The first bouquet cut from the garden.

How did anyone plan a renovation before Pinterest?! It’s been so much fun browsing beautiful images for inspiration. Here’s a small selection of the photos that inspired me the most, and some pics of the materials & fixtures we’ve already selected.

The exterior will be dark–almost black–with crisp white window and door trim for contrast:

The interiors will mix textured white walls (formerly knotty pine!) with black steel accents and black door hardware:

The kitchen will have white cabinets, open wood shelves, and exposed wood trim around the cabinet doors and drawers . . .

With backsplash of luminous white hand-crafted “zellige” clay tiles . . .

And quartzite counters in “White Nile.”

The new bathrooms will have floors with encaustic cement tiles in graphic patterns of white, grey, and black. . .

With crisp white tile on the walls, and a deep soaking tub in one bath . . .

And a roomy shower stall in the other bath.

We’ll keep things feeling modern with the lighting. . .

And (of course) the woodworking bench-turned-bar will have a prominent place in front of the big picture window!

If all goes according to plan, I can make you a cocktail at that bar in late October or early November.

We’re not messing around here. With the building permit issued on a Thursday, we arranged for the demolition crew to start the following Monday.

But Lev just couldn’t wait–over the weekend he was determined to strip the overgrown pergola of years of accumulated vines and dead leaves. That’s him, on top of the damn thing, going to town with his loppers:

He got the job done in just a few hours–and without crashing through the rickety old wood slats.

But then the professionals took over. In just two days, they were able to strip the kitchen and both bathrooms down to the studs. Here are some shots of the demo in progress:

With one more day’s work, all the debris was hauled off. But not before I snapped some shots of my redneck front yard:

And then they dismantled the deck (unfortunately revealing the extensive dry-rot of the support structure underneath):

But hey, compared to the unpleasant (and expensive) surprises I encountered on the Scott Street project (new water service, new sewer line, new sidewalks), a little dry-rot doesn’t get me down!

Apparently, things move fast at Butterfly House.  I closed escrow on a Tuesday, and we had the building permit in hand on Thursday. A new speed record?

And with permit in-hand, we signed up a contractor–a super nice guy who’s done beautiful work all around Napa Valley. We got lucky that his “small jobs” team (yeah, this is considered small around here) had an opening in their schedule and were able to slot us in right away. So we are ready to roll!

As I’ve told anyone (everyone) who asks about Butterfly House, this sweet little house needs some serious TLC. Really. “Oh, I’m sure it’s not that bad,” they reply. “Oh, yes it is,” I say.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Here are some “before” pics to give you a flavor of what we started with.

The exterior is peach—a color that was last in fashion sometime in the early 1990’s:

It’s got lots of knotty pine. On the walls. On the ceilings. So much knotty pine, and so dark:

Mom, you would have liked the frogs on the mantel:

Then there’s the dated bathrooms:

An old, rickety deck and an overgrown pergola (which made the house even darker, with all the shade it cast):

And the little kitchen was so sad, I didn’t even take any pictures.

But we are moving fast to turn this tired old house into a jewel-box of a cottage!