Moultrie House and Garden Blog

A new year wish

2007-12-31T08:56:00.000-08:00

May your days be merry and bright...

And may all your house projects be right.

I (heart) Elfa

2007-08-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

At long last, here's a shot of the new pantry shelving we put in. I know that my organization fetish is already legendary, but I don't think it's too extreme to say that I loooooove these shelves. They were a snap to install; in fact, I think it took us longer to remove all the old shelves than to hang the new ones. Each shelf snaps into horizontal brackets on either end, which in turn stick out from upright standards that hang from a single wall-mounted track at the top of the pantry. The only real installation you do is screw the track into the wall; everything else is like Lego.

The new space is far better organized and a lot more efficient than the stock shelving. It's easy to see what's in the back of each shelf because you can peek through the slats of the shelves above (or below, if you're looking up). And the pull-out baskets -- where we're keeping all of our Asian and Mexican ingredients -- are downright dreamy. They're a great way to store all of those jumbly bags and bottles, and you can see everything at a glance just by sliding them out on their smooth rails.

To put it in perspective, this is what the stock version of the pantry looked like:

The old shelves left us with a lot of wasted space, and the door-mounted racks made it really awkward to get into the interior.

Little bits

2007-08-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

We finally got window coverings for the back windows. The bathroom and kitchen windows are solar shades. During the day (on the right) they let in light but cut down on a lot of the glare, and they also give us a bit of privacy. At night (shown on the left), they reflect light from inside and appear opaque.

The bedroom has a wood Venetian blind in cherry stain, to match the furniture. You can't really tell in my photos, but the cords that raise and lower the slats are covered by a nice ribbon tape. There are more window photos on Flickr; let me know if you can't see them -- they're set to Friends and Family access, so you'll need to be logged in.

Still no photos of the pantry... sorry. I suppose it'll end up being a post on the food blog, eventually. We're loving the Elfa pantry system, though, in case you were wondering.

Speaking of MWD, Cameron's been posting a lot about the garden this summer. Here are the links, in case you missed 'em:
The introduction
Our plums
Fruit trees
Hops and herbs

I've got lots and lots and lots of garden photos on Flickr, too.

There's one more post coming about the container garden on the deck (spoiler: nothing's thriving, everything's surviving) and the new window box off the breakfast room, which is too adorable for words:

Mini update

2007-06-25T17:03:00.000-07:00

Not much new around the house yet, but I see your little footprints in my metrics software as you peek in to see what's new, and I feel guilty about leaving you hanging.

We still haven't ordered the *&$# blinds for the back windows, so we're blinking and hiding in the shadows until we get off our butts and do that... maybe tonight, even.

A few little things to tide you over:
1) The shot at the top of the post is from a set of six professional photos of the remodel: Andrew's pix on Flickr

I also wrote about the kitchen part of the remodel here: Cooking up a dream

2) We finally bought a table for the breakfast room. As I mention in the MWF post, it's really just a cheap IKEA stand-in for what we really want, which we didn't think we could afford without a second mortgage. But the other day Cam found some less-than-ridiculously priced bistro tables at a local designer showroom called Cafe Society. Now all we have to do is find some time when we can disappear from the office during their business hours (which are, understandably, geared toward designers and people of leisure.)

3) We've made a few changes to the yard, most notably tearing out the passionfruit vines (candidates for the most eerily invasive plant ever) in favor of hops. And Cam's been busy pruning, weeding, releasing beneficial insects, and otherwise tidying up the place for summer. He's planning on posting a garden update series to the blog soon, so keep an eye out for that. Feel free to take a peek at our Flickr Garden 2007 photoset in the meantime -- we'll add to it as we go, I am sure.

PS: We DID actually organize the pantry. Hm, I need to take pictures of that :D

Done, and done

2007-05-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

The checks are all written, the lockbox is off the front door, the garage is empty of supplies, and we're a-fixin' to change the garage-door keypad code. Woo!

Last week, Sean Love and his crew painted the back of the house, taking it from a mish-mash of pink and yellow to a crisp sage green that's the same as the front color, but lighter. As always, they did an awesome job, kept everything tidy, fixed problems that they hadn't caused, and made the place shine. It's kinda sad how few contractors take such pride in their work. :S

If you're really addicted to remodel pics, there's a house painting (rear) set over on Flickr.

Next up: Window coverings, pantry organization, and (dun-dun-DUN!) a long-overdue garage cleanout. But first, I suspect that we're gonna "lay around the shanty" for a few weeks.

Hallelujia!

2007-05-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

It's done.

All of it.

Every item on the punch list is crossed off. The permits are all final-ed. The kitchen countertops appear to be securely affixed to the cabinets. The bathroom marble vanity has had its scratches removed. And re-removed. The bathroom floor is level. The new sidewalk (and driveway, and drain) is in place. Bryan will pick up his last check tomorrow morning at 7:45am. And then I never have to see his *^&%$ face again.

Halle-frickin-lujia!

----

Things were, I dunno, cartoon-ugly before. We were all playing out our prescribed roles as cranky homeowners, hapless workmen, surly contractors. But then, something snapped. Bryan started accusing us of ugly stuff -- of damaging things ourselves and then blaming it on his crew, that sort of stuff... even though it was clear that nobody (including us, as we'd been in Seattle) had been in the house other than him.

He did a really half-assed job on some of the punch list items. He re-damaged the newly-fixed marble countertop in the bathroom when he re-installed the sink. And then, when we called him on it, he sent Noel to do his dirty work. Which, you know, was OK. Because Noel's a reasonable guy.

Or so we thought.

Then, as we're going down the remaining punch list items with him, he says to Cameron: "You know, we're not just going to keep coming out here forever, fixing things for you."

Oh my god.

I was listening to all of this from the bedroom, as I got ready for work. If I hadn't been standing there in my underwear, I would have thrown open the door and ran him our of the house. I actually reached for the door handle... I was that mad, I didn't care.

Instead, I just sat on the bed and cried.

Cameron and Noel moved outside, and I pulled myself together. I got dressed, and headed into the bathroom to dry my hair. Just then, Noel came back in, spouting more of the same "we need to be DONE here" crap.

I lost it: "Look, Noel -- none of this crap is new. This is ALL stuff that either we've been asking you and Bryan to fix since March, or else it's stuff that your crews have damaged while fixing the other things. We want this job done, too. But for you to say you're not going to come out here and FIX stuff that we've been asking you to fix -- stuff that WE PAID YOU TO DO -- is outrageous."

He at least had the shame to look away.

Anyway, it's done. Over. Finished. Not well or nicely, which is sad. We have a few little other projects we would have loved to send their way in a year or two, but after this last episode, there's no way in hell.

---

One nice thing that came out of the sidewalk re-do: We ended up with a new water-supply pipe, an upgrade that we'd toyed with doing, but wrote off as being too expensive and unnecessary -- we'd gotten some good water-pressure gains just from the new interior pipes and fixtures. But, as Pat's crew were excavating for the trench drain, they realized that the old supply pipe needed to be moved. And moving an 80-year-old pipe isn't gonna happen. So, now we have copper pipe, all the way from the meter to the faucet, which is a lovely thing. And it doesn't take a plumber to realize that the old pipe really did need to be replaced:

If you're curious, here's a Flickr set showing the whole sidewalk / driveway / drain job, from start to finish: CLICK

Q: Why haven't I killed Bryan?

2007-04-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

A. Because then this job would NEVER get done.

Sorry for the prolonged silence. I keep sitting down and trying to blog -- for weeks, now -- and filling up with rage at the thought of explaining all the crap that's going wrong with our previously bulletproof remodel.

The good news: We did move back upstairs on 3/24, just as scheduled. Unfortunately, the previous Friday was basically the last time we saw Bryan until late last week. It's obvious he's moved on, and has had very little interest in finishing our job. We kept telling him, repeatedly, that our punch list filled an entire page in single-spaced 12-point type, but he kept telling us he'd come over "next week" (every week) and take care of it all in an afternoon. Uh, yeah. No.

Nearly a month after the final inspection, we still didn't have handles or knobs in the kitchen, and the only reason it even happened on Saturday was because we got very, very unpleasant with Bryan. But, thank god, my fingertip callouses -- developed from opening drawers by prying them away from the cabinet face by sheer force of will -- won't be getting any thicker!

Once everything got all cleaned up (and once we started walking around barefoot) it became clear that the tile floor in the bathroom had some serious issues. Not only is it not perfectly level -- surprising for a floor that was supposed to be leveled! -- but there's a serious wave to it. So, today Bryan came and removed the toilet, and Vyitek is (we hope) removing all the tile as we speak, and re-leveling the floor. Tomorrow they'll replace all the tile. Oh, and they're also scraping all the grout out from between the shower wall tiles, and regrouting with an epoxy grout that won't bubble. Nice.

The kitchen cabinet door replacements were supposed to arrive before Easter, but our favorite guy Jim lied to us again. They did actually show up last Friday, but Jim gave Bryan the wrong time to meet the Canyon Creek guys at our house, so the doors sat in the garage until the weekend. (And, again, the only reason they're installed is due to threats of violence.)

Oh, and the countertops separated from the drawer cabinets again. Bryan said he'd rig up some way to make the cabinet boxes solid on top, so that we could secure them better... and then disappeared for weeks. When he did finally show up, he was such an ass that I literally had to leave the house and go sit on the stoop. "Why didn't your countertop guy fix this?" "Um, because you said you would, you TOOL."

This was after he insisted on photographic evidence that the plumber had damaged the bathroom countertop. Luckily, my obsessive-compulsive documentary habits came in handy... I could clearly show him where the old scratches were (which are now covered by the sink rim) and where the new ones were "added" by Pat's crew. It got pretty ugly.

And as if this weren't all enough, when Bryan went down to final the permit, he was told that he had to go talk to someone in the inspector's office before they could approve the work. Turns out that an overzealous Public Works inspector (who came to the house to check on our construction parking permits) wrote us up for our sidewalk being out of code. So, now we get to jackhammer up the sidewalk and most of the driveway, to try and bring the flippin' thing into compliance without making it impossible to get a car in the garage.

I guess it wouldn't gall me so much if every other house on the block didn't have the exact same issue... but we're the "winners" of this particularly insane San Francisco lottery. Bryan says he's working on a bid for us -- his back of the envelope guess was a couple thousand dollars, but that was before we started talking about a trough drain to keep downhill rainwater out of the basement/garage. We need this, obviously, and it's stupid to jackhammer up the driveway and NOT do it, but apparently the parts alone are close to $1,000. ( kiss that tax refund goodbye, darlin'. No vacation this year after all...) Oh, and did I mention that we have a mere 90 days to pull the permit, do the work, have it inspected, and final the permit? And that nearly 30 days are gone already, lost to Bryan's disappearing act?

For a slightly cheerier perspective, check out the post about how much we love the new kitchen (and really, we do... we just want this project DONE) over on our other blog. Also check out a pair of Flickr photo sets: Kitchen (Mostly) Done and Bath, Mostly Done.

And hey, Bryan is sloooowly tacking care of the punch list. As of last night, we can finally close the back door.

Stuck at "almost"

2007-03-21T07:06:00.000-07:00

Much to our dismay, not much happened while we were out of town. We're now almost 2 weeks after Bryan said we'd be done (3 weeks ago). I'm sure they've moved on to their next job, and our punch list isn't high on the priorities, but there's a huge chunk of money we haven't paid them, so I hope at least that's motivational.

Noel told Cameron by phone on Friday that 95% of the punch list was crossed off, so we expected to really see progress. Unfortunately, that wasn't true. We still have 20+ items on the list... grrr.

A couple of nice things did happen: The shower door got installed...

the glass is in the transoms...

and the furnace-vent cover got installed...

And boy is it gorgeous. It makes me want to have them re-build all of the vents!!

Despite the fact that many aesthetic items remain undone, technically, we've got the final signoff from the building inspector. At least, we've had the final inspection. There's some notation on the job card about "pending DPW sign-off at 1600 Mission", but I have no idea what that's all about.

We're planning to move upstairs on Saturday, and Bryan knows this -- He's back in town and things seem to be moving a bit more quickly. Mark is also back tomorrow, so we'll be able to get him to finish up the backsplash in the kitchen, and see ifhe can come up with a solution to the bathroom backsplash. (We hate the way the tile on the vanity doesn't line up with the tile on the shower walls... we said as much before Vitek installed it, and he told us we wouldn't notice. We do: It's gross.)

The cleaners are coming today, and Bryan seems to think his crew can get everything else done today. I'll be amazed, but impressed, if that happens.

Floors 'n' flashbacks

2007-03-11T16:27:00.000-07:00

Not much new to report. Bryan left town for his annual vacation this weekend, so Noel is batting cleanup. As suspected, the floor-refinishing torpedoed any other progress on Monday. The floors look good, but not as nice as the ones we've had done by Tom's Hardwood Floors in the past. The nail-holes are much more visible, and the butt-fitting of the strips (yes, I said "butt", Bart) isn't as tidy. But it's fine, and the overall look is stunning.

I moved a bunch of old photos over to Flickr from Ofoto ('scuse me, Kodak Gallery) yesterday. Eventually I'll post them all here with their corresponding "after" shot, but given that we're not done yet, I didn't want to get too far ahead of myself. In any case, they're amusing, and worth a peek: Click Here.

OK, I can't resist -- here's one that pairs with the image in the post below:

Cameron left for NYC this morning; I'll be following on Tuesday, so there may not be any new posts for a week or so. Hopefully, the end result will be worth the wait. :)

Painfully close

2007-03-09T11:17:00.000-08:00

As you can see, things have been moving ahead quite rapidly, but each new item seemingly means consulting with yet another subcontractor, which takes a lot of time. A lack of blogging time has been the biggest side-effect, although I haven't gotten to work before 9am any day this week, either. (Thankfully, my boss is very understanding...)

We also had our hands full -- thankfully, not in the literal sense -- with not one but two major sewer issues. Monday morning, I noticed a stench on the back deck, then realized that I could hear running water. Turns out that one of the main sewer lines had broken, right under the landing off the lower back door. Thankfully, we called Bryan, who called Pat the plumber, and the crew had us all patched up by the time we came home from work.

On Wednesday, I flushed the toilet just as I got in the shower, and heard the shower drain make a disconcerting "glug-glug-whoosh!" sound. I poked my head out and asked Cam to check the back yard, just to make sure that I was imagining things. Alas, no such luck: Now, the same line was plugged, and water was seeping out of the clean-out valve. (Needless to say, I am really looking forward to a leisurely shower one of these days.) Pat's crew -- who were already on site to install the bathroom fixtures -- snaked the line and replaced yet another huge piece of the antiquated sewer pipe. So far, so good.

The huge news is that yesterday Garrett finished up the electrical, and Bryan installed the rest of the appliances and pulled up the paper covering the floors. There are many, many little things left to be done, but as of last night, we -could have- cooked in the new kitchen... as long as we didn't need a dishwasher or a garbage disposal, I suppose.

Last night after dinner, we stood around in the kitchen in a bit of a daze for 40 minutes, at least, hardly able to believe that it's real.

Click here to see a Flickr set of how things look today.

This morning, the wood-floor crew showed up bright and early to sand the floors and lay down the last coat of varnish. Bryan and Noel had told us yesterday that they would be doing a number of small projects at the house today, but I'm not sure how they'll be able to do that with wet floors. No rush, obviously, as Cameron leaves for NYC on Sunday morning, and I follow on Tuesday... we won't be able to move in until Monday the 19th, at the soonest. Realistically, that probably means we can come upstairs during the week and unpack the kitchen gear the following weekend (3/24-25). With any luck, we should be all set for Mom's visit, April 4-7.

Some of the things we're waiting on won't prevent us from using the kitchen, but I suspect we'll be chasing punch-list items into April. The big hangup is that we're having all of the kitchen cabinet doors remade, due to some pretty serious issues with the finish. That, of course, holds up the installation of the door knobs and drawer pulls -- expect a lot of broken fingernails and swearing, if you come for dinner in the first few weeks.

Here's my running list of what's left to be done:

Today:
- Final varnish coat on the wood floors

Today, we hope, or Monday:
- replace breakfast room bench 2x4 support and remove mold on underside of bench top
- glass in the transoms
- hook up dishwasher
- install towel bar and other BA hardware (TP holder, cabinet knobs, etc)
- fix BA-BR door: remove ugly latch, fill old knob hole, install vintage knob
- caulk the BA sink
- straighten BA sink levers
- remove hall door to LR and patch hinge-mortices and latch-holes

Next week:
- finish and prime bench interior; install hinges
- fix pocket-door track issues
- fix drywall dings and touch up paint (Monday)
- install pocket-door hardware
- put lenses on all light fixtures
- final electrical inspection (Monday)
- install shower doors/glass (Thursday 3/15)
- re-affix countertop to drawer tops (Mark returns 3/15?)
- new backsplash... slate now, not tile (Mark returns 3/15?)
- post-construction cleaning crew (Thursday?)
- replace cabinet doors (Jim ??)
- kitchen door knobs & drawer pulls (ASAP after new doors come)

Pending missing pieces:
- paint and install medicine cabinet
- paint and install BA heater vent cover

Post inspection:
- paint the back of the house (Sean L.)
- repaint the BA trim/doors to match cabinets (Sean L.)
- build new back step to upper deck (Bryan)
- install non-code lights and switches (Garrett)
- remove diswasher air gap and install soap dispenser (Bryan)
- figure out breakfast room table and chairs
- get a pad for the breakfast room bench
- window treatments

Two quickies

2007-03-02T17:01:00.000-08:00

New photo tours on Flicker, in honor of reaching the 2-month mark:
Here's the kitchen
And there's the bath

We talked to Bryan this morning, about a bunch of little stuff, but the big news is that he's working hard to get everything done next week. I know it's not gonna happen (there are simply too many little things) but if all goes well, we will be cooking in our new kitchen when we get back from New York on the 18th.

Oh, I lied... one more thing: The countertops are going in tomorrow. :)

Midweek check-in

2007-02-28T10:21:00.000-08:00

Not much new to report, other than some new photos. The one above does a nice job of illustrating how the spaces flow together. (More on Flickr...)

The breakfast room is painted, and the color looks good:

The dropcloths are down, and I got to stand in the shower for the first time since the tile went in. (I love the shampoo niche!) Here's the view:

(you can click to enlarge this, or any of the pictures)

Updates from this morning's (postponed) weekly status meeting:

Andrew liked the hardware we'd chosen. We'll go back to Restoration this weekend and pick up the rest.

Bryan saw all the issues with the paint (before we even mentioned them) and was not happy. He told us he'll take care of it. When we left for work, he was out front of the house on his cell phone, loudly chewing out -someone- (presumably the paint contractor?), complete with gesticulations and pacing. [Good!]

We talked about needing to cover the top of the french doors on the outside, and didn't really love any of the ideas any of us came up with. Bryan's going to talk to his metal fabricator about some sort of flat-pitched awning. Andrew suggested a simple metal frame with chicken-wire reinforced glass in it. We also have some leads on off-the-shelf options, but they seem rather pricey so far.

Once we figure out what size we need, Mark is going to give us a quote for building a table for the breakfast room. Ooo! (He also offered to give us a table he has, but we think it's too long...)

In living color

2007-02-27T16:41:00.000-08:00

The replacement corner cabinet came last Friday, a day late. Bryan was none too pleased that they had to hoist it in through the not-a-window. He was spitting mad (at Jim the cabinet guy) when he called Cameron to tell him it was in, and said that he was going to send Canyon Creek an invoice for his added labor.

Just in time, Mark (the countertop guy) is back in town. He came yesterday afternoon to take measurements. Cam just got off the phone with him -- he's fabricating the slabs as we speak! Installation is planned for Saturday or Sunday, weather permitting.

We're regretting our decision to keep the peace by using Bryan's painters instead of Sean Love. The trim paint looks utterly terrible -- blotches, dribbles and bubbles, oh my! -- and will have to be sanded and redone. They've also blorched paint all over the cabinet fronts, and got overspray on the crystal doorknobs that Bryan had stored in one of the kitchen cabinet drawers. (That's just the lowlights... trust me, the litany of stupid crap this painter has pulled would fill a whole post.)

On the positive side, the wall paint was laid down yesterday in the kitchen ("withered moss") and bath ("polished silver"); the breakfast room ("fennel splash") was all masked off this morning, so I expect to come home to that room done as well.

The Canyon Creek district sales manager visited the house yesterday, taking note of all the doors that need to be replaced -- the finish was really uneven on about 40% of the doors. The rep wouldn't commit to any resolution on the spot -- said that he needed to speak with HQ first. But Cameron told him that simply replacing all the doors wasn't sufficient, that we wanted a partial refund for all the hassles they've put us (and Bryan) through. Having the doors remade is going to mean that we have a mostly functional (but knob-less) kitchen for a while after we're theoretically done. Argh.

We went to Restoration Hardware over the weekend and picked out a few possibilites for cabinet hardware and such. Front runners are:

Duluth knobs and pulls for the kitchen:

The knobs have an interesting profile, even though the look round from straight on.

Quincy (small) knobs for the bathroom:

And Bistro double-towel bar, towel ring, soap dish, and tissue holder.

(Click here to see the whole collection.)

Unfortunately, we struck out at both Ohmega Salvage and Urban Ore, looking for a replacement for our missing gravity-style baseboard register (like this one, only I wish ours were in as good shape as that one!). The closest modern equivalent is these ugly things... and I will leave an empty hole in the wall before I use that crap. Any of you brilliant remodelers out there have ideas? All of the replacement parts I can find are for wall or floor registers, flat grate-type things. I can't believe someone hasn't remanufactured these! Every 1920s-1930s house I've ever owned has had them.

My favorite details

2007-02-23T09:53:00.000-08:00

Things have been on hold the last couple of days while the painters filled all the little finish-nail holes in every piece of trim, primed all of the raw wood, and tackled other miscellaneous prep tasks.

And, yesterday, Bryan built our bench!

It's a little shallower than we wanted, but it's actually quite comfortable already, even without the cushions in place. It will have a hinged lid for seasonal storage, and the top of the bench back lines up neatly with the bottom of the windowsill above. All in all, I'm very pleased.

Another shot of the beautiful hallway shelves.

I have to say, the photos don't do it justice... it's a stunning centerpiece that I can't wait to see filled with books and dishes.

(You can click either photo to see it in a larger size.)

Wrapping things up

2007-02-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

Painting starts today!

Mark couldn't come after all yesterday, due to a family emergency. Which, really, is fine -- the new corner cabinet will be in place by the end of the week, so he can measure all of the countertops at once. And, with all the tarping in place for painting, it would have been tricky, anyway.

The same day I posted that we hadn't heard anything about the new window, it magically appeared:

The bathroom cabinets are installed, and the lab shelves are as finished as they can be for now -- once the butcherblock counter is installed, they'll finish out the box for the backsplash. I'm really happy with how they look...

(I really want to tear off that ugly lattice on the back deck railing the moment I get home.)

Here are some more shots of the nearly-finished millwork:

Oh, and the appliances did come last week, as scheduled:

A place for everything

2007-02-15T07:31:00.000-08:00

Noel started on all the millwork on Tuesday. The shelves look great! Although, actually, he had to re-do the upper cubbies -- he didn't follow Andrew's painfully detailed drawings, and ended up with too many rows. But the general idea is there. The lowest row will hold cookbooks, and be closed on the hall side; the rest will hold plates and dishes, and be open on both sides. (There are more photos on Flickr -- drop me a note if you can't see them, and I will add you to my Friends list.)

Noel also started framing in the doors and windows. I guess when this is all done, they'll start working on the breakfast-room bench. We left the plans in the garage, but apparently Noel accidentally took them home.

In bathroom news: We're in the home stretch on tile. The floor is basically done, with the exception of grouting everything, and some bare spots where the toilet will go in. The photo shows the hex tile on the floor, with one of our accent-tile experiments. (The black tiles are just laid on top.) We felt so rushed -- and I felt so stressed having to do this from a distance -- that we just decided to go with plain white tiles. We can always have someone come in and put down accents at some point in the future if it looks too plain, but we didn't feel like we had time to do it right and/or live with our decision for a few days... they wanted to grout NOW. Oh, well.

The marble subway tiles look cool in the shower. Maybe not quite as retro as I'd hoped, but they do look sharp. (Cam assures me they look as good in person -- if so, I'll be very happy.)

---

All of the appliances get delivered today!

Still no word on the replacement panes for the bathroom.

Mark (the stone craftsman) is coming Monday to measure for the bathroom pieces and the butcherblock, and to see what's up in the rest of the kitchen.

Two steps forward, one back

2007-02-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

Cameron's back at the house, taking pictures and riding herd on contractors and such. And -- as expected -- progress continued while we were at my parents' house.

As you can see here, peeking into the kitchen from the breakfast room, the cabinets are installed. Unfortunately, the near corner cabinet (which is hidden by the wall) is actually the wrong shape. Instead of being L-shaped like the far corner cabinet, it's got a diagonal front, making a pentagon shape. Argh.

This means that most progress in the kitchen will grind slowly to a halt until we have a replacement. Since the cabinets aren't yet in their final-final configuration, Mark can't measure for the countertops. And, until the countertops go in, Bryan can't install the dishwasher, or have his tile guy lay the backsplash. Worse yet, our frickin' cabinet rep is on vacation in Australia. (Speaking of whom: Did I mention that one of the pantry doors arrived damaged? Or that roughly half of our cabinet doors have serious flaws in the finish? Sigh.)

Cameron called Canyon Creek yesterday and basically got a very polite stiff-arm. Everyone agreed they'd sent the wrong cabinet, but said the soonest they could replace it would be 2/19. Adding in shipping times, with arrival on 2/22, we're stalled for a good 10 days.

Bryan's going to move onto painting the walls (Andrew gave the thumbs-up on two of the 3 colors today, but worries the bathroom grey will be too dark), creating the millwork -- the window frames, the doors, the breakfast-room bench, and the "laboratory" shelves. And then, once the tile's finished in the bathroom (the shower is done -- and it's gorgeous -- and the floor is nearly so) they can install the vanity, the toilet, and the rest of the shower fittings. And, it's possible that Mark can work on the butcherblock top for the "not-island" cabinets and the stone for the vanity top, in the meantime.

No news yet on the glass for the transom windows, or the bathroom replacement panes. According to UPS, the breakfast room light should be sitting on the front porch; the remaining lights (bathroom sconces and over-the-sink pendants) shipped from Portland yesterday, and will arrive tomorrow.

Thank you, Pops

2007-02-12T21:10:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, my Dad passed away last Monday. What you may not know is where I get my remodeling gene from.

When my folks bought the home I grew up in, it needed a ton of work. Dad built a family room out of part of the garage, and transformed a badly enclosed breezeway into a music room / office. Over the years, he spruced up every room of the house, with special touches like a custom-sized pantry added to old kitchen cabinets.

I loved to tag along while Pops worked and be his helper, holding screws, running to the workshop for a forgotten tool, and generally getting underfoot. But he never chided me, and actively encouraged my interest in home repair. So many of the skills that I'm proud of I learned as his side, as he quietly taught me that every homeowner could -- and should -- tackle their own home repairs.

When I was in seventh grade, I made a deal: If he'd buy the paint, I'd paint my bedroom. I learned a lot of practical lessons: The kind you'd expect (such as how to keep a roller from dripping, how to get even coverage) and some you might not (like how paint colors can look surprisingly different on the chip than they do on four large walls). As I worked my way around the room to the closet, I remember asking Dad if I needed to paint the inside walls.

"No," he said, with characteristic thoughtfulness, "But every time you look at it, you could end up wondering why the heck you didn't." Of course, as a lazy teenager, I didn't paint the inside walls. And, of course, as a seasoned renovator, he was right -- I frequently looked back on that afternoon and shook my head at my own laziness. Whenever I'm tempted to take a shortcut around the house, this is one of the things that keeps me honest.

After Dad retired, many of my parents' visits centered around some remodeling project that we knew would run more smoothly with his help. Two of the largest included installed a spiral stair at our very first house, and building a closet in our Seattle bungalow. In between, Pops was a constant resource for us when we tackled things on our own, answering questions about this and that, consulting over the phone on a wide variety of repairs and upgrades.

After my folks sold the house in Orange and moved to Nevada, Pops was unfailingly generous with his handyman skills. I can't even begin to tell you how many people came up to me after his funeral with a story about how he'd helped them with some fix-it job.

I know it must sound silly, but I'm terribly sad that Dad never got to see our new kitchen and bath. In fact, he never got to see (in person) any of the work we've done on the Moultrie house -- he and Mom came to visit us a few days after we took possession of the house, when we were still living in the basement (ah, the more things change, the more they stay the same). But I know that he would have loved the work we're doing, and the care with which the crew is making every little detail shine.

Please stand by...

2007-02-04T08:33:00.000-08:00

Wood floors were laid Thurday, sanded and varnished Friday. And the cabinets arrived as scheduled on Friday afternoon, and are now sitting -- stacked on top of one another in their shipping boxes -- in the living room.

The bathroom tile project hasn't started yet, because they're waiting for a shower-pan inspection, and the inspector's been deathly ill. We have a rescheduled inspection date for next Friday, but the tile guy is calling multiple times a day looking for a cancellation slot, so he can get started.

We picked out our paint colors in a bit of a rush, as we had to leave town unexpectedly. The bathroom will be a nice, neutral grey (picking up one of the colors in the carerra tiles); the kitchen will be a sage green, and the breakfast room a 50% tint of the same color, which yields a soft greeny-cream color. All three colors look nice together, and play well with the existing wall colors in the rest of the house.

We won't be around the house for at least a week, so there probably won't be any updates for a while -- and certainly no photos. There's a new kitchen tour that I created for a food blog post... 2/2 marked the end of the first month of construction. :)

Lights... tile... action!

2007-02-01T07:12:00.000-08:00

First things first: The new kitchen sink arrived today, and it's fine this time. No dents or dings.

The toilet lever and the soap dispenser also arrived without incident.

Down in the garage, there's a pile of wood strips, and a miter saw:

...and also plenty more wood strips upstairs, but I won't bore you by showing pictures. :)

We're ready to have Britney over:

Sure, it's a little breezy, but the view is awesome!

But why is the toilet on the deck? Because they started leveling the floor in the bathroom:

(That's chicken-wire on the floor, not hex tile, by the way.) There's also waterproof membrane on all the shower walls, and a bunch of tile-backing board out on the deck.

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Finally we got around to ordering the lighting, mostly from Rejuvenation...
(click any image to enlarge)

Schoolhouse fixtures: A large one for the main kitchen light, and a pair of smaller ones in the hall.

A pair of pendants over the sink

An adjustable, Rube Goldberg-lookin' gizmo (from Restoration Hardware) for the breakfast room

The source of our first serious aesthetic disagreement: The bathroom lights. I think they look cheap, and I hate the exposed screws. Cameron promised that if they're wrong, we can replace them. At least they didn't cost a lot.

For the deck, over the french doors.

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As the floor guys came in today at 7:15, I made the observation that every wood-floor installer I've ever met -- and that's probably a dozen or more, after all these houses -- is an Asian male. You'd think that with all the Latinos doing every other kind of housebuilding craft, they'd have picked up a little of the market, but apparently no. And most tile guys of my acquaintance in SF are Eastern European. (You haven't lived until you've heard Spanish spoken with a Russian accent -- as by our tile installer to his helper yesterday.) There must be other ethnic trade specialties, but these two jumped out at me in the last couple of days.

All systems: Go

2007-01-31T16:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday got away from me before I had a chance to write an update of our Tuesday status meeting. Bryan was on time -- in fact, he was early! -- and all went well. Andrew noticed a few little tweaky things that Bryan said were fine to fix ("good to catch this now before we close everything up") and we all felt like things were going smoothly, and definitely quickly.

We talked about the pattern/direction of the wood floors for a while. Basically, all the areas will be edged, like the LR and DR are, but we'll use fewer edge strips (three, instead of five) in deference to the smaller sizes of the rooms. Sort of like this:

(you can click to enlarge, which helps with the jitteriness)

...with mitered corners in the places where they'll show:

We won't bother edging or mitering the parts of the floor hidden by cabinets. It's simple old cottage, after all, not a Noe Valley showpiece.

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In other carpentry news, Bryan's going to build us a bench in the breakfast room. I had been kicking myself for cheaping out and not ordering the bench cabinets just to save a measly $1,000 (realize that a pair of good chairs will cost almost that amount and not look half as good, and lack storage), and then Bryan suggested that he build a storage bench to fit. It'll be roughly based on a drawing I've had kicking around the clipping file for years:

(The sketch is by Sarah Susanka, author of Not So Big House, illustrating the dimensions of her "perfect booth" in Fine Homebuilding magazine.)

We'll paint it white to match the rest of the millwork, and the seat will flip up for seasonal storage. I can't really say why this enchants me so, but it does -- I (heart) booths.

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Here's what's coming in the next couple of weeks:
- Cabinets are arriving Friday! They'll probably have to stay in the living room for a bit. As Cam said today: "I really hope those cabinets look amazing, because he's a PITA to deal with." Amen, brother.
- Tile started today, and will continue for for ~4-5 days. We need to work with the tile guy to add the black accent hex tiles after the tile is laid.
- Wood floors will start Thursday, possibly Friday, and take 3-4 days. This will happen in tandem with the tile.
- Cam's notes say "painting and casing to start Tues" -- which probably means wall and ceiling painting, which would be a lot easier to do before the cabinets get installed.
- The bathroom windown "tilt-pac" is still not here. Bryan said he'd check with Beronio and get us an ETA.

Our to-do list:
- We really need to order the lights, because they're all going to be custom finishes, and Rejuvenation says "We build and ship most custom light fixtures in two to three weeks." Better get on that...
- Cameron's still hashing out the final stuff on the toilet and sink. It's looking like Expo's going to get our business because Floorcraft finally pissed him off, too.
- We need to buy hardware for the French doors this weekend.
- We need to pick paint colors this weekend. We should get Andrew to give us the thumbs-up on our choices at next Tuesday's meeting.
- Replacement kitchen sink will come Any Day Now. (I hope.)
- We need to call Mark and tell him to be ready to measure countertops next week, and that we'll need pieces of carerra for the shower curb and the top of the pony wall.

A muddy, bloody mess

2007-01-29T19:43:00.000-08:00

Today, the drywall guys came and mudded in the corners. They look pretty good by the light of the flashlight -- we'll see how they are in daylight.

In the living room, they also laid down the patch for the messed up wall.

I'm mildly cranky that they didn't mask off the dining room or cover the bookshelves, but I guess they haven't started sanding, so we have time to say "no, really. we mean it. allergic to gypsum. no kidding."

The thing that really frosts me is that (a) they clogged the drain in the garage floor with mudding compound, and (b) they got goop everywhere. Now, in the kitchen/bath/breakfast room area, no big deal. It's a construction site, and I'm not that anal-retentive. But in the living room? Come on, people. They smeared drywall compound all over the light switches, and they're all the way across the room from the wall they're working on. Jeez.

The deck is definitely going to need powerwashing, from all the cruddy footprints, and the living room floor might need to be refinished. Like I said, I was expecing a mess in and around the construction, but doing the full destructo on the rooms that aren't involved seems thoughtless.

Wood it be easier...? (Yes.)

2007-01-29T11:56:00.000-08:00

Cameron called Andrew and Bryan this morning about the floor dilemma. Both said wood floors in the kitchen, hall, and breakfast room would be fine.

In fact, Bryan seemed utterly relieved: "You've just made my life a lot easier, Cameron" was the direct quote.

We'll find out the details tomorrow (and yes, Cameron reminded him -- twice -- about the status meeting) but the upshot is that this change should actually simplify things, rather than complicate them. I think it will be nice to carry the look of the living room and dining room into the back of the house:

Wet and muddy

2007-01-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

As we were getting ready to head to the farmers market yesterday, we heard the garage door open. Cam poked his head out, and one of Bryan's guys said hello, and said he was going to be cleaning up the drywall mess upstairs. Cool.

Then, when we finally left, we noticed a big stack of drywall mud bags, blocking the person-door to the front. OK, guess they're really gonna start on Monday.

When we got back from the market, the garage floor was wet (and not just from the rain) and most of the mud mix was gone. Hmmm.

Sure enough, he'd taped and mudded all the seams upstairs. On a Saturday, no less.

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Every bit of good news has a little bit of bad news, I guess: We hoofed all over town yesterday looking for cork floor that didn't make us go "ick", and came up with a few acceptable choices, but nothing that made us go "oh, nice!!". Today we went back over to Expo, since they stock the brand of cork that Bryan knows about. When we got there, we realized two things: (1) The cork tiles are glue-down tiles, not click-together floating floor pieces, and (2) any color except natural cork (which is quite light) is going to show scratches -- like those from, say, dog toenails -- really badly. Uh-oh...

One of the alternatives we talked about earier, and again yesterday when we didn't find cork we liked, was laying down hardwood floors to match the oak in the rest of the house. But, the big issue there is that the wood strips have to sit inside the house for (if I recall correctly) 10 days to 2 weeks before installation, which will undoubtedly throw a wrench in the schedule. We're going to talk to Andrew and Bryan about all this tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm suffering from a serious bout of "oh crap".

Gypsum and then some

2007-01-26T11:50:00.000-08:00

kitchen - new wall looking into hall (east end)

The walls are, obviously, sheetrocked. Unfortunately, this includes the inside of the shower pony-wall, so Bryan says he's going to take that piece off and frame the niche as shown in the plans.

We have leads on two places -- Floorcraft and some place whose name I have misplaced (Granite & Floor Center?) where we can see samples of cork tiles. Apparently there are plenty of places that have the tiles in stock, but nobody loans out samples.

More drywall photos on Flickr.

It's interesting to see the walls at this stage, as the sightlines are now more accurate than when everything was see-through.