St. Patty's Day goodness & making a home

Have I mentioned, yet, that I LOVE California?  Today has been an amazing day; the sun is shining, the flowers are blooming (jasmine wafts through the air everywhere you go), and it's 67 degrees out today. 

I feel like I am blooming here, and so is Lily.  We both love taking our long walks together; enjoying the fresh clean air from the mountains as we admire the amazing variety of plants and birds that live in the yards of the homes in our nieghborhood.  Eric says it gets to be almost too beautiful here, that it becomes hard to notice the beauty because its always here, it becomes normal.  I find it hard to imagine a time when I wouldn't be amazed by the hummingbirds, citrus trees, abundance of exotic flowers, and minty-sweet mix of eucalyptus and Jasmine fragrance dancing together in the wind.

In addition to enjoying the amazing spring here, I've also been thinking a great deal about how to make our new house feel like a home.  We will be closing on the new place April 10th, and I want to at least get the walls painted and floors refinished before we move in (a tricky prospect since I'll be visiting st. louis from the 15th to the 22nd :) )

I'll start with the outside, 

Since the exterior paint is in good shape, we won't be painting the outside anytime soon.  It has a shake roof that needs to be replaced in the near future and I think we are planning to replace it with one of the new composite metal roofs that look like tiles, in late summer sometime.

One of the major things we want to do with the front exterior is renovate the landscaping.  The house has some very nice camillias and succulents in front but we will likely need to re-sod and fix up what is there.  There is a nice arbor on the front porch and we are excitedly planning to grow a passion fruit vine on it.  They have amazingly beautiful flowers!

The Backyard:  As you can see, the entire backyard is consumed by this monster deck and pool.  The deck is moderately nice bit the pool is just a hole dug in the ground and the dirt covered with a liner.  We plan to tear out most, if not all, of the deck and fill in the pool pit with dirt.  We will sod a bit but also plan to have some nice garden areas, including a cute little lily garden (maybe with a pond, fish, and frogs!) in an alcove just outside the master bedroom (where we will install french doors to the yard).  

The yard itself is sadly lacking in trees, too, so we plan to plant a citrus tree (perhaps hybrid with orange, lemon, and lime), a palm tree, an avocado, and maybe a fig... at least :)  We are also looking at birds of paradise, hibiscus, poppies, cannas, wisteria and grapes for the patio overhang, and other beautiful and unusual plants I've never even heard of before :)

The dining room/reading nook:

For this room, which is where you enter the home, I think we are going to paint the walls a rich dark chocolate color.  We will leave the trim white, and perhaps eventually add crown molding.  I am also seriously considering, because it's a big room, making part of it a nice secluded reading nook... but we'll see about that in a few months.

The Kitchen:

The view on the left is from the family room, which I will get to in a sec, you can see that the kitchen is open to the family room with a nice double counter.  the doorway in the back leads into the front/dining room.  I am thinking I will paint the walls of the kitchen a soft celery color that will mesh well with the chocolate.  I am going to paint the top cabinets white and the bottom cabinets the same chocolate color as the walls in the dining room (with high gloss paint).  We will be replacing the fridge and stove with new ones (after we run the gas line to the kitchen), but I think we might stick to a white finish because stainless is incredibly hard to keep looking clean (and free of fingerprints!).  We will also be replacing the pulls and knobs with something a bit more interesting and I want to do something cool with the inside of the cabinets... I'm just not quite sure what yet.  The floor is nicely tiled so we don't have to worry about that, but I will scatter a few colorful rugs about.

The Family Room:

So, as you can see, the family room is a bit (ahem) dated (and dark!!!).  In order to lighten things up I plan to paint the wall paneling a very pale, almost white, ocean-y blue and then all of the molding, mantle, and shelves white.  I haven't decided what to do about the ceiling beams quite yet... I don't like the color they currently are but can't decide between leaving them as is or painting them white as well.  Once the room is painted I think it will have a nice, light and airy feel which is aided by the beautiful skylight.

There are two windows along the left side wall that used to be exterior, but are now interior windows into an interesting triangular room that will be our craft room and office.  There are no pictures of it, or any of the other rooms, at the moment.  I am considering painting the walls of that room a nice tiffany-box blue, because I find that color to be peaceful and inspiring.  I will probably also paint Lily's room in that color.

Bedrooms: There are 3 official bedrooms in the house.  The smallest is Lily's room.  It is currently painted a dark purple color that makes it look even smaller; and it's REALLY small.  I will paint her walls blue, make the end of the room into her bed alcove, with sheers enclosing the bed and, if there's enough room, a might table.  I haven't thought much further than that yet :)

The 2nd bedroom is a nice size with great built in closets and cabinets.  I originally wanted to use it as my craft room but Eric prefers if we use the addition because it's not really well-made enough to be a bedroom (no insulation) and is the only inside garage access point.  So, Sabrina will get that room and it is probably better that way anyway.  It is a nice size and further away from where we will likely spend most of our time (the family room/kitchen) so she can have her privacy and quiet.  We will be trying to work out soundproofing options so she can feel comfy singing in her room, and feel more secluded.

The master bedroom is currently painted Lavendar (and a lavendar I dislike!) and needs a bit of work.  The bottom molding needs to be fixed, as it is crooked and not flush with the hardwood floors.  I am thinking about painting the walls a nice clear gray color, with white trim, and going with mostly white for the bedlinnens.  I also want to enclose the bed with sheer curtains to make it feel like a romantic spa retreat at the end of the day.

The Bathrooms:

There are 2 baths, both full, in our house.  They are both serviceable and OK... just need some updating.  The Bath that Lily and Sabrina will be sharing is a tub/shower combo.  I am thinking about painting the walls red, and having the rest of it white... but I'm not sure about that yet.  The other bath is connected to the master bedroom and also connects to the laundry room, which leads to the family room.  It only has a shower (my bubble baths will have to take place in Lily/Sabi's tub) but is otherwise nice enough for now.  I haven't really decided on color choices for it yet, but want to do something that will transition nicely from master bedroom and also to the laundry room.

I want to make the laundry room nice, too, since I am the one who will be making most use of it :)

Well, that is the house and my current ideas about decorating.  We are going tomorrow for an inspection and I hope to have more and better pictures to share with you soon!

Creative Revival Launched

Last night, after some technical issues, I finally got the website for Creative Revival published.  It's still under construction and a bit fuzzy around the edges but I like it overall.  I'd love to hear what you think about it!

Today I am  working on strategic planning and structure, I worked out a preliminary draft of bylaws to discuss with Anastasia when we meet later this week.

Everything seems to be going really quickly but not uncomfortably so.  Anastasia and I seem to work together really well and I am looking forward to developing a professional and friendly relationship with her over the next months and, hopefully, years.

As today is Tuesday, I have my regular southbay discussion meeting at 8.  Today a member sent an interesting article about homelessness in America and I responded with a discussion of the root causes of generational poverty cycles and also challenged the other members to come up with possible/realistic solutions to the problem, especially those who are really angry that 'no one's doing anything about it!'

I look foreward to hearing some interesting suggestions :)

Time to get back to work, sorry for the dry and boring report... I hope to write something more interesting once I'm done with the dry and functional work of creating the documents for Creative Revival.

You can visit our website at www.creativerevival.org

A New Adventure

Sorry I've been absent the last couple of days. I had some work done with my dentist and have been feeling a bit icky... Happily I am feeling better now. I am also excited to report that I have some exciting professional news: I have a new job (of sorts).

On February 16th, Sabi and I went to this artists meeting and met some very talented people. It just so happened that it was also the first meeting of the group and I spent much of the night conversing with the group founder, Anastasia, and her friend Catherine. We were bandying about ideas for events to have the group organize and while we were brainstorming we were all pleased to find that we 'bounced' quite well off of each other. We made plans to meet later and discuss some ideas and all had various things to check outin the interim.

Well, I met with Anastasia again on Tuesday (we have also talked via email etc..) and after some discussion about the best ways to proceed, in order to take advantage of the energy and opportunity we currently have, is to work on incorporating our group as a non-profit, and file to obtain tax-exempt status.

About Anastasia and Catherine, it is quite exciting, for me, to be able to work with these women. Both of them are well-established and accomplished ladies who bring a lot to the table. Anastasia, who will be the CEO, is a published author and experienced actress. She worked in marketing for several years, enjoys 'schmoozing' and has a wide network of friends and contacts that will be valuable in our fundraising efforts. Catherine, who we hope to have as our COO, has a Master's degree in Theatre Administration, has organized many events, and also has contacts and Administrative skills that will prove quite important to our success.

I will be the CVO (Cheif Visionary Officer) and Co-President with Anastasia. While we will split the cheif position of the organization, our titles will kind of reflect our differing roles within the organization: I am, at the moment, acting as architect of the org.. I am writing up our mission, vision, business plan, creating our website, and basically building the structure of our business. Anastasia is going to act as our "cheif fundraiser" and essentially the public face of our organization. Together the three of us will develop the "what" of our org, I will figure out the how and why, and then Anastasia and Catherine will execute our plans.

This is really exciting, our organization has an amazing purpose (which I'll get to in a sec), and for me personally it seems to offer an opportunity for me to finally use my biggest talents to their full potential. I have always been a person who has great business acuity and ideas but I have lacked the managerial and sales skills that arenecessary to implement those flashes of brilliance. Here I have the chance to work with people who have the ingredients I lack in order to really make amazing things happen, hopefully for many people.

So the business:  the website is not finished yet but should be up and running this week (I hope). Our tentative mission statement is: It is the mission of ___ to utilize the power of Art to create opportunities, promote individual and community development, enrich the lives of the people we serve, and work together to fulfill Art's potential to improve society.

Our planned programs include: WAM JAMs-- social meetups for artists to make friends with other artists, network, share their work, collaborate, and have fun. Art House-- our headquarters, a property purchased in a blighted area and transformed into art through collaboration of member artists; Art House will serve as our offices, WAM JAMs venue, a place for us to hold classes for low income adults and youth, house community programs, and we will offer use as an event hall. We will help promote our members through our website, by offering creative opportunities/events/ competitions, and through networking. We also plan to offer a wealth of resources on our website, including forums and classifieds.

This is all pretty early in the planning stage; we still need to make our business plan, bylaws, and formally figure out allof the details. I'm very excited, though, and have my fingers crossed that this will be a fun new adventure and experience :)