Trip to California

Last week-end we made an impromptu trip to the Bay Area.  We were there to do a bit of research.  Here is what we discovered.

We spent a few days in and around Danville, a pretty little town about 30 minutes east of Oakland.  The above picture is of the Danville Hotel & Restaurant, a Western themed building which is currently undergoing a major renovation.  I kind of like it the way it is, it looks like a Ghost Town.



We looked at a couple of houses.  The little yellow house is not typical of the homes in and around Danville.  It looks very charming from the outside, but teeny tiny inside and in need of a lot of renovation.



Many of the homes have nicer outsides than they do insides.

Can you imagine living on this street?  Peacocks everywhere!  Very pretty, but who cleans up the poop?

Of course I had to sniff out the nearest Anthropologie; set in a lovely shopping district on the outskirts of Danville.

We even managed to squeeze in a day trip to San Francisco.  Visited our old haunts including Kuleto's (where we got engaged 16 years ago!), Union Square, China Town, Versuvio, North Beach and even attended a wedding at Bimbos (it's a long story!).

We drank lots of yummy Californian Wine.  And look, what a find, Sofia in a can complete with handy drinking straw.  Now that's my kind of town.

Paint!!!

My Apartment Therapy Color Contest prize arrived this week on this:

Seriously.  Damian had visions of 15 gallons of paint looking like this:

Reality is, 15 gallons doesn't take up that much space.

They even threw in an extra gallon for good measure.

Thanks Apartment Therapy, Behr and of course you for voting for me!  Now which room to start on?

To view my entry go here and to see more pictures of the winning room go here.

Cottage Before, During & After, Part 3

Finally, the after pictures...............and a picture of before so you can compare them side by side.


kitchen before



bedroom before

bathroom before

  

Hope you enjoyed the tour.  The place isn't 100 % finished.  We still need to do some painting and replacing of switchplates etc, but it's pretty much done.  To see more shorts of before & during go here and here.