The next five weeks will be a blur of projects and packing but I’ll try to take a moment every Monday to capture the process. Today we made our final pre-closing visit to the house to meet with the painter and carpet seller to get bids for projects best tackled before we move in. After [...]
A month into house hunting my weeks are taking on a steady rhythm. On Friday we scan the MLS listings and plan what open houses we’ll attend that weekend. Saturday and Sunday afternoons we tour. Monday morning three a.m. I’m wide awake redecorating the most recently seen possibilities. Tuesday middle-of-the-night doubt creeps in. Wednesday morning [...]
All right. Time to stop getting distracted by stocking stuffers and get down to serious gift-buying. If you’re giving to someone who leans towards contemporary design on a less than stratospheric budget, consider the collection of well-edited designs presented in Remodelista: A Manual for the Considered Home (Artisan). The book culls ideas from the popular [...]
Ever since I finished a ten-years-in-the-making quilt top on Tuesday, I’ve been happily plucking clipped loose threads off my furniture, clothing—even my hair brush. Now the top (and back) are off to be professionally quilted and I’m savoring the delicious pause between completed and new projects. I’m also taking a little break from fiction writing [...]
The America’s Cup finals are happening here in San Francisco just as the fog’s rolled out and the warm weather’s rolled in. Boats of all shapes and sizes cut across the Bay this afternoon like kids playing tag on a September playground. While the hi-tech racing catamarans were docked for the day—races resume tomorrow—a splashy lineup [...]
Hello again. I’m just back from Idaho after reunioning with my family. As our numbers swell, it gets trickier to house all the Looslis. But this time we were lucky enough to bunk at my grandparents’ farmhouse, recently renovated by my dad’s sister Carol and her builder son Brett. We woke to the view [...]
Our nest has been a little less empty this summer because our daughter Sydney came home to roost for ten weeks while she interned in the legal department at Google. On her last week of work we met her for lunch and a tour of the Googleplex in Mountain View. Thought I’d share some of [...]
For fun the past few months I’ve been taking e-courses from British photographer and blogger Susannah Conway. Prior to signing up for Susannah’s courses I had no idea that people often photograph their feet. Susannah says it’s to show where we are in the world—not just our extensive shoe wardrobes or the state of our [...]
I spent much of Saturday walking on holy ground. First in the East Bay hills, next in another faith’s church, and finally, in a basketball gym. Sacred spaces all. I was up in the hills for a memorial service was held on a private ranch overlooking Contra Costa county. A dozen of us gathered to [...]
Some design pros contend that old things are obsolete. They insist that modern design is where it’s at and that the passion for patina is definitely past its prime. I beg to differ. In a world gone Green, the desire to reuse, repurpose and recycle is really blossoming. Ask designer Joanne Palmisano, author of the [...]
