Kitty Deschanel | Food, Wine, and Travel Adventures Across the USA

Call me crazy, but I've never been a big fan of going to the beach. I don't surf, I hate being sandy, and it's always blazingly hot or infuriatingly windy. There are jellyfish to sting you and crabs that want nothing more than to pinch your toes. I've also had a few too many near-death experiences involving water, including a scary childhood incident involving a riptide trying to pull me out to sea. Oh, and birds will poop on you! But in California last week , driving all the way from LAX to Livermore and back, I dare say the highlight of our trip was stopping at different beaches along the way. Also, I greatly underestimated how big California is. That drive took forever! A perfectly reasonable expression when you don't trust your husband to say if a wave is coming too close.  Taken in Santa Cruz, steps from a neighborhood of lovely homes. I need to make more money and get myself a beach house in California. A fixer upper will be fine....

I've been told I need to post more photos of the construction of our new dream home. Happy to oblige! Currently, most of our windows are covered with plastic film to protect them when the house is stuccoed, so everything has a hazy, greenish hue. Note that I said "most". Apparently, it's fine for some of the windows to end up splattered in stucco.  Kitchen Other side of the kitchen  Ack! I hate that cutout along the ceiling SO MUCH. Seriously, what is wrong with our construction crew? Does that look anything like the photo to you?  Groin ceiling inside the dining nook Curved floor of the hallway bathroom...because why not?  Hallway beams and my infamous crapper window .  Looking the other direction down the hallway Barrel vault ceiling  Guest bedroom  Double tray ceiling inside the master bedroom  Even in a green-certified home, there's nothing green about the construction process...

A little decorating math... + = Oooh. (Or "EEK!", if you ask my Nana.) For my new master bathroom, I've bought pendant lights matching the one above. Sexy Nerd is building my vanity and, per my request, he is going to paint the drawers in a variety of colors to match the lights. The final product should be similar, colorwise, to the photo above, minus all that yucky, boring white. Me: Cost Plus has cabinet hardware on sale today for 20% off, plus I have a coupon for an extra 30% off on top of that. How many knobs will I need for my bathroom vanity? Sexy Nerd starts counting to himself, adding things up in the air because even calculating the number of drawers he's building must be done in a super-intelligent, nerdy fashion. Him: 18. Me, frustrated that my husband isn't paying attention: No, not hardware for everything. How many knobs do I need for  only  my bathroom vanity? Him: Yeah. 18. You wanted a lot of drawers. 18?! Don't tell...

The "finally" mentioned in the title is totally aimed at our construction crew...and at myself. These photos were taken more than a month ago. I may be slightly behind on my blogging. In my defense, photos of insulated walls and wiring are only so interesting. When can I decorate?! I requested to have my photo taken next to our new fireplace "in the exact same pose as our builder, minus the yellow hat". My memory of the pose was off, but the hat was spot on. Though he's a great builder, there's no denying his trademark yellow hat was a big part of our decision to go with him. Here is a guy who won't balk at our dream of bright yellow doors and shutters , we'd thought, so young and naive in our pre-construction days. No can lights in this room...well, except for this one random can light. But don't worry. The builder is going to take it down tomorrow...or at least before installing insulation...no, drywalling...umm, I mean after dr...