我疯了吗？

Which translates to "Am I crazy?" in Chinese. One of my earliest design choices in this process was the decision to scrap our perfectly lovely, tres expensive, and in perfect condition, sliding wooden French patio doors. They've bothered me since day one. There's just something about sliding a single door and thus only being able to open up 1/2 of the space that is just so annoying. I decided that when I remodeled I was springing for a set of those super-coolio sliding folding patio doors. I knew that it was going to eat up a HUGE portion of our budget. For years I heard rumours of expecting to pay around 10K for a 10' door! Ah! Apparently the rumor mills don't know what a bargain hunter I can be.

So after scouring the Internet and finding that most local vendors wanted about 6K for these doors I turned to --- where else? China! And after about 75 emails back and forth with about 1000 questions (honestly the woman had the patience of a saint!), I placed my order. Am I nervous? Uh...yes. But I look at this way -- if the doors aren't right, or they're crappy or whatever, I'll sell 'em on Craigslist and I've still only paid a fraction of what it would have cost to purchase them here in the USA. So I ordered a 10' patio door, a set of double French doors for the master bedroom, and 2 single French doors for the new addition, and the new office - all aluminum in black. Total cost should be less than 5K for all --- and that includes all of the expenses for duties, tariffs and customs broker. The funniest part is that I was being quoted 7-10 weeks lead time from the USA and they're going to be shipping in 21 days!

Fingers crossed! Bargain hunters unite and claim victory! Disclaimer: sorry all of you "Buy American" types out there. Apparently I don't have the budget to buy American.

Farewell My Lovely Trees!

I'm a tree hugger. There I said it. I love trees. The idea of chopping down a perfectly lovely, perfectly harmless and perfectly healthy mature tree is not only ridiculous to me, but cruel. It literally brings tears to my eyes.

I've put it off as long as was possible, but my contractor, ever so gingerly since he figured me out, mentions it on a weekly basis. As in "Val, I know this is a sore subject, but you're really going to have to remove the trees soon." So...I made the call and my fantastic gardener and his team are out there right now - chainsaws in hand, like something out of a bad horror movie, destroying --- and yes --- murdering my amazing magnolia tree, along with a 30' fan palm and a 25 year old Yucca tree. I can't decide who I'm going to miss more. The magnolia produces huge fragrant flowers that plucked from the tree, and placed alone in a glass vessel have produced more oohs and aahs at parties than I can recall. The huge glossy leaves made amazing platforms for cheeses as well! The fan palm is a Southern California staple and quite honestly - I don't care much for them, but when we planted it we knew nothing about trees. Lastly, my beautiful Yucca. This tree must be well over 25 years old. It's like a quiet, but elegant old woman with it's twisty bark. I'll shed a tear to see that one go.

So I hear the buzz of chainsaws and the shouts of my gardener and his workers, and I choose not to look. I know that you can't stop progress. I know that you've got make some changes to make other changes, I know that the trees must be removed to make room for the addition, but still, I really can't bear it.

Waiting.....waiting......waiting

In the words of Tim Gunn -- "Carry On"! Whilst we await the thumbs up (or thumbs down) on our blueprint approval we shop - and we prepare - prepare and shop. City of Los Angeles -- our fate lies in your red-taped hands!

So here's the haps. I've updated the cost section to include the permit fees. Not so bad after all. At this exact moment I have electrician extraordinaire Herman of Bright Lite Electric (shout out) working feverishly at moving our butt-ugly electrical panel. It'll be in the tiki area, and may I add will still be butt-ugly - only now butt-ugly in a more obscured location. (Hopefully we'll manage to cover it with a cool tiki too.) Once that bad boy is gone we'll be able to install double French doors where now there is a single door. Sweet.

And speaking of doors....who knew that picking out windows and doors was such grueling work? Honestly it's probably THE hardest part of this job. We have beautiful vintage steel French casement windows in our house -- terribly inefficient, but I don't care cause I love 'em! But matching them is proving to be a bit of a challenge. This may end up being a bigger part of the budget than anyone expected.

On the plus side....I sourced out a bunch of doors from China. Yes, you read that correctly. Much to the dismay of my contractor, who thinks that I'm certifiably insane, we are ordering our doors and windows from China. Worst case scenario - we threw a way a fraction of what it would cost us to get our doors from the U.S. Best case scenario - we absolutely love them and we save mucho dinero.

That's it for now!