Thanks Patrick Sheehan! The Filipino traditional dance tapestry that my parents had bought when we lived in Spain in the 1970’s has arrived. The original one with the blue background survived my mom’s fire in 2016 and was then professionally cleaned. However, it was then incinerated in my fire in January. Now it is officially replaced thanks to Patrick’s efforts in finding this redder, reflective version. It’s still very nostalgic for my siblings and me. The fact that I have a Filipino partner now makes it even more cool. The pictures below demonstrate what it looked like with my cathedral ceiling before the fire. When my house is renovated and I move home I intend to replace it with this new one and uplight it with my smart home at sunset every day like I used to do. It was really cool to look up and see this when one walked into the foyer, even though it was nerve-wracking getting that high on a ladder to hang it.
Some of my patio furniture (that I loved placing all over the backyard so there were places to nap in the sun as it moved across the sky) was completely incinerated in the fire. Some of it was untouched, but others were scorched and damaged, perhaps even in the chaos of the firemen and moving things around for the first construction to secure the house.
While they look like simple pieces of furniture, I’ve enjoyed having these large ottomans to turn a regular couch or chair into a lounge. They are also specifically enjoyed by my dogs, including the blind ones. However, when you have blind dogs there are certain furniture accommodations one should make.
First, you should not arbitrarily move furniture around if you don’t have to. You should also not have ROCKING chairs that are likely to catch tails or paws. Gliders are far safer! Lastly, you should not have cushions that slip off as soon as a dog jumps on them. That was one of my biggest problems with these.
Below are all the steps I took to fix them after the fire, but here is a gallery of the damage and fixes.
Both of these ottomans had one or two legs each which had broken. I was going to throw them out, but one by one I fixed all the problems.
Legs Broken Off – With at least one of the ottomans I could sit it down and have it look even, but the moment it moved a millimeter, it was lopsided again. One morning I thought I had nothing to lose, so I took very long screws that were literally discarded in the garden of my home under construction and drilled them straight up the legs for these, not caring what they would look like or if they would scrape on the concrete, and regardless of how much rattan material had come loose on the leg. To my amazement that fixed all the legs and so the lopsidedness was gone on both ottomans. If the screw head gets scraped, no big deal.
Stains, Rips & Residue – As you can see in the pictures, some of the cushions through the fire were scorched so they have holes. Some of them were ripped and torn. Turning them over to make sure their “best sides” were showing works well, but then some of the residue from the damn velcro pads remained. Velcro is what these pieces originally came with to supposedly hold them in place, which never made sense to me because the cushion covers were sold as “washable.” How are you going to wash something that necessarily needs to be stuck with velcro in five different places? Not only that, but when I put my legs on the former velcro sticky areas, it stuck to my pants. I’m sure it would have stuck to my legs and was probably unpleasant for the dogs as well, so something had to be done. I used AI to search best ways to remove sticky residue from fabric and one of the options was to use baking soda. I had accidentally ordered a lifetime supply of baking soda, so I liberally applied some and used a silicon scrubbing pad to remove almost all of it. The footprints for these velcro patches remain, but the appearance of that side of the pillow is still devoid of tears and scorched holes, so it reminds me less of the fire and is still the best choice to be facing upwards. You have to struggle to see the orange discoloration from the fire on the pillow when it is face down, so that is also a good argument for the former velcro side being up. So much of the residue is gone, that one can now comfortably use the cushion without any resistance.
Adherence to Rattan – Speaking of velcro, as I mentioned, the velcro that came with them was always insufficient and never quite seemed to fit right. The pillows always seemed to be askew. Recently, when I bought brand new ottomans with glider lounge chairs I noticed that these new ones came with clasps like in the picture below. I thought to myself how brilliant it was. I Youtubed and Google’d and AI’d the best way to buy them, but the problem persisted on how to adhere them to the cushions. Then I came across this guy in the video below, whose cushions would always fly away. I also live in a windy area and have learned that especially in Spring I need to weigh or tie things down. Well his solution of using a sharp object like an ice pick (I used a small Philips screwdriver) to poke a hole next to the piping of the pillow at a diagonal, allows one to poke a zip tie through. I then put the zip tie through the rattan and voila, no more floating pillows! My blind dog definitely appreciates this when she jumps up on the ottoman and everything stays in place!
Material things were never the priority in my thoughts when I suffered the horrible fire in January, but a lot of people don’t know that I have been surviving fires since I was a child and the one that killed my five precious dogs was the SIXTH one of my life. Eight years ago my family home was destroyed by fire.
The tapestry that was extremely similar to the one Shea is holding here was “lost” even though the other tapestry below was professionally cleaned and was returned to me. When I started looking for the Filipino-themed tapestry that survived the 2016 fire, coincidentally this “Aladdin-themed” one (as my parents described it) came up first. You can see that the blue-er version of the Filipino traditional dance tapestry hung in my home before the January fire that burned up 99% of my belongings. I almost gave up my search, but my amazing friend Patrick Sheehan (who I used to swoon over when I would see him on the subway when we commuted to work in New York City years ago) found it online within a few seconds when I asked him about it.
Similarly, he did the same thing for a hand-carved dresser that is currently en route from Warsaw, but that’s another long story I’ll post about when it arrives.
Now I will end up with BOTH tapestries replaced even though this first one wasn’t in my life these past eight years. This is very healing and helps me cope with the bit of family nostalgia, even though they are just close facsimiles to the ones I grew up with.
November 2024
This carpet is similar to the one that never got cleaned after Mom’s fire in 2016. My parents bought a very similar one with the reddish part a more blue color in the 1970s when we lived in Spain. I was upset that the original was not professionally cleaned after Mom’s fire, so I assume they stole it since nothing in the main part of my mom’s house was incinerated (only the garage).
I did notice that the blue and red versions of the Filipino tapestry are reflections of each other. That is NOT the case with the “Aladdin” one.
This carpet was bought at the same time and WAS professionally cleaned after my mom’s fire in 2016. Unfortunately, I lost it in MY fire in January 2024.
So, I also ordered another that an art expert friend found online for me, so this is what it will look like:
Now up to four fountains (3 solar) including one fountain that was close to ground zero during the fire, which I glued back together and re-wire. Eventually, they will all be solar. The birds (especially hummingbirds) love the tallest fountain. Of course, they are staged at the rental house, but I’ll bring them home when my house rebuild finishes. Just hearing the water trickle reminds me of home, though.
I started to collect “cranberry” glass from thrift stores inspired by Barbra Streisand’s book on design. Before the fire, I had an entire bay window full of different colored glass, but there’s something magical about varying hues of the same color put together (in odd numbers of pieces, of course). We’ll see how much I can find in the years to come.
I estimate 99% of my indoor belongings were incinerated or damaged so much by the fire, and not too much of that was able to be professionally cleaned (mostly some clothes).
Just recently while moving my outdoor plants behind the retaining wall to keep them out of the way from the construction crew one of my mom’s ceramic pieces (signed by her with her name carved into the bottom) became another casualty of the process. It had a plant in it, so I thought it was best to leave it on the premises and leave it outside, but it still broke and the plant survived.
While it was a long shot, because of the four pieces it was left in, I was able to gather the three biggest pieces. I glued them not realizing a gap would be remaining in the bottom. I will no longer put plants in it, but I might come up with some kind of band-aid solution for the gap that remains (or not). This is the result. It’s still pleasant to look at, and I’m glad at least I have some of the things my mom painted and touched. She had her own kiln and used molds, of course, but she hand-glazed and hand-painted thousands of pieces like this one.
I think these are the first pictures of the dogs and me together in the backyard since the fire.
I stopped by the house and was pleased to see the tarp over it since the roof is still incomplete. Sadly, plenty of rain still got inside, but hopefully, it won’t cause too much damage or set us back significantly.
I was also pleased to see a new skylight kit for the family room. Hopefully this skylight is even bigger than the one I had installed.
More pictures from the garden. I noticed some of the trees had been pruned. I suspect this is because they were in the way when they put the tarp on.
These are more or less the “before” pictures of the windmill trapped by overgrown foliage and way too much bamboo that has taken over the second tier of the garden.
Spending more time than I have since the fire itself, Shea and I bought new gardening tools to remove a ton of bamboo manually, pruning other bushes to free a bunch of plants. We determined the lemon tree was not completely dead. I watered plants and took a bunch of things home to neaten them up. I organized my gardening area and cleared lots of burned-out gardening supplies. I created a large pile of debris that is just not worth keeping. It’s amazing so many months later to not have touched so many things that have been outside all this time.
I’m overjoyed today after being so stressed out over the rebuild. It’s heartening to see my home look more like a house from the street and when I’m standing within the house. Most of the (first layer) roof is now installed. Not seeing the sky for the first time in months gives me huge comfort. I thought it was cute to see hills and tall trees from inside my house, but that got old fast. Now I feel like I can sense what having my home back will feel like as it’s so much easier to imagine a future there. Having this facade of a shelter did so much for my psyche today. We also noticed that the area where the fire first started has numerous replaced beams.
The largest remaining roof opening is the area where the remaining beams need some replacement. By and large, most of the existing trusses were able to be used. I am still having nightmares about fire and other tragedies, which have spiked in recent weeks, perhaps because of the stress of the election. Still, it’s nice to know that there is a substantive countdown in my near future beyond the one for this country and the world. The picture from outside the front gate is courtesy of wonderful neighbor Larry Miller who informed me of this huge step forward.
I recently re-read Barbra Streisand’s first book called “My Passion for Design,” which was particularly inspiring as I’m literally rebuilding my house that burned down. On her barn house she had a 14-foot water wheel installed, so I looked around at the various replacement water features I’m going to have in my backyard and found this fabulous fiberglass number which is even more beautiful in person than I could have imagined, and larger than I expected. I’m joking that rather than having a 14-FOOT water wheel, mine is 14 inches, but that’s fine. The sensation and pleasant sounds are the same. There are other inspirations she’s given me like avoiding some harsher colors and lighting and collecting cranberry glass.
While this model came with an electric plug, after my house fire experience which initiated from the general area where I had an electric fountain, I will replace all fountain electric plugs with solar power. I already have two fountains with this, and it was very inexpensive to purchase a separate power source with a solar panel to power them. It simplifies the wiring, and placement in the garden and doesn’t have any chance of causing a chain reaction that could cause an electrical short or sparks.
Hummingbirds are now regularly using the solar-powered artichoke-shaped fountain to stop fluttering, drink, and bathe. I happened to be sitting in the best spot when I took this footage.
New location for solar spinners, and new configuration:
This was almost dismissed as a weed, was at my real home, but Shea noticed it was a tomato plant. Now it’s about to turn red, which is exciting. It’s the first tomato I’ve actually helped grow, although there were several tomato plants producing when I first moved into my home from the previous owner.
Below you can see the two solar trees that I’m testing out. Their solar panels might have been covered for months by foliage or dirt.
We brought some plants from my home to the rental to work on repotting, etc. I’m using a donated Ethan Allen dining room table as my garden table, which I feel guilty about, but it is slightly warped and the chairs that came with it had some mold, so I discarded them without thinking months ago. In hindsight, they probably would have been worthwhile to re-upholster, but things were moving so quickly right after the fire and I made a lot of rash decisions.
Everything I do in this yard is to stage for my own home. I’m trying to enjoy the serenity of it even though I resent being here. I’d rather be at my house, but there is no electricity. At least at my house, there is some outdoor furniture that is comfortable to sit on and potable water from the hose. I don’t really need wifi since I have a mobile network, but it’s just not the same.
Even some of the new furniture I bought I now have some buyer’s remorse about. For example, the extra large recliner was a death trap. I can barely get out of it with all the strength in my legs. The dining room table I bought new looked perfect in the catalog, but what I could not see was that the tiny grooves on the top do nothing but collect crumbs and make the table impossible to wipe down. It’s like going backward to a tiled countertop after having quartz.
