the haunted retaining wall

Well, we still don't have our retaining wall up yet... but we thought it'd be fun to celebrate Halloween at our house anyway, and give out candy to any trick-or-treaters who came by.  Sarah and Wylma decorated our front entryway with cobwebs...

And I got all dressed up like a wizard...

 

Sarah & Wylma dressed up too.  (That's my cardboard grandfather clock costume from earlier in the day... it was too hard to get up and down the stairs in, so we just left it on the porch as a prop.)

We put on some spooky records and got our candy all ready...

There's our first trick-or-treaters now!

Some local kids came by with some pretty neat costumes.

 

Our house does look pretty spooky at night.  Especially with a ghostly fox lady and a grandfather clock hanging out on the landing...

Despite all this groovy Halloween atmosphere at 335 Laveta, gangs of trick-or-treaters were booking it up the street right past our house without even stopping!  It seemed like they were headed somewhere important.  We finally realized that they were all headed to Carroll Avenue in Angelino Heights, just up the way, which is a whole street of awesome old Victorian houses.  We went over there to check it out for ourselves, and sure enough, it was a mega Halloween street party!

At least we got to scope out the competition... next Halloween we'll be ready.  We're gonna make Laveta the trick-or-treat capitol of the 90026!  Those houses on Carroll Ave. will be wondering why all the kids are heading south of the 101!

we'll leave the light on

Some groovy new front porch light fixtures from olden days... I like these little plastic shells on the front.

Groovy vintage light fixtures are a source of pride for the urban choodle!

a paw print on the sands of time

When they poured the concrete for our porches, we went over there in the evening to see it.  After we left we were thinking, darn, we should have written our names and the year in the wet cement, we forgot.  But I guess Wylma remembered... it sure looks like she left a pawprint!  You can sort of see it there just below her front paw.  I do remember her jumping up on the wet cement and we yelled at her to get off.  Well, at least she personalized it for us (or should I say choodle-ized it).

When choodlesaurs walked the earth!!!

more porches and picket fences

Our backyard and side walkways are being improved.  Wylma digs these new redwood fences we just got.

Maybe we can get some kind of sponsorship from Thompson's Water Seal for this thing.

Our cacti are gradually migrating from our front apartment hallway to our awesome new back porch.  Hey wait a minute, how come they get to live at our house before we do???

On a clear day in L.A., you can see the front porch of the back house from the back porch of the front house.

Note the barbecue lurking in the corner, just biding its time and waiting to strike!

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above -- don't fence me in!
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love -- don't fence me in.
Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze,
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees,
Send me off forever but I ask you please -- don't fence me in!

we unwrapped the stove

And there it is!  With the range hood too.  I still gotta get that blue cellophane stuff off the range hood.

but soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

Are you ready for a cavalcade of light fixtures?  Here's the living room one...

The dining room...

 

The kitchen...

And the bedroom.  Cavalcade over!  Move along, nothing to see here...

looks like it's curtains for you

Well, I didn't fall off the ladder in that last post, so the curtains are up!  We got green velvet outer curtains and we got lacey inner curtains for ultra Gone With the Wind effect.

 

Dining room curtains, for fine dining ambience...

Our bedroom curtains are more of a champagne-y kinda color.

This isn't a curtain but it IS our awesome new dresser.  Well, new from like the '30s.

It's kind of dark but here's the Wylma room curtains... and her groovy new light fixture too!

coming soon... we install curtains!

Joel goes to Germany

Our dear friend and compatriot, Joel Black, is venturing off to Germany in search of new horizons, self-awakening, the best of times, the wurst of times... we had a little hangout at our new house before that noble fellow did ramble on.  It was in fact the first time we've hung out at 335 Laveta just for fun, and not to stress over some remodeling thing.  We played some records, and enjoyed some middle eastern grub and Arabic beer from the Super King.

My old roommate Timothy joined us as well.  Wylma loves Timothy, but she really loves begging for pita...

Simply shameless beggary.

No furniture yet, but still pretty cozy with a little late afternoon sunshine.

This is a pretty hip-looking photo... except I forgot to move the iced coffee out of the way of the lens when I set up the auto-timer.

Herzlichen gluckwunsche Joel... hoch soll sie leben!

takin' it to the porch

After many years of apartment living, Sarah and I are very excited to be returning to a porch-based lifestyle.  The porch at 335 Laveta had potential, but it originally looked like it was made of lopsided blocks of pink Play-Doh sort of smushed together.  I believe this photo captures the stuccoey smushiness of the original design...

Well, there it was.  In order to match the grooviness of the rest of the house, we decided to cover it in wood.  That, or dynamite it and burn the memories.  It wasn't easy to build a relatively square structure on top of something that looked like Gumby & Pokey's playhouse, but Javi and the guys did it.

It wasn't the flattest surface originally.  Droopy like a diaper.  These boards helped level it out.

Those weren't the rightest of angles neither.

But gradually it started coming together and looking better.

Still needs some paint & trim...

Voila!

Hmm, what's going on up here...

Ah yes, this will do nicely.

You may serve my dinner tonight "al fresco"... in the open air, if you please.  And a vodka tonic as well if you don't mind terribly.  A little sunscreen?  Just rub it on my haunches...

It's the porchiest!