The dining pendant selection for the future Greatroom in our new home was recently completed. Jaklyn who works with me at Northbrook said one day “THIS is the fixture that represents YOU and what you love and is also a functional dining pendant!” So here it is.

Los Angeles based Lesley Anton is a gifted ceramicist with LOTS of talent, represented in San Francisco at the DeSousa Hughes showroom. She designs and makes gorgeous, eco-friendly ceramic light fixtures for the interior design trade. She has sent me some test samples of what I asked about and we have had some fun back and forth conversations via phone and email. Lesley has gone out of her way to work on this piece being perfect for the space. The 13 shades will be made out of black mountain clay. Each one will have a green glazed interior, and white shiny exterior. Our fixture will be smaller than the example shown. The photo titled “glaze options” was taken by Lesley. To see more of Lesley’s designs go to www.lesleyanton.com.

So thank you Jaklyn and thank you Lesley!

Construction began several months ago, and we have been working on the job for about a year now. Our scope includes finishes and lighting for the Entry, two Powder Rooms, Living Room, Dining Room, Kitchen, Library, Family Room, Sun Room, Master Suite, three bedrooms and three full bathrooms. We are also in the process of furnishing the house with area rugs, furniture, window treatments and plug-in lighting.

Here are some “in progress” photos. When a house is opened up, the light can be really fantastic, or pretty grim! The house will have windows pretty soon, then doors. So many people working hard to turn what was already a pretty house into an even nicer home for the lucky owners. We are collaborating with Gast Architects and Matarozzi Pelsinger Builders.

What a beautiful day it was in San Francisco today!

The walls you see that do not have the blue insulation will have regular insulation and sheetrock on the interior. Rick and Bob are standing on one of the ramps that Solid Concrete builds at their job sites. There is something cool about how they make what would otherwise be treacherous working conditions kind of fun and treehouse-like.

Shortly after the lower level walls were poured, the plumbing team started their work by laying in drains and things that go under the base rock of the lower level floor, which, surprise surprise, will be poured concrete. Then in mid-October, excavation began for the front upper portion of the house. The mountain of dirt got moved around again in preparation for the upper floor foundation to be created.

The board forms stay on the concrete for quite a while at this point, mostly to protect the walls from damage. It takes just a few days for the concrete to set.

P.S. Things are happening so quickly on the new house and I am feeling quite behind on the blog. So posts out of sequence seem the most realistic way to keep something up and running!

Friday afternoon of last week the movers picked up our boxes and furniture – Jaklyn and I packed madly for a few days to prepare. Gast Architects, our landlords for four years, threw a lovely going away party that night. I was sad to leave and snapped a shot of the great “stage set” night view I love from the parking lot looking out at some of the apartment buildings across the back alley. This is the building where Northbrook Design has had the opportunity to develop some terrific working relationships, where I met my husband, where I have made near and dear friends, where I have had some delicious drinks at Bar Agricole downstairs, and where I have loved going to work every day for four years.

Saturday morning the movers delivered everything to the new spaces. We did not have any work stations to bring with us so Daniel and Carlos Gomez installed new work stations and cabinetry in just one day – wow. Evan Becker cut the pieces to the appropriate sizes in his shop last week, and built some new cabinets for us to mix in with ones we already had. Bob, my husband, set up our phones and computers on Sunday and at night this week and is helping us get our technology in acceptable shape now that we are just a stone’s throw from the heart of Silicon Valley. Our neighbors in the courtyard are completely paperless – they have work tables, lap tops, iPhones and that is it – very inspiring to think about how Northbrook can work in new ways.

Since arriving, our time has pretty much been taken up with getting situated. However, Jaklyn and I have found a little time to try out some of the fine offerings in the new hood which is right downtown. So far a big thumbs up!

Our new contact info is as follows:
Northbrook Design
626 Jefferson Avenue, Studio 7
Redwood City, CA 94063
T: 650 257 3229

What inspires interior designers varies so much.  It can be seeing patterns wherever you go like I do, or a beautiful flower arrangement with colors in it that you would not otherwise have thought go well together, or just experiencing a space and taking note of what works.

I love seeing what the vendors are making already this season – gorgeous garlands in bay, magnolia, doug fir, noble fir, cedar, redwood.  Some have pomegranates and fruit, others have pine cones and pepper berries.  I am taking a pair of custom made wreaths to a client’s home this afternoon.  Northbrook Design has been helping this family with holiday decorating for over ten years!

I could not resist picking up a few things for my house too.  My mother arrives tomorrow and we need a little holiday cheer to welcome her.

Happy Holidays everyone this rainy Friday.

The wall forms are progressing.  The work takes time and cannot be rushed.  That was hard to write as I am not a very patient person. One side of Bathroom 3′s wall is formed.  The wood planks are so pretty.  While this is happening, the wood structure for Bedroom 3 is started.  It is exciting to see the walls take shape.

The “finished grade” is the exterior surface we will walk on in it’s final state – at it’s proper “height”.  For now the site is in an excavation phase, so the surface we walk on is below grade.  It is hard to picture what it will feel like when the site gets backfilled and we are walking on something closer “to grade”.  That photo of the pen mark on a wall is the BBQ wall.

In the BBQ wall there are outlets, a j-box for a light fixture, switches and gas lines.  All have to be precisely located as poured concrete is quite final – not a lot of give once it has cured!

The retaining walls have cool ramps to walk along, and so do the board form house walls.

Around this time we see the first wall uncovered – the color came out so well and we love the finished surface – definitely an A+ result.  This is the East retaining wall which we will walk by when we exit the downstairs exterior door at the base of the interior stairs.

The concrete walls formed with plywood (instead of stacked 6″ wood planks) are what a lot of of us would think of as foundation walls – concrete walls hidden from sight or creating a mechanical room.

Our concrete foundation/house walls will go all the way to finished floor of the second story, so as you can see, they are quite tall!

Many things start to happen at once, the Fountain wall plumbing, house walls begin, and retaining walls are formed.  And all of a sudden the Mechanical Room looks sort of like a room.  Liner braces allow the retaining wall forms to be adjusted.

The fountain wall has a bench starting to zig zag away from it. The first step is a footing, then there will be, you guessed it, a concrete bench!

Solid Concrete started to set up the forms for the BBQ and Fountain walls.  The 6″ high wood boards are treated with a type of varnish, then stacked evenly.  The concrete will take on the wood’s pattern.  Rebar is being set in what will be the middle of the concrete walls. I like the “chairs” that are used to keep the rebar from touching the wood.