Living in San Francisco, it was always a challenge to keep up with Mt. Fusi's high-maintenance wonderfulness. In January 2006 I decided to live there full time. I wanted it to be a real home, not just a vacation home.

In February 2006 I started several projects, with excellent design advice from Brian Huber. And much appreciation to Andrea Shanti who shamed me into replacing every bit of unecological carpeting with hardwood and tile, as I lay helpless on her massage table...

I was very fortunate to find my contractor Ken Hove, who has an admirable ability to fend off my really bad ideas. His helpers were Steve Webber and Dane Brinkley. Matt Reid started the plumbing, and Bill Buffalo finished it.

It was very cool that I could hire my longtime friend (we went to high school together, geez!) Harvey Williams. He did an incredible job with the new ash and ceramic tile floors throughout the house.

And Ian Perry, Joseph and Juan Carlos and their crew perservered repairing railings and painting the house and deck, despite hurricane force winds!

Eventually I even convinced Bruce McKinley (who in earlier years built the decks and outdoor shower) to return to help with the concrete hearth.

My original goal was cosmetic - to seek and destroy all the pink, clumsy and ugly stuff from legacy decorating failures. But then we found considerable dry rot and water damage. It was mainly due to substandard repairs after the roof, er, blew off in 1998 (!), plus just from general storm battering since then. All summer, the project kept growing and growing.

We lost a month or two waiting to replace the misdelivered and returned cabinets ordered from Godot Building Supply. Fortunately everything was sealed up before the winter, just in time for the snows to delay things further. The new wood stove went in just before the sun started shining again. Then it took a few months to do the kitchen and living room. Finally it was finished the first week of May 2007, all except for cleaning and organizing and a few more of my bad ideas. Here's what we did:

All in All, It's Just Another Break In The Wall

The roof leaked. Actually I had an indoor waterfall.

Normally a nice thing, but only when intentional. I had the roofers out in March 2006 and they seem to have fixed it, but much damage was already done.

All the windows leaked, too. There was another waterfall over the kitchen sink.

I knew it wasn't good. I'd tried to start repairs the year before but Safeco Insurance was totally useless, and refused all responsibility. They said it was weather damage and estimated it would take $5k to fix. Yeah, right.

Insurance is just a total scam, not much different than the Mafia, maybe a bit less friendly. The law makes us pay insurance companies, but they don't have to deliver??? After the revolution...

Brian came up in March 2006 and I made him work on design. At this point I was thinking I'd merely upgrade my interior decorating. He helped choose paint and gave me great advice on design and remodeling the hearth, much of which we actually took.

After he left, I bought a new woodstove in April 2006 to replace the old broken one. (It sat in Medford until February 2007).

My neighbor Styles recommended his friend Ken Hove as a contractor. Playing Gilligan, I told Ken I just had a few quick projects. A three hour tour, a three hour tour...

Upstairs Office

First, I had Ken convert the weird unfinished room upstairs to my new home office. Perhaps I'll buy a sofabed so it can be a guest room as well.

I signed up for wireless service with a tiny phone company out of Dorris, near the Oregon border. Charlie is their one guy who makes it possible for me to be wired up here, a mile and a quarter from the nearest paved road. SBC/AT&T they ain't, which is a good thing, even though it took a couple of months to make it work! Apple's iChat videoconferencing is marvellous...someday I may even be able to make a living.

Walls-R-Us

After the office was kind of finished (except for the hardwood floors) and it stopped snowing, Ken started working on the walls and window leaks. The further he went, the more water damage and dry rot he found.

Over the next four months, he pretty much removed the entire wall, upstairs and downstairs, on the east side of the house from the upstairs closet, bedroom, kitchen, dining room and part of the way into the living room.

It took a lot longer than three hours.

What was it, seven, eight new fiber clad Milgard storm resistant windows? I laugh at the cost! Ha. Ha. Ha. Several of these windows are nicer, bigger pieces of glass, so the view's improved, at least.

I hope it will help the heating bills - the old insulation was soaking wet from roof and window leaks. This was the grim part, just to rebuild what was there before.

Master Bedroom and Bath

So now, finally, back to interior decorating upgrades.

The annoying pedestal sink in the master bathroom is gone. Harvey extended the white tile from the shower into the vanity area and it really looks great. He also did an incredible job installing the new ash hardwood floors. It changed the whole space.

I need to get a better picture of the new maple vanity with black granite countertop and very cool black granite sink, now that it's finished. With the new light fixtures, paint and mirror, I think this is the spiffiest part of the whole house. I bought this stuff before I knew what replacing the walls would cost!

Downstairs Bedroom

This bedroom is available for rent starting immediately - click for details. It didn't need a lot of work but we repainted and put in the ash hardwood floors. It's looking good.

Kitchen

When we tore out the wall, we saw the kitchen cabinets and countertop needed replacing from water damage. I thought about redoing the whole kitchen, but since the appliances seem to have a lot of life left (hope I'm right) I decided to just do basic repairs, no steel and granite.

Except that took forever.

We ordered corner cabinets, but got side cabinets. After extensive negotiation, they agreed to exchange them. Then when I checked, they said the manufacturer had dropped them as a distributor (wonder why?).

More negotiation, more delays, new source. Ordered in July, received in December. Nice people at Godot Building Supply, I will say, but really I should have gone with IKEA.

I have new rock-grey Home Depot Formica countertops, and a new dishwasher (I did need a dishwasher) which sat in the garage a while. Harvey did an excellent job on the floor and backsplash tile, Bill Buffalo put in the dishwasher and negotiated with Sears to replace its defective (out of the box!) conroller board. All is good now, new pictures soon.

Living Room

We ripped out the ugly pink hearth and the insanely angled step everyone always tripped over and voila! Underneath was a fairly straightforward, decently designed hearth platform. I felt like an archeologist.

Then I was the bottleneck. I had to choose tile and finish the hearth design so Ken could rebuild the platform and Harvey could install the tile. Finally in February 2007 they installed the woodstove. Installation cost more than the stove, sure is good to buy things in Oregon. Next winter it will be nice to have wood heat again, especially considering the exorbitant price I've been paying for oil.

I bought a designer light to replace the World's Ugliest Chandelier. It looks great over my wood and glass dining table, the old funky one is thankfully off to the dump.

Josefina Posch gave me two pieces of artwork that will look incredible next to the new hearth...I'll hang lots of art including the Darshan Zenith classic "Menehune in the Forest". The Menehune is a kind of Hawaiian leprechaun known for finishing projects at night. Sounds like me, even looks like me.

Everything goes better with art. Art will be the final touch.