Touchdown!!



During the first week of January we visited the house to make sure that everything was ready for our final move.  We found everything in apple pie order.  This photo shows the kitchen tile and mural, which was one of the last finishing touches.



We found Tom in the bedroom installing our new window blinds.



The New Year started out with a lot of rain and bitter cold, and we really didn't anticipate that the landscaping company that we hired to restore our yard would be able to commence work.  In fact, we had put in place arrangements for our contractor to lay out sheets of plywood in the backyard mud so the movers would have some stable footing as they delivered our household goods.  To our amazement, the landscaping crew began work on Monday, and within hours of arrival had begun a major transformation of the backyard.



By Wednesday the landscapers had put down enough gravel so that we could discard the plywood sheets, and our movers could walk on clean compacted gravel to get to the house.  In this photo, the landscaping foreman, Josh, is compacting the gravel underlayment for the patio pavers.

By Wednesday night the gravel path from the rear gate was complete, and pavers for the new patio and walkways had been delivered.  That's a deep frost that you see on the garage, which hung around all day long.



Thursday morning--moving day at the apartment!

Ironman Movers sent a two-man crew.  It took them about four hours to load the truck.



Thursday had dawned wet, cold, and with flurries of snow.  This photo was taken upon arrival at the house, around 2:30.  It was still very cold, but the sun was out and the skies were clear.  What a wonderful day to move!



This is Joe, the Ironman foreman, with part of the futon in the elevator.  We were absolutely amazed that all of our furnishings, no matter how large, somehow fit one way or another into the elevator.

A couple of days after moving in.  This is the library, which for the moment, houses the futon, a small desk, and all of our accumulated artwork.  First we're unpacking all of it; then we'll decide later where all of it will go.



This is the BP's junkyard.  After considerable unpacking and organizing, it will become his office.



This is the BB's office.  Still a lot to unpack, but two critical items are in place--her computer work station, and in the far corner of the room, the small cherry writing desk made by The BP's great grandfather, which for over 50 years, resided at the Tahoe cabin.



Nothing says welcome home like a closet full of clothes.  Never in all our married life have we had a closet this large.  What a luxury!

This is the pantry/playroom in a state of transition.  The cabinet in front of the window was one of the base cabinets handmade by Susan and Chris in their kitchen before their 2006 remodel.  They were using it temporarily at our house when they lived here during their remodeling period.  We decided to keep it and will eventually put a butcher block top on it and find a final place for it in the pantry.  It comfortably holds all of the BB's oversized pots and pans.  In the far corner of this picture is a cabinet that we found quite by accident at the local hardware store.  It turns out to be the perfect size and configuration to store pantry goods.



This is the living room with something new--a comfortable sofa--and something really old--the cherry secretary and display case made by the BP's great grandfather in the 1880s.



Another shot of our new expanded living room.  The carpet dates back to at least the 1920s and was used as the living room rug in the Berkeley house by the BP's grandparents.  In the far left corner our grandfather clock survived the journey, and after just a few minor repairs to restore a weight cable that had come loose and the pendulum mechanism, the clock now happily ticks away, keeping perfect time.



Another view of the living room adjunct that also shows the carpeted staircase.  The antique copper pot on the right, given to the BP by a client years ago, makes the perfect container for catching the mail that comes through the slot in the wall.



Our Berkeley dining room table that dates back at least to the early 1900s fits beautifully in our new dining room.  It sits on a new Craftsman rug that we fell in love with and purchased especially for this dining room.  On the right is a small buffet table inherited by the BB from her maternal grandparents.  The BB remembers seeing this table sitting in the dining room of her grandparents' San Diego house.



Just a few days after moving in, we prepared our inaugural dinner for the new dining room.  The occasion was the celebration of our son-in-law Chris's birthday.  In this photo, the BB is putting the finishing touches on a new noodle pudding, which served as one of two entrees for the dinner--this being a meatless offering that our vegetarian daughter could enjoy. 



The BP carves the other entree, a pork roast.  In the picture are Susan and Chris and their daughters, two-year-old Zoe on the left and four-year-old Maya on the right.  As the photo proves, if you want to be a big hit with your grandchildren, serve corn on the cob.



Zoe helps the BB put candles on the birthday cake while Maya takes a photo.

Susan delivers the birthday cake to Chris.  In the background is the china cabinet that we purchased from Mrs. Beuttel, the lady who sold us our first house in North Oakland in 1969.  The placemats on the table were purchased online from the Tucson store, "A Perfect Pantry", owned and operated by the BB's sister-in-law, Amy Pike.

Aging fathers of small children need a lot of help to blow out birthday candles.

In all of the many moves we've made during our married years, we've found there are certain things which, when put in place in the new house, make that house--wherever is is-- feel like home.  This photo shows two of those things, a small chair passed down through the BB's family.  She remembers seeing it in her grandparents' San Diego house.  It may well have originated in earlier generations of her family.  On the wall above the chair hangs one of the BPs grandmother's favorite artworks--a pen and ink drawing done in 1884.  This drawing hung above this chair at the top of the stairs in our Berkeley home; they are now paired together at the top of the stairs in our Bellingham home.

No matter where we are, as soon as the cuckoo clock is hung, we're home.  This is not the Berkeley cuckoo clock.  We have that now hanging in our Davis condo.  This is the clock that for almost 60 years helped us keep time at the Tahoe cabin.  Thanks to a friend that we've made in Bellingham, Darlene Syverson, who is a magician when it comes to repairing cuckoo clocks, this clock is healthy, happy, and keeping wonderful time.  Also in the photo is a corner table that the BP inherited from his grandparents.



This photo shows many treasures that make us now feel that we are home.  The wall sconces are two original 1910 wall sconces from the Berkeley house.  The candlesticks date back at least to 1890, where they appear in a photograph of the BP's grandmother in the parlor of her then home in Connecticut.  The elephant is a Siamese teapot that the BP's grandmother used to serve tea at afternoon card parties.  The exquisite tea set in the center was hand painted by the BP's great grandmother in the 1880s.  We doubly treasure this set not only because it's the most beautiful example of her work that we own, but also because the teapot fell off its shelf in Berkeley in the Loma Prieta earthquate, and just last year, was restored to its original glory by the very same Darlene Syverson, who works such magic with cuckoo clocks.  A woman of amazing talent, she occupies roughly the same status in our family as the family doctor.



A close-up of the tea set and the candlesticks.  The candlesticks, by the way, were kept on the mantel of our Berkeley house and appear in a photo taken at the time of the BP's parents' marriage in the Berkeley house in 1937.  Both the tea set and the candlesticks look wonderful on the mantel designed by Eric Fulbright.

At the end of the week, the landscapers had completed the paver walkway along the east side of the house.  When weather permits, the dirt strip to the left of the walkway will become sod.



By the end of the week, much of the rear patio had also been completed.  We are very impressed by the careful work being done on the landscaping by Private Gardens Design.



This is how the house looked from the rear at the end of the week.



And this is the front of the house at the end of the week.



This speaks for itself.  We're now taking a couple of months off.  There will be one more installment of the blog, probably in March, when we can show the final landscaping, and when, with luck, we will have unpacked most of our boxes and hung most of the artwork.  It has been an amazing journey, and we thank you for coming along for the ride.