I’m not even about to tackle those topics all at once right now, as hell, that’s a lot of typing and work and lots of pictures that haven’t been posted, but I wanted to chime in and let you know that I’m still alive and that lots of stuff has happened!
First, in May, Larry & I moved from Santa Monica to Silver Lake. Our landlord ended up wanting to sell his place as the LA Real Estate Market is hothothot right now and he saw a way out from that albatross. So we did some searching and ended up finding a pretty awesome place in Silver Lake – completely brand new and in a fantastic new location. Here are a few of the albums from Picasa that contain the timeline of pics. Enjoy, but that’s the extent of the pictures for now in this post, as while we also just went on our second Mediterranean cruise and got back a few days ago, those pics haven’t been scrubbed and uploaded yet, and will probably have to be phased in day by day. But long story short, it was awesome, we met some fun new people, and had a mostly fantastic journey in the western Med, including explorations into Barcelona, Monaco/Monte Carlo, Florence, Tuscany, Sorrento/Amalfi Coast, Venice (LOVED Venice), Dubrovnik (Croatia) and Kotor (Montenegro). Amazing time – but we’re still trying to overcome our jet lag. Ugh.
Here are the photos from when we took Michancy out into town to see Griffith Park Observatory, while also going to see potential new places to live. First up, seeing Griffith Park Observatory:
March 30, 2013 – Griffith Park Observatory with Michancy
We were checking this place out to rent
Hiking trails up by the Griffith Observatory
Michancy on our walk up to the Observatory
We made it up to the parking lot
There’s me with the Hollywood sign
HOLLYWOOD
Michancy takes on Hollywood
The stunning Griffith Observatory
Hazy downtown Los Angeles
The Observatory is open
It’s got the best views
Larry & Michancy
That in the middle is downtown Hollywood
Looking south east towards Silver Lake and DTLA
One of my all-time favorite shots
Inside seeing Foucault’s Pendulum
Heh
& Seeing the Silver Lake Place for the First Time
Michancy looking down from the upstairs landing
Our double-door entry
Looking from the upstairs landing into what will become our office.
The office’s balcony overlooking the street.
Office’s nice bathroom
The office balcony
In the spare bedroom, with the bedframe we’ll end up keeping.
The spare room has a door to its own private balcony overlooking the back street.
Spare room’s bathroom
The upstairs landing has two closets. yay!
Looking down to the main level.
The kitchen, as seen from the main foyer.
The enormously spacious master bedroom area – and a little anteroom
Hello, walk-in closet
Hello, awesome shower and whirpool tub
Hello, double sinks!
Looking even further down to the main street entrance
Our very cool kitchen
Our main level terrace. Love it.
The view of Silver Lake from the patio. So relaxing.
View of the place from the street.
Enjoying the refreshments at Hyperion Public.
April 27, 2013 – Soft Move #1
For the move, we had a bit of wiggle room to do it as we had two weeks of overlap before having to leave the Santa Monica place. We used that time to drive back and forth between the two places schlepping a lot of our stuff that we could fit in the car. It made sure that Larry knew how to get there, that’s for sure. Also, it ensured I appreciated not having to drive the 10 that much in the future. Mom came out and helped us one day, so here’s pics from that.
The kitchen colors
Working to get the shelves ready
April 28, 2013 – Soft Move #2
Another set of photos in which we went to the new place. We did this a lot. In that last set of photos you saw I focused on the yellow in the kitchen. That was because I wanted to figure out what colors would go good with that as I did NOT want to keep the colors that were present in the living room, as it was far too drab for our fabulous lifestyle. I am slightly kidding about that. Not kidding that the colors had to go.
Yeah, those colors had to go
Hello dining and living area
Our formal front door
Super small Tracy Terrace
May 4, 2013 – The Painting Begins
I wasn’t kidding about painting the living room, so before our move was to take place on Wednesday, May 8, we spent the weekend prior getting the painting done as if you wait until all your crap is in there, it becomes exponentially harder to do. I think Larry was a bit nervous about the process but I’m a veteran of interior painting and while my taste level is possibly in question at times, I think in this regard, we came up with a fantastic color scheme that captured that mid-century modern look we both like. During this weekend, we got to interact with our neighbors a bit and it looks like we are in good shape with them as they are cool and very nice.
The original starting point in this project was the built-in structure. This yellow had to go.
You can see just the beginnings of Larry’s painters clothes – he’s wearing just the hat here.
There’s the outfit.
We first painted the back wall the same white as found in other parts of the house.
Then we started adding the warm grey color to the vertical posts, giving it a warm yet concrete-y feel. That sounds contradictory, I know.
But it looks great.
Here’s the end of the grey portions. Although we then applied this color to the facing wall.
A panoramic view while taking a break after putting on a first coat on that facing wall.
Lots more to do, but that would wait till tomorrow as it was getting late and we were exhausted.
May 5, 2013 – Finishing the Painting
It had been briefly discussed the night before that we should start the orange then, but I knew it was going to be a day’s worth of work. That proved accurate. Larry & I love the finished result, and even the landlord, who visited a lot while we were there as he still had to set some stuff up, liked it.
Even though it doesn’t really look like we’ve moved anything from our old place…we really have.
Ready to begin the next color – our cayenne orange!
Checking out the facing wall after doing some touch-ups – looks great!
Larry appreciates the edging tool
Our first orange section is started. It’s time to commit.
The orange expands!
At this point, we love it.
Our makeshift entertainment center while doing the painting. You realize that regular radio really does have a limited playlist.
The orange reaches over to the kitchen, but that’s the only part that does so. We were leaving the other rooms alone.
Now it was time to extend the orange and paint over that blue wall.
The view from our window. Pretty nice. Better than the Santa Monica alley.
It is done!
Panoramic capture of all the orange.
What you see from the main entry.
We then had to reattach the drapes mechanism. What a pain.
Head-on view of the newly painted built-in unit.
Alright, that’s all the pics I’ve got uploaded at this point regarding the apartment. We’ve obviously moved in since the painting pics so there’s plenty to see with what it looks like now with the furniture in place, but believe me, there is tons left to do still. None of our pictures are hung up, there’s lots of clutter around, especially upstairs in the office and spare bedroom and even still down in the main bedroom. But this weekend we DID buy some shelving and install it in that lower area of the built-in unit so we could store the blurays and DVDs. It looks awesome. We’re getting there.
After looking at that house and also realizing the location wasn’t quite right for us either, it was off to Mom’s to help get some of her gifts installed and built!
Then we installed the soundbar and subwoofer system we gave to her to replace the one that seemed to have failed. Mission accomplished, and the sound is LOTS better in her living room.
Finally, on Sunday, we took a walk around Griffith Park’s eastern, flat section as Larry and I are in the market to look for other nice places to go for a run. The Silver Lake reservoir is awesome, but after awhile, things get boring. So we drove over to the park and took a nice nearly-6-mile walk on a stunningly beautiful day. I think we’ve found a great new place for runs in the future too!
And then, oh yeah, we bought ourselves a Playstation 4!!!!! It’s pretty cool so far.
A good weekend. Here’s to hoping NYE weekend is also as pleasant.
