2009 - The list

We have a plethora of home improvement projects for 2009, here's the list.

1. Cement area on the side of driveway (currently a grassy knoll) and build a fence.
2. Cement side area of house (dogs are going to be so completely pissed off at us).
3. Start design plans for outdoor living space located in front yard.
4. Paint outside of house.
5. Peel ceiling in dining room.
6. Peel ceiling and paint extra bedroom.
7. Peel ceiling and paint our bedroom.
8. Plan(and start) bathroom renovation project.
9. Plan ( and start) Master bedroom/bath renovation project.
10. Purchase living room furniture.

#3 is the thorn in my side, I have scoured blogs, websites and landscape magazines leaving me frustrated. Thankfully, D and I both love the "Bali vacation location" look and we live in a climate that will be welcoming to most tropical plants.

If we even get one of the projects completed and pull ourselves away from the wii, I will feel extremely successful.

Wish us luck.

Looks what's turning 60

One of my fave places in L.A. and home to (the West Coast) City Bakery.

The Brentwood Country Mart opened on November 18, 1948. Designed by architect Rowland Crawford and built (in a mere six months) by the Baruch Corporation, the red-board structure evokes early American and English country marketplaces, with shops and stalls arranged around a central courtyard.

Intended as the West Side version of Los Angeles's famed Farmer's Market (at Fairfax and Third), the Brentwood Country Mart was even more ambitiously conceived as "a new type of all-in-one service center" with its 27 shops and stalls offering an impressive slate of products and services, from the everyday to the exotic.

A vigorous advertising campaign followed the opening, touting the market as an "innovation in modern merchandising," and establishing the sign of the golden ram as an emblem of quality and economy.

Simultaneously, celebrities were deployed to imbue its image with a glamorous cachet which, indeed, it soon possessed, as evidenced by its frequent mention in society columns as a favorite haunt of Hollywood stars. At the end of its first year, the Brentwood Country Mart was proclaimed a success in the local press, and the public invited to share in its first birthday celebration, with "entertainment galore and fun for everyone."

By 1950 it had become home to groups of Brownies, pharmacists, dancers, plant aficionados, and charities, which, in addition to regular meetings, held classes, exhibitions, rallies, fundraisers, parties, fashion shows, afternoon teas, and pet parades in the courtyard and auditorium. Within a few years, the number of community groups who utilized the Mart had swelled considerably (and now included the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, artists' and theatre groups, the Red Cross and the Cancer Society), as did the number of informal societies who adopted the patio as their "headquarters."

Often, the Brentwood Country Mart hosted special events for the community, particularly parties for children and teenagers that featured Santa Claus and (oddly enough) Bozo the Clown in the guise of the Easter Bunny (1951). The liveliness of the place led the Los Angeles Examiner (August 12, 1953) to observe that "the Brentwood Country Mart... is fast becoming a community center."
And because this community center is in Brentwood, the "regulars" included many luminaries. Joan Crawford, Betty Hutton, Robert and Dorothy Mitchum, Elizabeth Taylor, Burt Lancaster, Shirley Temple Black, and Greta and Gregory Peck, were mentioned in the press in connection with the Mart, among many others, including Olivia de Haviland, Edgar Bergen, Leslie Caron, June Haver, James Whitmore, Leo Carillo, JanePowell, and Marsha Willis. Many of these celebrities engaged in the philanthropic work for which the Mart was well known, and some of them simply shopped in their own neighborhood.
Existing establishments such as the Barber Shop, the Post Office and the Shoe Repair remain to provide exceptional service for the community – they are as popular and busy as ever. Reddi Chick offers the best rotisserie chicken and french fries in Los Angeles.

In today's world of mega-stores and mega-malls, the Brentwood Country Mart feels cozy, familiar and is a place where it is easy to shop. The Brentwood Country Mart is being renovated and restored by James S. Rosenfield and Daniel I. Bercu of JS Rosenfield & Co. JS Rosenfield & Co specializes in the preservations of unique Los Angeles environments. The firm is also responsible for the preservation of the historical Aero Theatre in Santa Monica on Montana Avenue.

The french

are just so beautiful, seriously - I don't think they make ugly people, EVAH.

NY TIMES ran a piece on EVA GREEN

After filming Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris," the actress Maria Schneider checked herself into an institution. After filming Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Dreamers," an incestuous tragedy with plenty of its own full-frontal nudity, the actress Eva Green became a Bond Girl. The best Bond girl ever, according to Entertainment Weekly. Despite her pitch-perfect English in that film, Green was raised in France (her mother is the actress Marlene Jobert) and she has labored intensely to lose her French accent since moving to England as a teenager. On that front, as well as many others, Green has continued to succeed: in the upcoming film "Cracks," she plays an instructor at an English boarding school. Also in theaters soon is "Franklyn," a dystopic noir co-starring Ewan McGregor in which Green plays a schizophrenic. Bertolucci once famously said that Green "is so beautiful it's indecent," but she is mightily talented too.

I think I really like these...

COOL SHADES

I love....

this perfume by Ed Hardy.

Beautiful...

Courtesy of LA Times Magazine...

If only we had an extra $150K

Here is where the fabulous BBQ

Clean, simple and nice... too bad the seating is made of teak :-(

Next project

We've been busy, while we have worked at becoming parents, our new home is suffering from lack of attention. Once we return from Cancun (can't believe we are leaving in 4 days), we have a guy scheduled to construct our new brick wall. You might be able to see where the wood fence on the side and back is not looking to hot. After the brick wall, this grassy knoll will be cemented to create additional and much needed parking space.

Our home sits on the corner of one very quiet street and another street which is one of the main arteries that connects many people to the downtown of our fine city.

Why yes, that is a bus bench where people wait for public transportation.

Once we complete this task, we plan to attack the front yard and create an outdoor living space. Here is a picture of our very pretty, green front yard.

We live in a desert climate, not the desert, per se. I do not wake up looking at beautiful Joshua trees or desert mountains painted with shadows however, the temperature range from the end of May until the end of October swings anywhere from our low being 80 and our high being 110.

Living here my entire life - all 35 years of it (except for 2 years on the Central coast of CA) has left me with a love/hate relationship. This is where my closest friends and family reside therefore I love it, when it is 100 + for 10 straight days in a row - I hate it. I could go on......The good and bad equal each other out (at this point in time) however, I have to be honest when I think about the possibilities and freedom associated with this Master's degree in Teaching. Giddy with excitement am I with the thought of fleeing (ok, a bit dramatic) the surface of the sun and heading to a cooler part of California!

Ok, back to reality...
The goal is to increase our living space by turning the front yard into a place where we can throw parties and enjoy the outdoors (when it cools down). We got the idea from Sunset magazine and measured that if we take about 2/3 of the lawn we could acquire an additional 600 square feet of living space. Because the backyard is not entertaining -friendly, this is really our only option of space to convert.

The layout for the house below, not sure of how our layout will look yet. Toying with the idea of seeking a landscape arhitect but really trying to keep the costs down.

The final product in Sunset magazine and I could only hope our non- Eichler home could look 1/2 as nice. I'm loving the materials they used.

Not my favorite furniture but I do like the chalkboard in the back for the kids and the flagstone for the floor. I know it's overused, but I still really like it.

Here is the before of their home, it's quite different from ours, but I can still vision the potential that lies within our home.

Here is a picture of another courtyard/outdoor living space that I like, still too much grass though.

Here is a shot from our front door. Originally, we planned to stop at where the pathway ends but Duane is really pushing to enclose the entire yard. I have reservations, I want it to mesh with the neighboorhood and I really don't want to block any of the neighbors views. Ok, it's not like we blocking the view of the ocean but still I just want it to mesh. Duane wants to build a mini-compound (must be a man-thing).

The area to the left of the pathway that leads to our front door. It's in need of a good weed.

Spring, it's here!