The Best Mattress
When Agent Smith and I first moved in to our place in San Francisco, we each had a queen-size bed. However, my mattress was too soft…
Category: Interior
Do not be alarmed.
Long, annoying story made short: previous owners had an alarm system on the house. Where we live the police will not respond to a home alarm registering…
The Bowels of Purgatory, Part 3: Thermostat Enlightenment
One of the more stupid things here at Purgatory was the location of the thermostat for Furnace A. (For those that missed the last few…
The Bowels of Purgatory, Part 2: Furnace Stink
Continuing the last post, we’ve been slowly getting some work done on the heating utensils of Purgatory. Last year we scraped by with minimal knowledge of our furnaces,…
The Bowels of Purgatory, Part 1: Furnace Story
First a point of clarification: we have two furnaces of the exact same make/model. Furnace B handles the north wing of the house, and Furnace A the…
Spiders and earwigs and termites, oh my!
A few months back we discovered a termite funnel emanating from the electrical outlet above the washer and dryer. With much trepidation we called Planet…
In the bedroom
As mentioned in the previous post, we didn’t have much furniture when we moved in to Purgatory and we have been very slow in buying…
Our lack of a Chesterfield Sofa
Shortly after we took possession of Purgatory, it became apparent that we were going to need more furniture. Going from one master bedroom, two offices,…
The Cave of Stega
I’ve had a lot of people ask me for better images of my office, so a while back I took a few panoramics with my…
Expanding Borrowed Time
Our wireless network here was adequate but not ideal. Reception in some areas was spotty, so we picked up a few more Ubiquity access points…
Historic House Images
We really enjoy finding odd tidbits of information about our house and land. Recently, when looking a house nearby for sale, I discovered something rather…
Water, Water Everywhere, Part 3: And Some to Drink
Carrying on from the last post about water here at Purgatory–because we use a sodium-based water softener, our normal tap water tastes a tad salty.…
Revisiting First Impressions, Addendum
In addition to the spare bedroom, alcove space and my office, the south wing of the house includes a couple of bathrooms off the linen…
Revisiting First Impressions, Part 6: North Wing
The south wing of the house includes a couple of bathrooms off the linen hallway, a spare bedroom, the boys’ space and my office. First,…
Revisiting First Impressions, Part 5: Foyer and Master Bedroom
Then-and-now photos of the foyer and master suite. While the before photos are usually retouched, the now photos are not. The foyer as it was.…
Revisiting First Impressions, Part 4: Kitchen and Great Room
Then-and-now photos of the kitchen and great room. Keep in mind the now photos are unretouched. Kitchen: a few changes in color and a different fridge, and…
Revisiting First Impressions, Part 3: South Wing Interior
Then-and-now shots of Agent Smith’s office, the guest suite, and studio (which is a separate building from the main house). South office (formerly an extra…
Closet of Doom
When we moved in, we discovered one thing that neither the inspections nor the previous owners had noted: the fact that the closet off the great…
A better lock
Our kitchen has two doors to the exterior, side by side–one a sliding door, the other a standard door with an auto-closing arm put in…
Final Blue Room Pics
Here are the before shots, followed by that shot or a similar one that was loaded into the Sherwin Williams Color Snap App for a messy mockup,…
Furnace Fun
When we bought the house, we were well aware that the furnaces were old and needed eventual replacement. They are original to the house, installed in…
Painting Update: The trim is now done
More time was spent painting what was the purple room, but now is the blue room. Here are a few pics after the first coat on the trim.…
New Hot Water
We knew when we bought the house that the water heaters were getting up there in years–one is nearing 10 and the other about 13.…
More on the painting
The purple room is now blue! It took 2+ coats of paint, plus 2 coats of primer, but it’s looking so much nicer. Next up,…
Sink Update
As noted a few weeks back, our new kitchen faucet ran into a couple of serious hiccups, leaving us with no hot water or clear…
A bit of decor
Our front foyer was sorely lacking a spot for people to sit and take off or put on their shoes. This is an issue when…
The end of the purple
As written about earlier (here and here), the spare bedroom was an atrocious purple with lots of unsealed nail holes, screws embedded in the walls…
Purple Update
During spells of yecchy weather, I’ve been prepping the purple bedroom so it can be repainted. All the holes–and there were lots of them as…
Updated Floorplan
I tried the iOS app MagicPlan to build a better floorplan, as I wanted somewhat precise measurements for rooms/areas in the house. MagicPlan turned out…
How California Politicians Screwed Up My Kitchen Sink
A bit of background before I begin what is about to be a giant rant. The kitchen sink faucet that came with our house was…
Purple…
It’s been somewhat rainy here at Purgatory–it is winter after all–so I have a second project starting that is completely indoors: repainting a room. Not just…
Changes in the Pantry
When we moved in, we were not happy with the shelving in the pantry. Putting something just slightly too heavy on one end of a…