this beautiful and tasty fruit. Here are some pictures I took last June.

Cherry shake from the Purple Pit in Hood River, Oregon.

Old fashioned milk pail as a planter. Cute!

Cherry pickin'

Ranier cherries are my favorite! Gorgeous color and sweet taste.

But some years, only the red cherries will do! (So I planted both!)

Thanks, Purple Pit for your hospitality!

Road Trip! Summer 2014 Revisited

Every year for my husband's birthday, we plan a great road trip somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. One year, we drove down to California via the coast and nearly killed each other on the last leg of the trip. Ashland, we need a do over! Another time, we visited the rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula and spent some time in the San Juan Islands. Wow, what a beautiful part of the country! And last year, we decided to explore central Washington.

We spent out first night in Seattle, ok a suburb of Seattle (big mistake! splurge on the location!). Didn't get much sleep that night, due to the insane amount of teenagers inhabiting this hotel, but whatever~

Took a spin on an insanely huge ferris wheel and got in some great views of the city.

Heading out of town, the moon was calling my name. It hung so low and large, I begged J to pull over and let me take a picture. Look where we ended up.

Wow, if this is any indication of what Seattle is really like, outside of the tourist traps, sign me up.

The next morning, we headed up to Woodinville, a suburban farm oasis just outside of the city. There was a festival going on at the Lavendar farm. Beautiful day!

Before we headed out for our first night of camping/yurting, we stopped in Woodinville Whiskey Company for a few provisions for the trip. The building is absolutely gorgeous.

They even gave the kids a whiskey tasting. Kidding! They also bottle maple syrup. It's amaaaaaazing! Last time I was at Whole Foods, I noticed they started carrying it, thank goodness. Woodinville is a long drive from here!

Window-mania! I'm so OCD

When I put my mind to something, sometimes it goes into complete overdrive. The obsession of the moment is windows.

It started one day when I realized I had some serious rot issues on a small cabin on the property. I really wanted to replace the rotten ones, but not for $600 a pop. On a whim, I did a quick Craig's List search on my way to the Portland Rebuilding Center. There was an ad for 17 casement windows pulled from a Reed College dorm. I texted the seller just after I pulled in and did a quick round through the salvage warehouse. Without any luck there, I checked my phone and already had a response. I was running around quite a bit that morning and was already late getting to the farmhouse, but the seller was just around the corner and a split decision later, I was in front of her house.

Not having been in the market before, I wasn't sure what I was looking for or what I really needed, except I needed windows. Down in the basement of this house were 18 gorgeous, solid, heavy, casement windows of various sizes and a box of hardware. She had bought them about 7 years before was asking 60-70/window. I offered her $500 for the lot, and seriously questioned my sanity as I was doing it. But what the heck, right? $25/window, she would probably say no, and I would be off the hook.

15 minutes later, and a trunk full of windows, I was headed to Hood River.

The problem is, that's not where I stopped. I kept returning to the Rebuilding Center with a renewed enthusiasm for old windows. I bought about 5 leaded casement windows on an especially crazy morning (solid, massively heavy and in frames). I had to rent a Uhaul for these, and during a struggle to move one of them, my husband stepped right through an especially large set of 3. Oops!

And another set of 3 with broken panes, but I could fix the panes. It was a deal!

I didn't really know what I was going to do with these, but what I did know was the windows in place were so rotten and inoperable, that anything would be an upgrade. We opted for new wood windows for the first floor, exactly the same configuration as the old windows, and went crazy fun upstairs in the "attic."

All of the original windows had been covered and were completely broken or missing sashes. I took this one in to be matched up:

Want to see what we did with them?

Radiator Obsession

We pulled the asbestos covered ductwork out of the house (professionally abated) last year, and it was time to figure out what kind of heating system we wanted. We were starting completely from scratch. I'm not really a big fan of forced air, just because of the hassle of cleaning out ducts and maintaining big machines. Not only that, but out in an already dusty area, would it just get to be too much? Then I found out about radiant heat.

We have used in-floor radiant heat, but have not had much experience with actual cast iron radiators. What we do know is the people who have it, love it. And the idea of adjusting the temperature in each bedroom separately? My dad can visit and have the radiator full heat, and I can turn mine down? Wow, sign me up!

I have a bit of a thing for heavy things. I've been known in the past to ask friends to lift gigantic ancient refrigerators for me. So it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that knows me that anything extremely heavy and cast iron will tend to catch my eye.

I picked up my first radiator on Craig's List about a year ago, just because I thought it was cool. The older man said it came out of a local church and he had it in his garage because he thought it was cool too. So I brought it home and had it powdercoated. This one was $50. Score!

I found the second one at the Gorge ReBuild It Center, sitting outside. Think it came in fresh. $100. I was with my husband, and he asked, "what are we going to do with that big hunk of metal? why don't we actually have a plan first?" So glad I talked him into it.

A couple of months later, we decided that we were definitely going to go the radiant heat route. It turns out it's less expensive and invasive than ground source heat, and I'm just not a fan of these mitsubishi heaters that sit high on the wall in each room and have pipes going everywhere. Some kind of euro heat. 

With that came the realization that at this rate it would take 10 years to gather as many radiators as I would need for this size house. So I looked online. The most affordable ones, through a discount website, are called Governale. It passed the test with the local radiant heat expert, so I ordered one to get an idea of what it would look like. Not exactly impressive, but found out later that it's the perfect size for the downstairs powder room. No love lost, $150 here we go.

There are other new reproduction radiators on the market, mainly marketed to the East Coast and Europe, that can be upwards of $3000 each. Salvage was definitely the way to go. Although not as popular on the West Coast, they can be had for those who are persistent.

About 6 months previously, I answered a Craig's List ad for a house full of radiators. Not ornate, but perfect under-the-window sized and the whole lot for $500. Unfortunately, 6 months previously I got a resounding "No" from the husband, because it was still a mere thought and not a plan. Where would we put them? What if we don't use them? They're really heavy!! A month after husband said no, I called the guy back anyway. He said, "I'm so sorry, I really wanted to save them, but they went to the scrap metal yard." Ugh!

Then came the true test of our marriage. Finally after regretting the decision to pass on them for months, another ad came up in Spokane, Washington. I emailed the seller back and forth and ultimately offered $500 for the house. A house very similar in size and shape to ours. It was fate. Somehow I managed to talk my dear, sweet, wonderful husband into flying to Eastern Washington, renting a UHaul, and loading (with 3 other men) about thirteen 200-400 pound radiators onto Uhaul, then driving back to Portland in one day. Rock star! 

The only downside was that we didn't exactly see what we were getting ahead of time. So we ended up with a hodge podge of styles and sizes. But the ornate ones were really pretty and we had two stars - two extra long perfect-under-the-window radiators.

Then I picked up a few more, because I was on a roll, and because I had a Uhaul.

These came from Hippo Hardware, a local salvage store. $50 each.

And these came from Aurora Mills Architectural Depot, in Aurora, Oregon. I found a nice set of four and was told the Grimm tv show had borrowed these for a while for set decor. Clearly I'm not the only one that finds these appealing. He wanted almost $20 a fin (they are usually priced by the fin), but when I asked him, "do you get a lot of folks in here looking for radiators?" he gave me a great deal. I love this place. Invest in your local small businesses and they will work with you.

Then a call back to the radiator expert and I find out he wanted me to drive all of these down to Hood River so he could pressure test each of them for leaks, then drive them back to be powdercoated. I couldn't do it. It was too much for me. These things are massive. I don't want to even begin to talk about the fear and terror of driving around town in the size Uhaul I had, either.

Luckily I found a local radiator shop that would test these for me. I learned that if you powdercoat them before removing the nuts and bolts, it kind of ruins the powdercoat. Also, before buying salvage, it doesn't hurt to ask if they have damage. The more reputable places won't carry cracked radiators or will return your money if you discover cracks. A thorough visual inspection doesn't hurt either.

Before I left the heating specialists, they threw in a couple of extra, just in case I didn't have enough. And wow, why did I never think of asking these guys first? They get radiators in all the time. They usually sell them to the salvage stores or sell them for scrap. Duly noted!

Post testing, they are ready to be picked up and delivered to the powdercoaters. By the way, Portland Powdercoating rocks. They're not afraid of anything. Nothing is too big or too heavy. They're like, "psh, bring it." He sent me home with some swatches and I obsessed over dark grey vs dark bronze vs classic white for about a week, matched them to all my swatches, debated with my husband over which would be more authentic, and finally went with dark grey. I like the look of raw metal without the worry of rust.

At this point, I have about 19 or 20 radiators. What in the hell is wrong with me. You know what, though? Aside from one, I have found a place for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Score.

The ornate ones will inhabit the main spaces and upstairs rooms, and the less ornate ones will go in the attic, guest room and bathrooms. There is one very long plain one that will fit under a very long window in our master bedroom. Will probably cover that with a window seat.

I have looked and looked since for that elusive long, low beauty for the master, but I tell you, they are hard to find. And to ask my husband to move one more radiator in his life is just cruel.

 Is it just me or are radiators really really cool?

Here they are! And since they are all the same color (aside from the one), the different styles just kind of work.

Art.

Sitting in the sunroom, laying in wait for final placement.