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Before & After Renovations

Sunset, Poolside

June 12, 2018

I know I already posted about my pool renovation, but these photos have muuuuch better light and show the details so much better. So here they are.

As a recap, here's what we changed: 

  • Removed the dated, curved coping and replaced it with clean, squared-off white coping;
  • Replaced the plaster bottom with deep blue Pebbletec;
  • Built a Baja shelf (a 8" deep platform in the shallow end that you use for lounging and such);
  • Removed the ladder, and built a bench in the deep end to replace it;
  • Replaced the dated tiles with iridescent tiles in varying shades of white.

Check out the original post (with before and afters) here, if you missed it.

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Before & After Renovations

The Pool Of My Dreams

June 8, 2018
dark blue pool with Baja shelf and pebbletec

Everyone says having a pool is crazily expensive. I haven't found it to be terrible so far - we have a reasonably priced pool guy, and the fact that we have solar offsets the cost of heating it a lot - but you know what happens when you have to repair your pool? Like, because the plaster, having reached its expiration date, starts cracking and flaking off?

You spend oh my god, so much money having it fixed.

When we applied for our home equity line of credit, a pool renovation was one of the main things we knew we were going to do (and yes, it spiraled off into more renovations, and then more) - but the thing about renovating a pool is that it's such a major expense and such a pain, what with the draining and pouring of concrete and spraying of plaster and etc etc - that if you're going to do it, you don't want to do it more than once. Which means you should probably just do it right the first time.

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ENTREES

Reader Recipe: Four-Ingredient Chili Chicken Tacos

May 25, 2018

Which one do you want? That one. And that one. And that one.

Noritake China Blue Hammock Serving Dish

I do not eat tacos. I will, on occasion, eat a burrito (and only "on occasion" because if I were to eat burritos as often as I would like to, I would become a burrito myself), but hard-shell tacos aren't something that's ever appealed to me. Don't they, like, break apart into tiny, shard-like pieces which then a) hurt you and b) result in the deliciousness inside getting out, which, as I gather, is not the point?

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Decor

Meet The Best Toothbrush In The Whole Wide World

May 24, 2018

Every once in awhile, you discover a new product, and cannot understand how you lived without it before. (You also wish you had invented it yourself, because then you would get to be a gazillionaire, and that sounds fun.)

Until now, my toothbrush/toothpaste situation has - like yours, I assume - been a total disaster. Between the four of us we have something like 30 different toothbrushes, all in various stages of disrepair. All of them are neon, with fussy little rubber finger-pads or elaborate chargers or pictures of Paw Patrol dogs on them. Our toothpaste tubes - we have four at the moment, and all of them are mostly empty - are all sort of jammed into and around the toothbrush holder in a big, sticky, the-cap-won’t-go-on-anymore-because-it’s-too-gunky mess. It’s gross.

In short: If you’re anything like me, no matter how pretty your bathroom is, your toothbrush situation messes it up.

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