Cushion Comfort

We went sofa shopping yesterday.  Let me rephrase that.  We stopped sofa shopping yesterday.  We began sofa shopping shortly after one of our grandchildren had a major diaper-leak accident on the current sofa, and that was coupled with the grape juice incident, to which was added the barf incident.  We had talked about it off and on, but sort of dragged our feet, waiting for our grandchildren to grow up a little bit.  Who knew you had to wait for that?  Dave is sitting on Option 3 of 4, all models found in the Crate and Barrel Store at South Coast Plaza.  (I refused to buy the prefab junk at Macy's.)

So after we'd sat down and up and down on the four different sofas, we talked about what fabrics were available to us in their Custom Upholstery Event.  "Event" is a misnomer.  It should read Custom Mark-Up-The-Price-Of-Your Sofa Experience.  I like the lines and the look of the mustard colored sofa, above, but obviously not the fabric.

And here we're trying out fabrics on the Other Sofa.  I couldn't make up my mind, but remembered my mother's refrain to "get a sofa you can get out of." 

We liked the fabric available to us on the mustard sofa, as we took to calling it.  We had about the perfect salesperson ever, patient, cheerful, and no high pressure to close the sale. It was time.  We closed the sale, chose the leg color (more decisions?), handed over the plastic card, signed the white screen.  She made up our little folder for us, and off we went.

 

Here it is from the brochure online (above).

Here it is in the front window as we walked out.  We didn't choose that fabric, but I do like the look of it.

Then we went out and looked at their corporate canned food drives in the mall.  I think the deal is that some corporation gets someone to design them a design using stacked cans, and they hit up collect them from their employees.  Above is a gnome and toadstool (?).

London Olympics and telephone booth.

Apple Logo.  Right near the apple store.

We had lunch, stopped by Chad's house to say hi to the family and to see Chad's new car, then headed home to the furnace called home.  I'm tired of this heat wave and ready for summer to go away, for my sofa to come (sometime mid-November) and for my front room to be magically redecorated to match the new piece of furniture.

A Trip to Foodie Paradise

When we were back in Ohio, Matthew said we had to go to a place called Jungle Jim's.  We were thinking it was a play place where the young girls could horse around.  We were wrong.  The place bills itself as Foodie Paradise.  This giant frankfurter was just outside.

Yes--these lights really work.

Emilee and Megan pose in front of one his statues.  I watched the video clip where Jungle Jim--Jim Bonaminio--talks about how he likes to mess around with animatronics (among other things).

High above our heads--a swinging soup can.  So at this point I'm thinking that it's just a giant grocery store with regular food.  Wrong.

Matthew and girls near the deli section.

Barra de Salsa, where they have a variety of fresh salsas.

Dave, in blue, stands by the blue cheese section.  Yes--all those packages are blue cheese.  Overall they have over 1400 cheeses.  I began to wonder if I could buy another suitcase and take some things home.

A display of salamis.

Now, I really wanted to take some of their selections home.  A butter bar?

Hand rolled butter from Wisconsin.  Think what my shortbread cookies would taste like with this as the base!

European-style high fat butter content.  I've been buying some Plugra at home, but I'm sure this outranks it.

Goat butter.

And cheeses in animal shapes and packaging.  I was beginning to catch on to why this store was famous.

I caught up with Kim & Megan at the candy aisle.  Yes, I bought a gumball monkey that clangs its symbols together when you push a lever.  Who cares if the candy is any good--I love the packaging!

Lots of displays--this, obviously, is the bakery.

Kim got us totally hooked on Servatii's pretzel slices.  They take a giant fat pretzel, run it through their bakery slicer and you use the little rounds for dips or snacks.  We brought a bag home with us all the way to California and we are down to the last little bit.

 Random flying pig.

Alligator meat.  In case you don't like that, there are buffalo steaks (below).

Bet you didn't know there was more than one kind of coconut, did you?

The hot sauce aisle, complete with fire engine.

Along the side wall are little alcoves that have products from a single region.  Here's Scandinavia.

And a theater where you can watch the history of Jungle Jim (some of it is in the video I linked to above).

The Holland alcove has fuzzy slippers in the shape of wooden shoes.

We were running out of time, so we made a beeline for the chocolate aisle.

We bought the bacon flavor, plus two others.

And one of those machines that gives your fortune--the Brain!  (Dave posed under duress.)

We had a great time there, and if I lived there, I think I might make this a regular habit--esp. for that butter!  Matthew said he's already gone back once in order to get Blenheim's Gingerale, which this place carries.  (It's one of his favorites, esp. the red-lid variety.) 

So, when you go and visit Matthew--go to Jungle Jim's!

Before/After

BEFORE

AFTER

Some shots of the final day:

First coat of primer on the doors.

Second coat of finish paint on.

Final coat (#8) of finish paint, with doors ajar to let them cure.  The color was Benjamin Moore's Million Dollar Red.  It turned out more vermilion/Japanese red than was on the paint chip (our mild-mannered painter was very pleasant throughout all the testing and painting and samples).

Walter (l) and Mike, the painter.  He started out in automotive painting, so he's really aware of not getting overspray on anything.  He even re-painted my back door mat where his other painter -- Ryan, who would paint anything that wasn't moving -- had oversprayed. I hadn't even noticed, but Mike's really good with getting the details taken care of.

New FIBERGLASS back door.  We'd replaced this door twice already with wood doors, and because it gets the full brunt of any storm, we went with fiberglass this time, hoping this will be the last time we have to replace it.

We do feel like it looks like a new house, certainly much better than the old paint job and doors.  Our painter had planned on 10 gallons of primer and 15 gallons of paint.  He used 12 gallons of primer and 25 gallons of paint, apparently due to the fact that it hadn't been painted in so very long.  He did lots of caulking, repairs, double painting and we were very happy with how it all turned out.  Our neighbor came out this morning and said as she drives around she sees brown houses and tan houses and gray houses and beige houses and then there's our house, with it's happy sunny yellow.  I feel the same.
Or as my Dad would say: to each his own.

Now to recover.  I told Dave I'm wrapping up the garage doors for his Christmas present.  He can wrap the paint job and the back door for mine.  We already know our next big home improvement project: a re-do of the front yard, taking it from bushes and lawn to xeriscaping and native plants.  Give me a couple of years to recover, and I'll get started.