It's About Time for a Tim Update

Remember Tim? The rather overwhelming remodeling project we have going on here at Woodhaven? The one we started in March? The one that we left the country for two months to escape?

Yeah, he’s still here. But he’s starting to pack his bags to finally leave. YAHOO!!!

Ugh. And that was with a dust barrier.

I haven’t posted much about Tim because, well, we weren’t here. And blessedly, there wasn’t much to write about.

While we were frolicking about, Randy very kindly sent us progress photos, and Mel texted a few updates. Largely, we went on the “no news is good news” theory and correctly assumed that our implicitly trusted contractors were handling any minor questions that arose.

Tim (and Randy) in late May right before
we left for the 33-day cruise.

I spent a few panicked weeks from afar after the walls were painted. The warm yellow and soothing blue that we so carefully chose suddenly looked BOLD and BRIGHT in the photos. I kept telling myself to trust the process and our decisions. To trust the extensive time I had spent with the "La Luna Amarilla" and "Vast Sky" paint chips placed in so many locations in different lighting at different times of the day.

It's crazy how different the color is even in
different parts of the room. Regardless, it's
a lot of yellow. Or, rather, La Luna Amarilla.

At times the blue is even bluer.
But this was bluer than I expected. 

The very late night we returned to Woodhaven, I tried to sneak a peek at the yellow to calm my nerves. But our back door wouldn’t open. I was too tired to sleuth (it was an over-achieving floor trim piece that has since been replaced), so I waited until the next morning to look. I sort of freaked out. The yellow and blue were indeed bolder and brighter than the little one-inch swatches had promised. I cringed.

Even more yellow. And you can see a VERY
blue wall of our breakfast nook poking around the 
corner. Also note the first 4 panels of the cabinetry
compared to the second 4 panels. We call this
foreshadowing.

I told myself again to trust the process and our decisions. And thankfully, as the swirly quartz countertops arrived and black appliances were installed and the next round of protective floor covering was pulled up, the colors – and my nerves – calmed. I now love the yellow and blue, even though we still have another week or two to go before I see all the decisions come together.

It’s been hard being home the past few weeks. Our wisdom to leave for 2 months was confirmed quickly, as we had multiple contractors flowing in and out, a driveway filled with construction trucks, so much noise and dust, and the need to deftly bounce from decision to task to conundrum. By Day 2 of Re-Entry, we were pretty fried and longing to be back on a cruise ship. Jet lag didn't help.

Countertop installers. I think the 
electrician was also there that day.

On Day 6 of Re-Entry, we got new carpeting in our master closet. We had quite a bit of surplus from the recarpeting of our dining room, so it seemed genius to replace the 22-year-old stuff in our closet “for free.” Genius until we realized we had to completely empty the closet to avoid covering all our clothes, shoes, and accessories in carpet dust. Fabulous.

Still jet-lagged and trying to quickly regroup to fly to Southern California for a family situation on Day 5 of Re-Entry, we interrupted laundry and breathing to relocate our closet to the only surfaces we have access to: our bedroom. We stayed in a hotel for two nights until we put the newly carpeted closet back together. It looks fantastic! And it is so delightfully squishy! So as the frantic Closet Relocation memories fade, I can say that the effort was totally worth it. Especially since we will not have to do it again for another 20 years. 

Not shown: the source of me finally
conceding I perhaps have a lot of shoes.

I’m profoundly relieved to say that Tim has behaved quite well throughout this adventure. The biggest surprises have come from the cabinet maker, and all since we have returned from our travels.

One wood panel was stained incorrectly and had to be removed, remade, and reinstalled. I felt sorry for the uninstaller, as that panel was never supposed to budge. 

When we were texted the photo, we hoped it was
just a cell phone lighting thing. Nope. Not only was
the stain different, the finish was different, too.
We're all mystified how it got as far as being
installed without anyone noticing.

We also discovered a section of the toe kick under the wall oven was strangely stripey. That fix is still in the works, along with some missing hardware and a few other decorative pieces. I was starting to lose faith in the cabinet folks, but Randy assured me they are very good and are making fewer mistakes than average on a kitchen remodel. Yikes!! I clearly have high expectations, which I thought were just normal expectations. Sigh.

The best guess is the stain wasn't dry when the
board was put on a rack.

In MUCH better news, there have been significant signs in the past couple of days that we are nearing the finish line. YAHOOOOOO!!!!

Melissa (BLESS HER!) started the “post-construction deep clean” today. She will be back tomorrow. And probably a third day. So. Much. Dust.

We got the green light to schedule Yury to come next week to move back all the heavy furniture he Jenga-ed into our living room back on March 26. Almost exactly 4 months of using our living room as a storage unit.

Our Amazon account has been re-awakened with deliveries arriving soon of curtains and chair pads and placemats. I will get to nest and decorate soon!

And today our bedroom door to the rest of the house was unsealed! We are free to move about the cabin!! We don’t have to traipse through the backyard to leave the house, go upstairs, do laundry, answer the front door, or get a snack out of the garage fridge! The freedom is heady!!! I can retire my extra house key and flashlight!! The exclamation points are not an exaggeration! This is a GLORIOUS DAY!

I never appreciated how awesome
this door is when it is open.

With any luck, we will have Woodhaven largely back together by the time my beloved Fair starts on August 7 (FAIR!!). I’m already having chats with my eager, goal-oriented self about the importance of balancing what my heart wants with what my body can do. Prayers needed and appreciated!

The painters are coming tomorrow to deal with all
the little blue tape markers.

Here’s the Story – Part 2

Back in February 2020, right before the world got super duper weird, Rob gave me one of the best gifts EVER. He drove me to North Hollywood to see the Brady Bunch house.

I won’t go into detail – my February 6, 2020 blog about that visit can fill you in. Suffice it to say, I am a HUGE Brady Bunch fan. HUGE. Enormous. Big Time Brady Fan Girl right here.

Back in 2020, the best a superfan could do was drive up to the house and gaze at it from across the street. There was a security guard positioned in the driveway preventing any lingering, and absolutely no approaching the front door. But that was good enough, since visiting the interior was completely incomprehensible.  

Fast-forward to September 2023. HGTV decided it had gotten all the ratings it could from totally renovating the house’s interior to match the studio sets the series had been filmed on. The network put the iconic house on the market and a fellow Brady Bunch Superfan named Tina snatched it up for a groovy $3.2 million. Reportedly Tina’s husband, the former CEO of HBO, had only one question for her: “Have you lost your mind?” Apparently he thought his Gen X wife wanted to live in the house.

Oh, to be so lucky!

So what did Tina actually want to do with the house? Well, first she got it designated as a Historical-Cultural Monument by the City of Los Angeles. Then she decided to share it with fellow Brady Superfans.

The Bradys' house is the first property in
Los Angeles to get this protection
as a filming location outside of a studio lot.
The designation protects the outside AND
the inside. How groovy is that?!

WHAT?!?

Yes, you can buy tickets – with proceeds going to Tina’s favorite animal shelter – for a one-hour visit inside the totally furnished Brady Bunch house!! Truly! Yes, I pretty much bounced off the couch chanting, "Take my money!" when I learned this.

When I first read about this opportunity, I thought for sure it was only for fancy people. Connected people. Industry people. Not for a 58-year-old woman whose only Hollywood connection is once posing for a photo with Ted Danson and an alpaca.

Back in 2011 when we were all
much younger.

Because I have the most amazing and supportive husband EVER, today I was a passenger princess as Rob drove across the trafficky Los Angeles metro to make my dreams come true.

Yes, we spent an hour INSIDE the Brady Bunch House today! IT WAS INCREDIBLE!!

I was just a few yards ahead of Rob out of 
unbridled excitement to GET INSIDE!!

When I knocked on the front door as instructed, it slowly opened to reveal a friendly woman in a blue maid’s dress welcoming us inside. We were asked to take off our shoes, wear provided socks and booties, and not touch anything or sit on the furniture. “Treat it as a museum.” We could, however, take photos with abandon and wander on our own.

The door knobs are PERFECT!
It felt surreal just standing there.

Fortunately, all of this information had been provided ahead of time via email. Because once I was inside The Bradys’ house, my listening ears turned off. Instead, I heard the voices of my adopted TV family speaking a mishmash of dialogue from 117 memorized episodes. I spent the next hour walking around with an enormous smile, wide eyes, and a couple of times, tears.

OH. MY. GOSH!!!!!!!!!

I was not expecting to feel so emotional in The Bradys’ house.

I gasped at the sight of The Staircase. I smiled at the couch in Mike’s den where Jan sat and lamented, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” I stared at the groovy 1960s rectangular art at the foot of the staircase, realizing how it is instantly identifiable by any fan. It was all absolutely perfect.

I wanted to touch EVERYTHING!

There it is!! Every Brady fan knows
that paneling!

The tears came when I entered the Brady girls’ bedroom upstairs. I stood in the middle of the room, taking in the three pink bedspreads, the giraffe stuffed animal in the corner, Kitty Karry-All on Cindy’s bed. It was so familiar, so comfortable, so nostalgic. Suddenly, it struck me.

“Oh my gosh. I grew up in this bedroom.”

This was after the tears. And please ignore
the fashion booties.

And that was it. That was the emotion. The Brady House was home. My home. I grew up there. I watched multiple episodes every day after school for years. When I told my mother-in-law a few days ago that we were going to see the inside of the Brady Bunch house, she asked if there would be a tour guide. My reply? “I don’t need one!”

It was fascinating to me which rooms I felt the most drawn to. The girls’ bedroom was the strongest. The kitchen, too. And Mike and Carol’s bedroom. And the dining room table. And the couch in the living room.

I hate to cook and yet, I totally
wanted to hang out in this kitchen.

The screen behind us really got me. I have
no idea why. But wow, it was important
to me to see it.

Sadly, the best photo I have of the
dining room table. It was hard to balance
being present, being in awe, and being 
a photographer.

I wasn’t as emotionally drawn to Greg’s attic bedroom or the family room or the boys’ bedroom or the backyard. I have no idea why.

It took me about 30 minutes to take my first lap. I then sat on a step in the entryway and tried to be fully present in one of the most surreal moments of my life. It sort of worked.

I still can't believe I was there.

On my second lap, I tried to notice all the little Easter Eggs that were scattered around the house, each a reference to a well-known storyline.

The architectural drawings of Beebe Gallini’s powder puff-shaped factory. Marcia’s drawing of George Washington that was mistaken for Mrs. Denton. The box of Safe Detergent in the laundry room. The egg on the pylon at the front of Mike’s convertible. The stack of letters to “Dear Libby.” The book about Jesse James that got Bobby in trouble. The typewritten gossip column written by Peter. The silver anniversary platter. Alice’s white sneakers. Jan’s wig.

Mike's drafting table in his den!
The powder puff is on the left, the
plans on the right are HGTV's plans
for renovating the original structure.

Marcia drew George Washington.
Then Paula found it and added the unflattering
note about Mrs. Denton. Marcia was in 
BIG trouble when the teacher found it.
Luckily, Paula fessed up and all was well
within 24 minutes.

The letters each of the kids and Alice
wrote to an advice columnist.

Alice's Keds!

The recreation of the Bradys’ house was astounding. The attention to detail was incredible. I kept forgetting the series was not actually filmed in the house. It was so real, so perfect, so complete. I was even more incredulous when I was told that there was only one original item in the entire house; everything else had been tracked down through antique stores and online searches to replicate what had appeared on the show. The Love of Brady runs deep.

The red sleeping bag is the only 
original item. It was in the episode
where Marcia has a slumber party.

Rob and I were the last to leave. We found out that Tina allows a maximum of 8 people to come inside the house each day from 12:30-1:30pm. There were just two other couples walking around with us, equally mesmerized and lost in memories. We all looked about the same age, all giddy and appreciative. We were mostly quiet, with whispered, “OH, WOW!” and “Come look at this!” One woman softly laughed and asked, “Why are we so quiet?”

I smiled at her and answered, “Reverence.”

My 8-year-old and my 58-year-old
brains are both utterly flabbergasted
by this photo!!!

I changed my mind about Copenhagen

We had a long day in Copenhagen today. Our booked tour wasn’t until 4:30pm, so we decided to explore a little on our own. After deftly (actually, it was just discernment and an ooky feeling) avoiding a scammy tour operator, we got ourselves on a Hop On Hop Off bus and toured around Denmark’s capital. Due to technical difficulties with our headphones and lots of extra time, we rode around on the Black Line twice.

Copenhagen is a very pretty city. Similar architecture to Helsinki and Stockholm (that Nordic Renaissance style again), with more blending of old and new. It has castles and royalty and a canal and remnants of a fortress wall and guards that change. It even a famous statue sitting in the water.

Entrance to the Rosenborg Castle which was
just hanging out on a street in Copenhangen.
The castle was originally built as a
country summerhouse in 1606.

Copenhagen City Hall. I thought it was a palace.
Nope, just a 19th-century office building.

This is a pretty famous spot called Nyhavn. Lots
of shopping and tourists. It sort of reminded me (on
the ground level) of Fisherman's Wharf in
San Francisco. 

Royal Guards on their way to Amalienborg Palace
to change shifts. Our tour bus tailgated them for a bit.

The famous Little Mermaid statue.
It was a popular tourist attraction
long before the Disney movie. I know
that because Vicki and Captain Stubing
went there at least 5 years before
the animated classic came out.

The Little Mermaid is very small. If you squint,
you can see her just above the green bushes
below the red signs on the left.

Copenhagen has all the stuff you'd want in a large, historical European city. And yet, both Rob and I were just ho hum about it. It wasn’t special or particularly interesting or especially memorable. At least not like Stockholm. Other than the bicycles.

Goodness, there are TONS of bicycles in Copenhagen! I thought Portland was a bike city. HA! Novices, all of them.

Copenhagen’s bike lanes are wide, some even have stop lights, and pedestrians know to watch out for bikes as much as cars. Large chunks of sidewalks are dedicated to bicycle parking, with some looking like parking lots. Many Copenhageners ride their own bikes, but temporary rentals are popular, too. And helmets? Meh. Some people wear them, but they are clearly not required.

I kept trying to see if people locked up their bikes.
It seemed like many did...and many didn't.

I was fascinated by little carts that a lot of bikes had attached to their front. At first I thought the carts were for carrying groceries. And I suppose you could. But instead, I only saw the carts carrying people (and in one instance, a large dog). I couldn’t tell if they were paid rides, or people who knew each other and rock-paper-scissored for which one got to be the passenger princess. It was bizarre to see grown-ups being carted around like toddlers.

I would have been mortified at that
age to be chauffeured around like that.
At 58? My knees and back are not
getting me out of that thing, so 
no, thank you. Maybe that's why
the older woman is driving?

Given our lukewarm reaction to our morning ride around Copenhagen, Rob and I were less excited about our booked Canal Ride and Tivoli Garden visit. Well…what a difference a tour makes. We got to see other parts of Copenhagen – parts that felt more hidden and more local – and we changed our minds. Copenhagen has some spunk after all!

The canal ride was fascinating. Instead of touring inside the city like we assumed, we went on the outskirts. We got to see some fascinating architecture of newer buildings as well as the totally beguiling way some Copenhageners live on the water. Trendy apartments, repurposed military barracks and gun boat houses, lots of small bridges, tons of waterside bars and steps to hang out on. It looked so relaxing and social and fun. And so lively on a Wednesday evening! I didn't take a ton of photos because I didn't want to be That Tourist.

Copenhagen's Opera House. It's a little hard to 
see, but the base is round. Inside is a round concert
hall made out of maple wood for the acoustics.
In other news, this opera house is one of the most
expensive ones ever built (about $370 million in 2004).

A personal sauna on a personal dock.

We also saw people knitting, drinking, and 
playing the guitar. Not all at once...

Tons of sunbathers, drinkers, chatters, and 
general hanger-outers.

We ended our day at Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli is basically a small amusement park in the midst of Big City Copenhagen. Founded in 1843, Tivoli Gardens is the second-oldest amusement park in the world and boasts having the world’s oldest roller coaster. Sadly, they don’t boast loudly enough because I didn’t know that until after we left. Boo!

Main entrance in the heart of
Copenhagen

We weren’t sure what to expect from Tivoli, other than what we had seen on a two-part episode of “The Love Boat” in Season 8 when Vicki falls in love with a Danish Prince who is pretending to be a deckhand. Yes, fine, that episode is what got me excited about Copenhagen when I first saw it on our itinerary. I plan to watch it again when we get back home.

We were given two hours to wander Tivoli's amusements on our own. It was just long enough to take a lap around the gardens and sit a spell, and just short enough not to be able to really settle in and do anything. Like go on a ride or eat a proper meal in one of the many lovely restaurants featuring linen tablecloths and wine lists.

A main meeting point that instantly reminded me
of Disneyland's central hub on Main Street USA
with the statue of Walt and Mickey

I had a hard time figuring out what Tivoli Gardens is supposed to be. Yes, it’s an amusement park, with a smattering of rides for little kids and a smaller smattering for thrill-seeking teenagers. It’s also a gorgeous middle-of-urbanity escape into curated nature, with beautiful flowers and trees and water features. It had a feeling of old-timey Jules Verne/Steampunk design, but it also had a few modern rides and a deep dedication to recycling and being ecofriendly.

Isn't that stunning?? The castle in the back is 
not part of the Gardens. It's part of Copenhagen.

The little air balloons are the Ferris Wheel!
The ride was originally steam-powered.
The version today was inaugurated in 1943.

Tons of food, beer, and odd Danish food
restaurants. Oh to have more time!

Apparently I paid about 75 cents extra
for my plastic cup, which I could then 
return here. Naturally, it's coming
home as a souvenir.

Tivoli Gardens felt like a super small Disneyland. Actually, it felt like what inspired Walt in designing Disneyland. And some Googling later confirmed that’s exactly what happened. Walt hung out at Tivoli a number of times, taking copious notes. Tivoli had little areas with their own themes, there was a main square, there was beautiful landscaping, it was impeccably clean, it was an escape from what surrounds it. All hallmarks of Walt's magic kingdoms.

A little Taj Mahal, a little Matterhorn, a little
Jules Verne-ish tower. And see any litter?
Me, neither. 

The English version of the map. Which Rob
found on our way out. The Danish one we had
during our visit was rather tricky!

But what Walt did much better was create a bubble. At Disney, you purposely can’t see the world outside. You are drawn into Walt’s world, and you get lost in the magic and wonder. As enchanting as Tivoli is, the outside world is all too visible. Granted, some of what is visible are castles. But there are also office buildings and construction cranes and double-decker tour buses.

Some Japan, a modern roller coaster,
and an even more modern office
building in the background.

I highly enjoyed my wander around Tivoli Gardens, but it was too short. I would have loved time to linger over a nice dinner, and I would have loved to stay late enough to see all the lights come on. Our tour description enticingly included “brightly lit at night with over 100,000 colored lights, the Gardens look as if it belongs in a fairy tale.” The description neglected to mention that the sun doesn’t set until nearly 10:00pm this time of year. Our ship left at 9:00pm. So, we had a sunlit glass of wine instead.

I bet that wall of lights looks magical
in the dark. You know, after the ship
has long gone...

We enjoyed a glass of rose and watched some
of Tivoli Gardens go by. It was lovely. And too short.

So, I will remember Copenhagen after all! I will remember its bicycle carts, I will remember the lively canal neighborhoods, and I will remember a lovely walk around the beautifully charming but confusing Tivoli Gardens. I would totally consider a return visit to Copenhagen just for Tivoli Gardens. And Disney fans? Add The Gardens to your Bucket List!

With more time (do you sense a theme?)
I would have tried the Swing Carousel
in the background.

Next stop: Amsterdam, The Netherlands!