a leaky situation.

california is in a major drought right now, and since we moved into the house in march 2013, we can count on one hand the number of times it has rained. the last time it rained however, we noticed that the window in the living room between the chimney and the television had a leak. there is a huge overhang typical of craftsman homes over the window, so we knew it wasn't the window itself that was leaky. the water was coming in somewhere higher up, and into and through the wall. you can see the drippage below if you look closely:

we suspected the chimney right away. when we had a chimney inspection done during escrow, we were told that the chimney was cracked at the roofline. james has also been on the roof before and seen how shoddy the flashing and shingles are done right around the chimney. we did our best to direct the leaking, especially since there is an outlet and the router right under the window. since the water was coming in the seams of the window, we couldn't even just put down a bucket, but used plastic bags and packaging tape to get it up off the walls and drip into our chosen receptacles.. 

in anticipation of the rain we are supposed to get this week, james went up on the roof and rubber-spray-patched all around the chimney on saturday. yup, we totally bought a $13 can of (as seen on tv!) flex seal from target. i didn't go on the roof myself, so i don't have any pictures of his handiwork, unfortunately. 

it rained gently on and off all sunday, and everything seemed okay. then it rained most of today, and pretty hard for some of it. when we first got home from work, we were really excited because we didn't see any moisture on the window. however, after closer inspection, we realized it was still leaking, though far less seriously than before. enough that we have to keep our ugly water-catching-solution around for awhile longer. we'll have to wait until the rain stops and we have a dry spell to try and do more sealing. then wait for it to rain again to see if it worked! the bad news, obviously, is that there is still water in our walls. the good news is that we're clearly targeting the right places! (and really, it doesn't rain enough here for this to be a serious problem...)

the january cure : day one.

as i mentioned earlier today, i'm going to try and to participate in and liveblog apartment therapy's annual january cure this year!

it's day one and the assignment is this: make a list of projects. more specifically, set aside an hour or so to do a walkthrough of your home and make notes on any trouble spots as you move through each room.

it's quite an extensive list - and that's with leaving out all the renovations we want to do eventually, as that's a whole other can of worms. i even took and included unflattering photos of most of the rooms as they are now, without doing any picking up. here goes..!

The Living Room.

• take down christmas stockings
• iron the curtains
• deal with bowl of halloween candy
• fix the door hinge nightmare
• put up the last curtain rod and curtains
• replace the ugly college floor lamp
• find a home for my laptop
• find a home for "cotton spool" piece
• organize the tv console
• put up the memory/shadow box
• organize the bookshelf
• hang/install the security camera

The Dining Room.

1. take down the christmas tree and cards
2. write thank-you notes for our southern reception
3. iron the curtains
4. wine storage solution
5. remove un-connected thermostat

The Kitchen.

1. re-organize the medicine drawer
2. clear out leftovers from the refrigerator
3. clear out unnecessary items from the island and counter
4. find a place for the metal crate on top of the bookshelf
5. put up the utility gripper
6. re-organize the coffee and tea cart
7. create a better feeding station for sanford 

The Hallway.

1. create a more eye-pleasing dog gate solution
2. adjust the closet pole so that the doors can close
3. actually organize the closet
4. paint the attic entry
5. paint the walls so we can figure out what color(s) we eventually want to paint the house when we've replaced all the walls

The Landing.

1. find a home for all the hanging bags
2. find a home for all the stick-like things in the corner

The Guest Bedroom.

1. sort and put away bedding
2. frame remaining artwork
3. put up remaining artwork
4. go through still-packed boxes and find homes for things
5. check if wemo (remotely controllable light switch) is installable
6. re-organize and better utilize the mostly-empty closet

The Master Bedroom.

1. get real nightstands!
2. find solution for james's clothing
3. hat solution to make room on james's dresser
4. organization solution for my dresser
5. get rid of "the sock pile"
6. paint a wall! (our house is sooo so so so white)
7. organize the closet
8. replace tower fan with a smaller table-top fan

The Master Bathroom.

1. fix leaky faucet
2. reorganize the toiletries
3. get (or make) a real ironing board cover

The Office.

1. go through still-packed boxes (lots of them)
2. find homes for things

The Hangar.

1. Clean. Clean. Clean. ShopVac the heck out of the place.
2. Organize all the clutter
3. Get a functioning workshop going

The Basement.

1. Assemble and install second shelving unit

The Exterior and Yard.

1. Take down christmas lights
2. Put mulch down in the front garden
3. Trim back trees and hedges
4. Clean up old lumber stacked in "carport"
5. Put up remaining critter barrier on the attic gables
6. Powerwash all the surrounding concrete areas like the porch