What Ana Does

 Surprise! We're renovating our bathroom!  At the beginning of August, we noticed a wet seam in the ceiling of the kitchen. We assumed it had something to do with the kitchen renovation last year, so we called our contractor to come out and take a peek. Lo and behold our toilet in the primary bathroom, just above, was slowly leaking.  Gross. To sum up, we got the mold remediation guys involved, submitted a claim with our insurance company and hired our buddy General Contractor Bruce ... and now we're renovating the bathroom.  Look, in the back of my mind, while I'm falling asleep at night or while strolling through Pinterest, I have thought about what I'd do when the time came to redo that bathroom. When we moved in, it has been "updated" with grey & white matte tile and marble hex tile. But the bathtub takes up 80% of the bathroom and the tile was never sealed, so it grows dirt/mold like no tomorrow. And it's painted an offending beige and you know h...

I'm on the hunt for a cozy reading chair for our bedroom. While I have plenty of cozy reading spots around the house, I'd really like one up in our bedroom where I can hide away with a book in late afternoons.  While I was sick, I really missed having that second place to curl up, too. So, I'm hunting around for the best option.  My criteria is comfy, a little higher on the back so I can rest my head, large enough I can curl up my legs, and maybe blue to match the blue room. My budget is around $500. Here are my current favorite contenders ...  This is the Albany Park Swivel Chair in a blue or green velvet. It's $900, so out of my price limit but I'm waiting on some good sales. The sofa in our basement is from this company and I really like their mission and quality. I like finding pictures of people in the chairs.  This one is a more modern version in a heather blue color ...  It's the Mod Chair from Article , a store a few of my Insta-people really like. I li...

California here we come!  I planned this family summer vacation to California like it was a European vacation -- minus all the cultural and ancient sights. And more driving and modern shopping malls. We wanted Leah to see LA with us first, a city she may someday end up in if she continues to pursue directing. And we wanted to show the girls where we lived in the Bay Area and the beauty of Muir Woods. So, California for our summer vacation it was!  Our general plan was the fly to SFO, spend a few days in San Francisco visiting Muir Woods, Sausalito and a little of the city. Then take a few days to drive the 6 hours to LA, stopping a long the way. And then a few days in LA before enjoying two days in Disneyland.  In hindsight, it was too much moving. Not enough lingering in places we wanted more time to explore. But it was all of us together, so it was perfect, too.  Stop 1: San Francisco  We stayed at Hilton San Francisco Financial District Hotel that was close ...

It's July, the half-way point in the year and a good time to look over where I am in the "Books Read" list. I took a month off from reading around Leah and Alice's B'nai Mitzvah, as I was using all the brain space to plan and work through my introvert-planning-huge-party neurosis that I couldn't fathom digging into a book. Regardless, I'm still on track to hit 100 for the year.   Here's just a few of my favorites:  The Stolen Heir by Holly Black -- part of her Elfhame series that I'm all-in on. I was looking forward to more Oak.  Georgie All Along by Kate Clayborn -- gah, I loved Georgie sooo much. Her messy-and-not-changing-for-you thing was so relatable.  Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood -- so far, she can do no wrong and this one was extra steamy and so fun.  First Comes Marriage by Mary Balogh -- I heard her interview on Fated Mates and decided to reread one of  her family series. This is the Huxtable family and it's been over a deca...

 We've now spent a bit of time the last four months touring colleges with Leah. Either through official visits or swinging by the campus and walk through. And it's such a weird feeling on a few accounts.  First, perspective for me is so different. When I was looking at colleges and making this decision, it was obviously a much different time, a different world, everything. Totally different. And looking back on what I used to decide on college was probably totally wrong. 40-something me would look at so many other things than the things I looked at then.  Mostly, I wouldn't look so hard at the $$. Because regardless, that whole "how to pay for college" sucked and to a point it almost didn't matter what the price tag was. I was going to be applying for loans and repaying it into my 40s no matter what.  What I should have paid attention to was the equipment and who could get me the job at the end of the four years in the field I thought I wanted to do. Experienc...

It was time to paint our bedroom. The flat gray was just too dull and the hue didn't work with our furniture. It's like matching grey pants with brown shoes -- fashion faux pas.  And, sure, I considered replacing all our furniture, it's a decade old and showing a little wear and tear. But quickly realized that it's just cheaper to paint out the gray. Though, I'm committed to switching out our upholstered headboard later this year.  Not to mention, there is a few places where we patched up the wall that needed to be painted over, and we don't have this gray paint from the former owners.  So, I went through all my color chips. Decided on blue. Picked a hue and ... no surprise ... it's about the same as the front room and the back hallway. Clearly, I have a favorite. Here's a few swatches I went through to decide on the blue. Some where too dark, too purple or too much gray in them.  I decided to leave the bottom part white, though I did look at a bunch of ...

Just so good!  I'm so happy with the final result of our back hallway. Removing that wall... just the thing. And I added some fun framed art along the top to bring UP the eye (don't look at all the shoes on the floor) and add a ton of character.  An English boot room? For sure.  Ok, I'd be remiss if I didn't think about the next "phase." Because, as much as I love this, I'll be tempted to add a small cabinet in the corner so I have a countertop to drop keys and mail. But that's likely well down the road.   Even Pepper loves it.  If you missed the evolution of this space ... and it went through several iterations before we got to this ... you can check out this blog tag .