Current location:	The hundred-year-old kitchen table
Current mood:	cheerful
Current music:	Everything I say / comes back to me one day
Entry tags:	la casa nova

Pictures!


I just took these this morning. Beware, (a) it's just getting light, so the pictures are fairly dark, (b) it's still a work in progress, (c) like I just said, I've only been here a week, dammit, so everything isn't together yet. But I know if I wait for everything to be perfect, you'll be lucky to ever see anything from me. So here goes.

Starting just clockwise from the front door, the Great Hall of Family Photos (I culled down about half of them to fit them in this space; the remainders are in bedrooms):



The far end is spaced sort of oddly, but I wanted to leave room for this upcoming year's school pictures (speaking of which, I haven't heard back from the goddamn charter school which is one of the main reasons I chose this particular house -- for its proximity thereto, I mean -- I realize it's summer break and they're constructing a new building and the principal has other responsibilities besides reassuring my ass every ten minutes that the kids were accepted, or at least that their rejection wasn't based on me forgetting to include a critical, yet easily replaced, piece of paper in their application packet, but still yet, folks, still yet ...).

Now I'm turning a little counterclockwise from the front door. Behold, the Parlor, or whatever you call the area without a TV where people sit around and chitchat politely:



I love that faux-stained-glass bamboo thing by the door which keeps folks from staring into the house unbidden; the way the neighbors have been around here so far, I'm not surprised the owners installed such a thing. The aloha-shirt-shaped thing hanging at the top of that is one of TWO signs on my door, or in its general vicinity, telling people to remove their shoes when they come in. Has anyone heeded it yet? OF COURSE NOT. I don't know what I'm going to do about these people.

No, the slot machine shouldn't be on the floor. There's a table intended for that purpose which you will see in the next picture. In the space where the slot machine is, I have eventual hopes of putting a bench or a window seat or a trunk sort of thing -- something sturdy enough to sit on, but hopefully with storage space for board games. I'd also like to score a couch eventually, put it in the family room and move the family room's futon here into the Parlor, since the futon is not going to withstand the constant onslaught of Large Boy Arses.

Next, I turn a little more counterclockwise; this is the right-hand wall of the living room if you're standing at the front door, facing in (did that make sense?). Note: not all that crap is going to be stacked everywhere forever. I swear to Scissors. I just haven't found my drill yet, so I can't put up any shelves.



Underneath the Green Table, that snarled mess of wires is my cable modem stuff. I need to find some way to camouflage it.

To the left of the bookshelves is the aforementioned table (hey, it's an antique!) upon which I intend to put the slot machine, after I put little footie-coaster things on it first, which is why it's lying there upside-down looking for all the world like a dead cockroach.

Through the half-moon window you can see the vacant house next door. I hate to be selfish, but I hope they don't sell it anytime soon, because it's a two-story and the occupants, when there are some, would be able to see into my bedroom window if I left my blinds open (as I am wont to do) and I'd hate having my sauntering-around-naked time curtailed.

Next, we make another quarter-turn counterclockwise to pick up the last of the living room:



This is the work most in progress. No, I am not planning on having any of that crap on the piano longterm, I just haven't been able to put up shelving yet.

So, then I sidle two giant steps to the left, take another picture, and behold, the (messy) Family Room:



Here you can see the futon I was talking about (it's nice, but it's only a futon, and the boys will mash it to a pulp within weeks, I swear to Scissors, so I need to find a really tough hardass sturdy couch to put in that spot instead), and through the un-blind-covered window, all the empty moving boxes in the back yard which are waiting for recycle day tomorrow.

I'm planning on hanging all those lei -- both the ones draped on that curtain rod and the ones filling the basket below that window -- on the wall somehow. And no, all the crap will not be on the mantel forever, mark my farging words, although I do sort of like the beer mugs being there.

You might also notice that Netflix has my new address, heh. And I have a lot more pictures to hang in this room.

Now, we take a couple of giant steps forward, turn to the right and behold the eat-in part of the kitchen:



What a mess. Sorry. No, I'm not planning to have all that crap on the countertops forever. You can see all those lei I was referring to at the very left of this picture, by the way. Oh, and my turntable. Heh.

Then we go forward again, turn to the right again, and behold the bidness part of the kitchen:



Again, way way more counter crap than I'm comfortable with, and you can see I'm using the backup coffee machine (vs. the sleek lovely grind-and-brew one in the express shipment). That's my own wee little refrigerator (notice there's space for a much larger one, sigh). And by the sink, those are flowers from my very own farging garden!

By the way, the oven works beautifully:



Anyways. For my final shot, here's the view I see as I sit right here at the kitchen table:



As usual, I don't plan on having those baskets or the clock up on the booksellers table forever. There's a third window to the left, which you can't see. But there's my view -- my view at dawn, anyways -- with a nice rolling mountain in the background which I hope will eventually green up.

The yard is a half acre, by the way. Only about a third of it is all lawnified and flower-bedecked; the next third is a basketball court (yes, really! the boys are going to love it!) and the final third meanders, unlandscaped, down to what looks to be a dry creek bed full of something that could potentially be poison ivy, or oak, or whatever they have here. We Hawaiians are ignorant of such things.