When our wayward cat takes a dump it’s a prolonged affair. I know most cats are fastidious, but Cozy’s burial rituals would make the builders of Giza blush. Her large plastic box shakes and echoes with banging, digging and scratching. The sounds of construction will stop for just a second only to resume with renewed ferocity. Having scraped every Trader Joe’s pine pellet into a near-perfect pyramid, she emerges, City of the Dead complete.
August 28, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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I’ve lain dormant for the last eight weeks since my Pasadena house sold. More accurately, I’ve laid my head in a number of different homes because I’ve become a housesitter. I didn’t foresee this lifestyle. Somehow it sought me.
August 13, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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Editor’s note: Here’s part 10 of Bill Smith’s blog chronicle about the restoration of a run-down cottage in Pasadena’s Historic Highlands neighborhood. Bill and his wife, Sheryl Scott, are both graphic designers and do-it-yourselfers who have expectedly found themselves headed for a year of home-improvement adventures. Look for a new post in the saga soon. [...]
August 9, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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One of Frank Lloyd Wright’s more acclaimed houses, La Miniatura (aka the Millard House) is on the market again, this time for a hair under $5 mil. (Last time, pre-recession, it was up for $7.73 million.) We’ve been neighbors to this beautiful Prospect Park sculpture in concrete textile block for many years, so we know [...]
August 2, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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We had to dispose of a few tons of concrete and drywall to get our project started. Sheryl had informed me that Pasadena only allowed certain haulers to work in the city. This came as a surprise to me, because Pasadena is usually so easygoing about those things. It’s hard to tell in text, but that was sarcasm. In actuality, if they had the inspectors to spare, I think Pasadena would tell you that your piss is the wrong shade of yellow and doesn’t match the Batchelder tile above the toilet; the really annoying thing is that they’d probably be right.
July 8, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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Mulch is a versatile substance. Most people think of its many uses in the garden: moisture retention, reduced erosion, suppressed weed growth and a staggered supply of nutrients. However, mulch can be used for all sorts of other things. Many playgrounds use rubber mulch as a safer surface alternative to gravel and broken glass. Some [...]
June 28, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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Every year, Altadena Heritage throws an awards ceremony honoring the finest in Altadena gardening—the coveted Golden Poppy. The focus this year is on sustainability. Prize winners will be those green (figuratively) gardens that “give” to the street without a big green (literally) lawn sucking down water like it was going out of style. Which it [...]
June 24, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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Your great-grandmother might not have considered using water twice to be revolutionary—it’s just what you did back then. But now we have to learn how to do it all over again, as water becomes a scarce commodity. To further the conservation cause, Altadena Heritage is sponsoring a free program with ideas for harvesting and redirecting [...]
June 16, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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We’ve been tied up getting elevations and site plans drawn, taking measurements and reading books. I’ll actually do a post soon about the books that Sheryl and I have found the most useful and inspirational in this first step of our little home-building journey. But wanted to keep posting, so here’s one about trucks, wheelbarrows, roll-offs and a dude who will take your scrap metal away for free. If you’re pressed for time, you can probably skip this one, but don’t go crying if someone at a party asks you where to get the cheapest wheelbarrow in Pasadena or if you know anyone who will pick up rusty pipes so they don’t end up in a landfill. Seriously, this knowledge can make you popular. But like I said, feel free to skip this one.
June 9, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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If you love jewelry, seeing the work of talented interior designers, and the cooking at Pasadena’s premier caterer, The Kitchen for Exploring Foods, then you’re going to want to attend the free breakfast being hosted on Wednesday by swank South Lake condo development Granite Park Place. Paige Pomerantz, manager of Tiffany & Co. in Old [...]
June 8, 2010 | Posted in
Home & Garden |
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