Wiring

This is a shot of the new coat closet in the living room and some of the wiring. Not very exciting I know, but it gives you an idea of where we are at. Once again, we are amazed at the speed they are getting work done. I’m sure a lot of it is attributed to the fact that it’s a small house.

Here are a couple of the electrical highlights: “Toe Kick” heaters in the bathrooms. These are fan forced heaters that sit underneath the vanity. Totally inconspicuous, but quickly heat up the bathroom. Individual volume controls for dining room & outdoor speakers, 1000% more outlets than we had before, lots of recessed lighting with multiple lighting controls for each room, and a real grounded wiring system. Theoretically, we’ll be able to run the microwave and a bathroom heater at the same time – a true novelty.

We have made a kitchen decision. Even though it will cost us more than Ikea, we are using Charlane from Central Coast Designs for the kitchen, and possibly, bath cabinets. We really liked the line of European cabinets she showed us and at this point, we realize we need a bit more hand holding. She’ll design the kitchen for us and make sure everything fits nicely. We are feeling pretty overwhelmed with the decisions we have to make lately, and having somebody take the reins on the kitchen will be well worth the extra cost.

They are still working on the roof, but all the windows are in & framed out. The outdoor shower arrives tomorrow so they can install that. We still have to decide whether the fireplace will be flat against the wall or on an angle..

Making Progress

The windows are all in. This is a view from the front. You can see that the window is in the same spot as it was before, but you can also see how the front door has moved & the expansion to the living room. Only one of the windows wasn't per spec, and it's just a garage window that opens left to right vs. right to left. We'll probably never open it anyway, so we can live with that! We are happy with the choice of windows. We intentionally picked a style with a thinner frame so the they would have bigger sight lines and a more contemporary look. Once they are trimmed out, the frames won't be very obvious at all.

We spent all day yesterday shopping for stuff. I know it's supposed to be fun, but frankly, it gets stressful. We looked at counter options for the kitchen & baths, some tile for bathroom floors, more kitchen cabinets, and fixtures for the outdoor shower. I had ordered the fixtures for the shower last week, and they arrived on Friday. Unfortunately, one of them is completely damaged & it's part of a set, so they cannot be installed tomorrow. The plumber was pretty insistent he wanted it on Monday. Too bad. It's going to be later in the week "due to circumstances beyond our control." There, I feel better.

The electrician didn't start on Friday, which is good. We want to review a couple of things today. We met with the other kitchen designer on Friday and it went well. This coming weekend we'll be stopping at an Ikea and we believe we'll have made a decision on cabinets by the end of next weekend.

Supposed to rain Monday & Tuesday. At least the windows are in! I've uploaded a few more pictures to the library, check 'em out if you'd like.

Windows

Not a very exciting picture, but we have windows! OK, so they aren't actually installed yet, but we have them. They should be working on them over the next week. In the mean time, they have been busy with the roof. Apparently, the overlay we had put on the roof wasn't such a good thing, and it's coming of, along with all the flashing and fascia board. They already have a lot of it it off, and almost all of the fascia board has been replaced with new stuff. We are going back to a hot mop roof. Apparently they have a new technology that gives you a 50 year roof. Sounds good to us! Of course, it's more $$ we hadn't planned on spending, but hey - that's par for the course in a remodel, right?

We have another meeting with the electrician tomorrow. They are going to start work and apparently, there are some problems with the "professional" lighting plan we came up with. Not too surprising! The plumbing is almost done for now. All the drain & supply lines in, new drain for the washing machine, and the sewer lines are ready to connect to the street, once we dig up the street, that is.

That's it for now. I'll upload some more pictures to the photo album later this week. Tonight, it's looking at lighting fixtures again....

Could that be....a kitchen?

Check this out - it's the kitchen! Ok, it may not be exciting to you, but the kitchen size has been determined and is partially framed. You can also see that the plumber has been busy and there are now supply lines running around the house. They are using the latest & greatest product called PEX which is some type of plastic line. Apparently it's easy to run & get where you want, it supposed to last a million years, and doesn't impart any kind of taste or odor to the water.

A few other quick notes: have not nailed down the kitchen yet, but the plan from the previous post is probably the way we are going. 90% for sure we are doing Ikea at this point. We have one other call in on a recommendation but no word on that yet.

We are considering changing the dining room sliding door out for a french door. When we see the layout now, if we use outward swinging doors, they won't interfere with anything. Not a for sure, just a thought.

Next week we start thinking about siding and what we want to do with the house. More on that as we start thinking about it. We have picked out the fixtures for the showers because they need the valves to rough them in. Sink fixtures can come later. We are also trying to decide whether to do the fireplace on an angle, or straight against the wall. This is the fireplace we are getting, but it may not be off the ground like you see here Valor Fireplaces


Oh - the last thing, we got rid of the closet door in the corner of the living room. It's strictly linen storage now, accessible from the guest room and from the guest bath. It just seemed to make sense. It means the vacuum and ironing board go in the guest closet, but that's ok.

I think that's it for now. A lot has happened this week and things continue to move forward. Check out the photo album for more pics...

Kitchen Plans

Here is the current plan for the kitchen. When you look at the overhead plan, the darker cabinets are the lowers, and the white cabinets are the uppers.

For the 3-D views, the area above the sink with the two horizontal cabinets is the opening to the living room. We kept a pantry area where the pots & pans storage used to be, but now there will be a short wall along its edge so it won't extend into the doorway between the kitchen & dining room at all. We *think* this plan will actually give us more storage than we had. It will certainly give us more counter space, that's for sure. Also, they aren't in the renderings, but there is a wall behind the whole wall with the fridge and behind the pantry.

Keep in mind, this is subject to change at any moment....!

New walls

You can see the start of the framing here. What looks like another set of walls, to the right, are just temporary supports. Our builder thinks they will be done framing and have some of the sheeting on by the end of this week, which is great. That will really help us with visualizing what kind of siding we want to do on the outside. We are ordering the outside doors this week, and decided to go with Mahogany. Its supposed to be really durable and the wood is beautiful. We may paint the outside of the doors black, and then just finish the inside with a clear sealer. We'll see. I posted a couple more pictures of the framing in the photo album. No rain in sight this week, again, so work should keep jamming along...

Sad Sewer Situation

So, the CSD - our local sewer provider, came out and scoped our sewer line. Of course, it's damaged and has to be replaced. This means digging a trench from the street side of the office window to the middle of the street behind the house and replacing the line. It's going to add about $5,000 to our expenses. Oh well, not much we can do about it.

The estimates are coming in for kitchen cabinets. Don't be too shocked if you come visit and see particle board shelves stacked up on cinder blocks. You know, like in college or your first apartment. The first quote was for a kitchen we really loved, "kwrl". First, you know how small our kitchen is, right? OK, the estimate for the kwrl, without hardware or counter tops was $16,000!!! Ouch. Add $4k to install, plus who knows how much for counter tops. Gulp. OK, that's not gonna happen. We got an estimate from a local custom place to make cabinets for the kitchen & bathrooms using Alder. That estimate came in at $10,000 for all three rooms. Much better. We are looking at more "off the shelf" solutions at Home Depot which could possibly outfit the kitchen for around $6,000, but the price leader by far is Ikea. Complete kitchen cabinets and new stainless steel range hood for $2800. Granted, it has to be assembled and installed. We can do the assembly but would seek professional help for the installation. Not sure we are going to go that route, but it's nice to now we can save money by doing that.

They started framing and I'll get some pictures up this weekend. Looking good so far!

Cement

Right on schedule, the foundations were poured today. Not only that, but the bathroom was poured also (see the photo album for a picture of it). And, they pumped some concrete into a hole of unknown origin we found under the office, on the street side. Who knows. I'm very happy to see "building" going on! I asked one of the workers when they can start framing and he said tomorrow. I would have thought they would have to wait longer, but apparently not. We'll see if they actually do or not.

In other news, there was a backhoe in the front of the house when I got there today. They have been trying to figure out where the sewer line ties in to the street, and from the look of the hole outside the office, it looks like they found it. Apparently the sewer ties into the street behind the house (outside the bedroom windows) not in front of it.

And the windows actually got ordered yesterday. We have spoken with them to confirm a few things and for the most part, they got it right. We have until tomorrow noon to make changes, but a quick call to the GC in the morning should set things straight and we'll be good to go.

The foundations

Here they are, ready for concrete. From this view, they don't look like they are adding much to the house. But when you stand inside and see where the new walls are going to be, it's great. Granted, the living room and dining room are not going to be huge. They will just feel "looser" than they did, which will be much appreciated. The concrete is supposed to be poured on Tuesday. I've also added some pictures to the photo album, which include views of all the new drain pipes in the bathroom. They replaced everything with plastic and it will get covered over with concrete on Tuesday as well. I don't know how long it will be before they can start the framing, but I'm looking forward to it.

We met with two different cabinet places on Friday and are starting to get the ball rolling for bids. As always, what we want may be out of our reach, but we'll see. We are really starting to see how fast the money will go, and are almost certain that with the decision to do the kitchen & bathrooms we'll go well over budget, even with the savings from the roof. Oh well. It just seems silly at this point not to do stuff when the house is torn apart. I think our summer rates are going to have to go up :)

Birthdays & Bathrooms

For starters, we have to acknowledge a couple of birthdays. Margo would have been 99 today. I can only imagine what she would say, seeing the house in the state it’s in now. But while she may have found it shocking, I think she would have seen past the concrete floor and the studs to imagine how nice it would look when it’s done.

And to her birthday buddy, Stephanie: tide to you :) Don’t worry, we’ll have one for you tonight….

We made a final decision on the guest bath. The contractor called the other morning to say the plumber wanted to start working on the house…..in two hours. The goal is to get all the new drain lines put in (all the cast iron is going) so they could pour concrete for the bathroom and the new foundations at the same time. This should save us $. We had narrowed down guest bathroom designs to three possibilities, so there wasn’t too much waffling to do.

After meeting with the GC and the plumber, we made the somewhat controversial decision to go tub-less. We never take baths. I couldn't tell you the last time I sat in a bathtub, probably because we have a hot tub. People were pretty mixed in their opinions as to whether we should go this route or not, but our GC summed it up by saying "look, you aren't planning on selling the house, so just do what you want and what you will find useful." So that's what we did. We'll have a nice tiled shower in our bathroom, not huge (40" x 48") and a neo-angle corner shower, tiled as well, in the guest bath. It fits the best and makes the guest bath a bit more spacious, while also allowing for some storage.

So if you ever used the famous gray bathtub at our house, sorry, those days are over. And Seagirl – we’ll get you a stool so you can shave your legs using the outdoor shower. While having a cocktail. Will that make up for a loss of the tub?