Our New Baby

We finally got a piano. We have been talking about getting one since we got married and Tim found the perfect one on Craigslist. It is a 1950's Acrosonic in mint condition. Unfortunately, it was in Walnut Creek, up north. So we first had my dad go look at it to make sure it was real. Then we sent a deposit. Then Tim went up to Sacramento for a work conference and met some piano movers in Walnut Creek to move it to my parents house. Then Tim rented a van and drove it from my parents house to our house. Phew! Totally worth it. We will be starting Syd in Suzuki piano lessons in the Fall (once we can afford it!) and Mason will follow along as soon as he can. In the Suzuki method, the parent learns along with the child, so I am getting really excited to get started too. Syd and Mason already jam together on the piano whenever they have a free moment.

Kitchen Collectables

Here are a few of the treasures that I have collected over the past few months. Most were Christmas gifts from Tim - he totally spoiled me this year. We have had the best luck finding things on E Bay or at the Long Beach Flea Market and Redlands Thrift!

Details of Modernism Week

Here are some of the things we saw at other houses that we would like to integrate into our house some day.









This was our only purchase of the weekend. We got it for $50 at a thrift store in Palm Springs.

Moderism Week

In February, Tim and I went to Palm Springs for Modernism Week. We stayed for three nights (away from the kids!!) at the Orbit Inn, ate great food (Copelys was our favorite), rode the Tramway and attempted to see as much mid-century modern stuff as we could. We did a 3 hour double decker bus tour and did a private tour of the Frey house. We also did self-guided tours of all the antique and thrift shops. We tried to be low key so we did not have our camera at most places, but here are some pictures of some of our favorite houses.

Hanging Chairs

This has been, by far, our favorite purchase of the New Year. We bought these mid-century hanging chairs at Xcape in Long Beach. At the store we were not sure where we would hang both of them together. I guess we forgot about this huge tree with two perfect stumps!! Syd love to swing in them and she even designed a pully system so that when one of us is in the other chair we can swing her chair. Mason also loves chilling out there and when he sees the chairs he says "Bweee, bwee!"(his version of wee).

Tim also got this umbrella from the Loma Linda's School of Nursing courtyard. No, he did not steal it. He actually got a hold of someone in maintainence with the help of his mom and bought an extra one they had in storage. Unfortunately, it did not have a pole so he found the manufacturer (Sundrella) and bought the pole kit from them. Now we just have to figure out where to put it.

Peek-A-Boo

One of the great uses for a double sided fireplace!

Here's another thrift store find. I bought a set of four of these at a thrift store for $12. I think they're pretty cool. I was going to rent a steam cleaner to clean them but didn't want to spend the money so I did some searching on the internet and read that some people were using a wet-dry vac to do the same job. So I mixed some hot water with a little bit of laundry soap in a spray bottle, sprayed it on, and vacuumed it up right away. It seems like that's all a steam cleaner does anyway. After that and a bit of vinyl cleaner I was pretty happy with them. Here's a before and after picture: