Touring Temecula

Over the weekend David and I took a trip to Temecula Valley Wine Country, located about 1.5 hours from David's apartment in Irvine. We figured that while "living" in California we should take advantage of some of the local wine making, and it was really nice to see an atmosphere that was considered somewhat "rural." Originally, our wine trip was going to be a joint birthday celebration, but the timing didn't work out to go in the June/July time frame. Birthday celebration or not, it was nice to take a break from the hustle and bustle of life and just enjoy a couple of days relaxing in the countryside, enjoying tasty food and beverage. 

This is a view of the mountains from our hotel room patio. I couldn't get enough. I believe I told David that views like this could convince me to move out here. 

We researched some of the wineries and places to stay online and also happened upon a couple of recommendations from an employee at Trader Joe's. We splurged on lodging and stayed at the Ponte Vineyard Inn, located at one of the bigger / more touristy wineries. Typically we try to avoid touristy, but it seemed like in wine country it would give us the picturesque experience we were seeking. We began our wine tasting at Leoness Cellars, one of the places recommended by the Temecula Valley frequenter at Trader Joe's. David really wanted to get a vineyard, production, and barrel room tour so we decided that would be a good way to start the day. It was a little bit more money, but nice because we got a private wine tasting, which included some of their reserve wines as well as cheese pairings. 

David and I standing in front of one of Leoness' cabernet sauvignon vineyards, about to start the walking tour. Surprisingly, it rained on our way in Friday night, making Saturday quite chilly. I told David that it was colder here than it was in Boston! 

Another view from the lookout point at Leoness. I really did not except to see such beautiful mountains and rolling hills while on this trip. 

The barrel room, where the red wines are aged. We learned that the type and quality, as well as "newness" of the oak barrel is very important in the wine making process. 

Our next stop was Robert Renzoni Vineyards, another recommendation from the guy at Trader Joe's. After lunch we tried Weins Cellars, which was located within walking distance of our hotel. The tasting volumes at Weins were much larger than at our first two wineries, and I chose to dump the wines I didn't like, or pass them off to David. We finished our wine tasting at our hotel winery (Ponte Winery). We had signed up for the Ponte Wine Club membership because as guests at the winery and hotel we got quite a few perks - discounts on the hotel cost and their restaurants, access to the private tasting area with free tastings and snacks, as well as 2 bottles of wine for each month we were a member. We don't plan to continue the membership for very long, but it was fun to be in the "in crowd" during our visit. 

David, enjoying Ponte's wines in their private members-only tasting area. 

Overall, we actually weren't super impressed with many of the wines we tasted. However, we don't believe this is the fault of the wineries and is more an artifact of the area we tasted in. We tend to like Pinot Noir and Malbec, as well as wines with a lighter body and smoother finish. We did taste quite a few smooth wines, but most of the wines we tasted were heavier red wines. We liked the Cinsaut wines from Leoness, which is made from a grape similar to Pinot Noir. At Robert Renzoni, the Tempranillo was our favorite and we decided to buy a bottle to bring home. At both Weins and Ponte we liked the Barbera wines, and bought a bottle from Ponte. 

Of course, for David, these two cars parked at our hotel were potentially more exciting than any of the wineries. He saw the car pictured on top first and declared that he wanted almost that exact car someday, but preferably in black. Less than an hour later we saw the car pictured in the lower picture, and he said "THAT is the exact car that I want!" We had to stare at it for a good while. 

Here is a link to our full photo album from the weekend: http://davroline.smugmug.com/Vacations/Temecula-wine-country-2014

Update! New pictures of the Dining/Bedroom renovation

Caroline found some new pictures of the renovation process!

While we were working away in the other two rooms we essentially had to move in to only one room of the house! This made for some crowded, but livable living quarters.

Caroline couldn't have pulled off the painting surprise without Katie!

The last teardown

So far we've talked about renovating the hallway, bathroom, closet, kitchen, and living room. The only rooms left in the house left to update were the living room, with the terrible, terrible wallpaper and the bedroom, which had an un-usable closet and some awesome fake wood paneling. With me starting a new job in racing (see earlier post), we decided that I should take two weeks off between jobs to finish up our last big planned renovations. 

You can see the awesome wallpaper here

The painted paneling is wood....but not wood. The closet occupies the space opposite the built in hutch.

Our bedroom was fairly small, only around 10x11', so by the time you put two dressers, a double bed, and an armoir for hanging clothes, there was barely enough room for side tables. Even renovated, the closet wasn't going to provide much additional storage because it was very, very shallow (a hangar only fit where the door molding provided additional depth) and only about 1/3 of the hanging space we needed. After much deliberation, we decided to "delete" the built in hutch and reclaim the space in the bedroom. We had initially planned to have a very large closet, but after looking at how we could best use the space effectively, we decided on building a PAX system from Ikea, which would have drawers, hanging space, and some high up shelves.

Starting this, I knew that we were going to have to move a 2nd floor vent duct which ran behind the hutch. However, I didn't really know how much work this would be or what else we would find when we opened up the wall. It was a big leap for us to decide to essentially remove an entire wall!

Caroline's grandfather, John, helped tear down all of the plaster, many layers of wallpaper, and a bunch of the lathe. After being unhappy with how long it took to fix all of the plaster walls in the living room, these rooms were going to get 100% drywall.

Caroline's grandfather, hard at work

After only two days, we were already to the point where we could see through where the closet/hutch wall was! Do you notice that there is a large vent in the way? 

The silver tube is very much in the way as only the near wall is going to stay.

Now, I unfortunately can't seem to find any good pictures of the progress while moving the duct. I'm going to have Caroline look, and if we find them, I'll do a short post letting you know I've found them. What we ended up doing was moving the duct to the near wall and building a false ceiling protrusion to allow the duct to reconnect to the duct on the 2nd floor. You can see it in the finished pictures below.

Now, a short story about the paint job. I had finished all of the drywall, primed everything, and finished the molding, but wasn't able to finish the paint job before I had to head out to California. Being tired from rushing through the renovation as well as working hard at a new job, I wasn't looking forward to having to work all weekend to do the finish paint on the walls. To my great surprise, Caroline and my sister painted BOTH rooms while I was gone! I can home and was incredibly surprised and happy to have a relaxing weekend with Caroline. Plus, it looked great!

The "butter cookie" paint really makes the molding pop!

No more built in hutch!

If I recall correctly, the bedroom color is called "rhino"

With all of the paint complete, we had to put in our new PAX system. While the system honestly felt a little cheap compared to the quality of our other renovations, we weren't ready to spend several thousand dollars on a built in system that we likely wouldn't use very long (if we moved upstairs in a few years). Plus, the bedroom isn't exactly a high use area. We struggled a little getting them level, but once they were in they fit pretty well!

Each section had something like 36 nails. Caroline put every single one in.

Caroline gets the left, I get the right, and we share the middle

You can see in the picture above that we managed to find some soft storage containers that fit exactly above the PAX system below the ceiling. You can also see the ceiling drop down above the wardrobe where the vent scoots across. It isn't that big and looks almost like it was meant to be there!

As you can see below, even Ash approves of the new drawers!

Beautiful weekend

This weekend was one of the first we've had with absolutely beautiful weather. We were also dog sitting for my mom's two dogs, Brandy and Coal. We decided to seize the opportunity to spend some time outside with all four high energy pups by taking them on a long walk in a nearby reservation area. 

Ash has weaseled his way out of just about every harness we've put him in, so we recently purchased this Houdini-proof harness made by Ruffwear. Its been difficult to help Ash adjust! He doesn't seem to like the extra strap around his waist, and when we put it on him in the house he almost immediately lies down into the position you see below. If he's out for a walk he does fine. It's kind of sad! We are giving him lots of treats and trying to associate the harness with positive things. You can see Pepper's on alert to see what's about to happen. 

Once in the car Ash didn't seem to mind the harness at all, he was excited to see where we were going and to try and reach a taste of fresh air from the open window. Sorry for the blurry photo, he was moving all over the place! 

There was a wooden tower of sorts that we climbed to the top of, and were rewarded with a nice view of the Boston skyline. The stairs were pretty steep going up so we (read: I, Caroline) were a little unsure how the dogs would do - but they were of course fine. Pepper doesn't seem to like walking on wooden boards though, and just as he does on docks at our family's lake house he did the army crawl. Here is a picture of Coal taking a rest. 

And proof that the dogs didn't walk themselves :) 

Later that day, this happened. Left: Before (Pepper). Right: After. 

Making the living room look like home

Last week David posted pictures of him renovating the living room, and I've been dying to post pictures of the more or less finished product. However, we've been super busy and it has taken us awhile to pull it all together! At long last though, our living room is back in working order and feeling more like an "adult home" and less like a college apartment. 

This is a view from the doorway to the hall. On the far left we have a basket full of dog toys and a snoopy dog bed, both of which Ash and Pepper absolutely adore. They use Snoopy's head as a pillow, and they strew the toys around the room daily. As I type this Pepper has his head in the basket pulling out his favorites. We hung a mirror that my dad gave me when I moved into my IL condo, as well as the rainbow fence picture my mom helped me pick out for my bedroom when I was under five years old. As much as we would love to upgrade from a futon to a couch for a fully finished look and maximum comfort, the futon is too valuable in our one bedroom apartment that sees many guests. We do have plans to replace the mattress though has it has flattened over the years, as well as buy a nice cover and some bolster pillows. To the right of the futon is what we think of as the reading corner, where we pooled all of our novels on a shelf. This is also where two of my african violets live and a brass bucket/pot from David's parents that we use to store our blankets. The coffee table is something I made while living in IL. It works for now, but eventually David has a dream of making a coffee table out of some engine parts he has. 

During the renovation we replaced the brass/gold colored fan with a more modern one, and it looks much better than we expected after pulling it out of the box. We selected it online but were underwhelmed when we saw it in person. We've decided that it looks good enough for our needs and functions well, so we won't exchange it. This view of the living room is from the doorway going to the dining room, and shows off the two striped chairs we inherited from Tommy's old Vermont house as well as the oversized red chair that the dogs love to sit on so they can watch out the window. The blue rugs are wool and used to be in my brothers room when he was a kid. They were then passed on to my grandmother who had them in a bedroom, and she gave them to us after I commented on how much I liked them (there are a set of two). Eventually, we might like to upgrade to a larger area rug for a more cozy feel, but for now we like how these rugs work and look. 

This is a view from the corner where the reading nook is, looking towards the dining room and kitchen. When we moved into this apartment we purchased the Samsung TV from Walmart at a discounted rate - it was a display item and did not come with a box. Like everything Samsung that we have owned, we love the TV. The TV stand was a gift from my mother to David for his birthday last year, but like many things in our house we found it on Craigslist. The speakers that you see on either side are part of a surround sound set that David has been collecting since I think high school (you can see the subwoofer in the previous picture, next to the red chair). For as long as we've been dating, he has been talking about how he couldn't wait to have it set up one day in his house. We finally do, and it sounds great! We did have to upgrade the receiver because the one he bought originally does not work correctly with HDMI cables. You can just barely see the Vermont coasters on the coffee table that we made and handed out as favors at our wedding - they are made of cross sections of birch branches, and have a VT logo branded in them. 

Here is a close up at my attempt at making an organized frame area of sorts. I wanted a place to hang family photos, but I wanted it to look like a unit rather than just randomly placed along the wall. Here is a link to a blog post that shows the frame wall that served as my inspiration. I'm a little bit disappointed in how it turned out - the entire block is tilting a bit, some of the frames are too close together, and there are many messy mistake holes hidden behind the frame. While hanging pictures in this room David and I once again realized that it would have been smarter to replace the plaster in this room with drywall. It's a messy business to hang things up into walls containing lathe and plaster. Right now, the photos here are biased towards my family because I didn't want to hang empty frames and these happened to be the photos I had on hand. We plan to pick some of our favorite combined family photos and replace a few of these ones. 

This art arrangement I absolutely love. The LAUGH and LOVE photograph sets were gifts from family and the two canvas prints were a gift from one of our wedding guests - he gave us a voucher and we were able to order prints of whatever we wanted. The pictures we used were taken by J. Harper Photography, our wedding photographer. The car is the Saab David restored in high school, and in the right hand picture you can see Ash peeking out the back window at us. It is probably one of our favorite pictures of Ash. And yes, we feel a little bit guilty that Pepper isn't represented here, but we don't have any professional photos of him and couldn't find one that we thought would look good on canvas. All in good time! 

So that's our living room! We have a few small changes left to make, and have discussed ways to introduce temporary doors / curtains / barriers over the large pillared opening and the smaller doorway going into the hallway so that guests have a bit more privacy - kind of making it a pseudo-guest room. No solution has felt quite right yet as we don't want it to look too obvious on a daily basis and we don't want it to be too costly. If anyone has any suggestions, please share! We will post more updates as we continue to improve the living room with things like a new futon mattress. 

Oh, and this past weekend the living room (and the rest of our house) was "put to the test" when we hosted a party in honor of Christine's one-year SJS anniversary. Twenty-five people attended our casual dinner party and the event was a success! As David said, it worked well because the living room, kitchen, and dining room each served as a "zone" for about 8 people, making it so that no one room felt too crowded. Our bedroom served as a fourth "dog zone", providing a temporary home for EIGHT dogs. Phew! It was fun though and David and I were excited to host our first official large dinner party, especially one with such special meaning for Christine.