MIKE'S OLD HOUSE

Jim and I have known our friend Mike Tench since our Frederick and Nelson days, in the early 1980s where Mike and I worked in the deli kitchen and Jim was the warehouseman who delivered our produce. Mike takes DIY to new heights. He is not only creative and inquisitive, but also a very handy guy. He loves nothing better than doing "projects." There was the Tiffany Lamp phase (he cast the bronze, made the stained glass shade) and the Chicken House phase (so beautiful he was interviewed on two TV shows about backyard chickens), to name a couple.


One of his favorite activities is buying houses and fixing them up to rent. This time he out-did himself. Mike found a wonderful old farmhouse in West Seattle that was still pretty much in its original 1909 condition. Here's a photo of it from the past.

The thing that really sold Mike on this house was that it still had the original wood cook stove in the kitchen (with a modern one alongside).

Mike has been working to upgrade essential things, like plumbing and electrical, while keeping the old time charm. The original kitchen did not have a sink in it! (One had to go to the pantry for washing). So, of course Mike found a wonderful farmhouse sink and installed it with this lovely bee-tile back splash.


He also found a really cool NEW old-looking iron support for the sink.

And, he got a neat idea at an auction where he bought a lot of embroidered pillowcases - they are now the sink skirt which hides the plumbing.


A big part of the charm of this little 3 bedroom house is the tall ceilings. This is looking into the pantry.

The bathroom has a claw foot bathtub, of course, and this lovely sink.

But there is a little bit of a problem, if you are at all tall, getting INTO the bathroom.

Mike's farmhouse is in a great location south of the West Seattle Junction. The house sits deep on the lot, which gives maximum privacy as you sit on the wrap around porch.

There is also a full basement, accessible from an outside stairwell, and a stand alone garage. Mike is really proud of his farmhouse and looking forward to renting it to just the right people.

Still to come from our Northwest trip - a visit with Dad and Multanoma Falls with Lee and Louise.

Audrey

MY TRIP TO THE NORTHWEST

Last week on Thursday I left work early and went straight to the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport, which is a few blocks from our clinic. I took the evening flight to Portland, Oregon and was met by Jim in our van. OK, to back up, Jim took off on the Monday before this for a road trip up the coast to combine seeing his brother, Lee, and wife Louise, in Vancouver, Washington, with a quick trip to Seattle to pick up boxes stored at my brother Larry's house. When Jim picked me up around 10 pm on Thursday, we went back to Lee and Louise's for the night so we could get an early start on Friday for our road trip to Seattle.

The next morning we stopped for gas and the first amusing thing we saw was this sign posted at the gas station.

We felt this got our road trip off to a great start. Before we could even pull across the street for Peet's coffee, I made Jim stop the car so I could take a picture of this mass of daffodils.

I was so excited to see my first Cascade mountain from I-5. This is Mt. Adams.

Here is St. Helens, missing her top.

Our trusty VW van was very comfortable for this trip and we had lots of good music to play.

We stopped for lunch in some nameless town near Camas, Washington at a mediocre Taco del Mar. A bright spot, though, was this gorgeous birch tree in the parking lot.

Even though spring is a little behind in the Northwest, I couldn't help but notice how beautiful all the cherry trees were - maybe because everything else looked so wintry.

One of my favorite portions of all of I-5 is this area just north of Olympia.

The highway dips down here and at the bottom you have a great view of the Nisqually delta and the first view of southern Puget Sound. Unfortunately there were too many cars in the way to get a photo of that treasured view.

But, the first glimpse of Mt. Rainier never fails to thrill me.

Here she is shining over Ft. Lewis, near Tacoma, Washington.

We arrived at my brother Larry and sister-in-law Carolyn's house around 3 pm. They live in Sea Tac (yes, named for the airport) which is just south of Seattle. They are on a lovely little lake, Angle Lake, which is where my Mom first taught school back in about 1936. Here is the view from Larry and Carolyn's porch.

And the next morning, the same view in the fog.

This was a very quick trip to Seattle so we had to visit with Larry and Carolyn when we could. They are both really busy folks even though they are retired. Larry manages an apartment building and is also involved in Bible Study Fellowship, which keeps him on the road quite a bit throughout the Northwest. Carolyn has learned the tax business and now works the season at H&R Block dealing with Spanish-speaking clients. She also continues to lead Vista Mission Teams quite often to Mexico, where they provide glasses and dental services to people. In fact, the next morning, Carolyn had a Vista Team meeting at her house to get ready for the next trip. Here she is checking the time as her team meeting is about to start.

Carolyn is a very organized person. Here she has the uniforms (scrubs) all divvied out by size.

She still has time to have a lovely garden.

Our quick stay with Larry and Carolyn allowed us to pick up a bunch of boxes stored in their cupboard from when we cleaned out Mom and Dad's house last fall. Pretty hard to take thousands of slides on an airplane! We also took advantage of this quick trip to see my Dad and our friend Mike, but those will be on a separate blog, along with our visit with Lee and Louise.

Audrey

IT'S SPRING IN SANTA ROSA

We are blessed in Northern California to have spring early. All around our county now there are fields and fields of mustard blooming. So beautiful. I always think of our spring as starting in February. That's when our daffodils are at their peak. This guy is a tete-a-tete and only about 3 inches high.

On one of our (few) recent days without rain, we noticed how gorgeous our rosemary looked - and the bees were buzzing all over!

Out in our front yard, next to the rosemary, we have several kinds of lavender growing. This one is especially lovely.

On a brief tour of the yard (between rain storms) I was pleased to see that this succulent not only didn't get hurt by the frost, but looked like it was thriving (along with LOTS of weeds).

This Euryops is a real show off giving much needed color during late winter. By summer it will be more or less dormant but the real advantage is that he doesn't want much water.

The plants in our yard aren't the only ones soaking up the sunshine.

More soon on my trip to the Northwest to see family and friends. Happy Spring!

Audrey