Running Water & Toilets!!

The appliances are in place. The stove is on the furniture dolly right now so that we can continue to clean it up. This Craigslist special had to live in the backyard for a while, so the burners are a bit rusted. The gas is hooked up though and the pot filler ready for action! J will finish installing the hood this weekend too. The fridge (my other Craigslist special) is ready to hooked up for ice cube action. So fancy! There is running water in the kitchen and both baths!


These chandeliers came from P's garage. The floors are revealed! Haven't seen them for awhile.
We're putting two more coats of poly on the floors at the end of this week, so we covered the baseboards so that it wouldn't slop over.
Hello, glorious tub!!
Mistress of the house.
Things left to do before we can move back in:

install master toilet, shower heads, cabinet hardware, door knobs, light fixtures, range hood, hook up waste on 2nd tub, install second water heater, 2 coats of poly on the floors

Not bad! About 1.5 weeks to go!

Broken Glass

We got our new shower door installed this morning in the master bath. Yeah! It looked (yes, notice the past tense) so nice. Just a clean piece of glass with two hinges and a handle. Well, about 1/2 hour ago, Lucy and I were awoken from our afternoon cuddle/nap by a sound that I can only describe as a big bucket of ice being dumped on the floor.

We went upstairs to investigate and discovered that the beautiful new shower door had completely shattered. The top third of the door was missing and the remainder of the door was fractured into a million pieces. My online research suggests that there was a manufacturing defect in the piece of glass or something happened when he installed it that later led to its implosion. I have left the shower door people a message and I hope that they will tend to this without any problems. I remain optimistic. It's actually kind of cool how it shattered. The safety glass prevents it from breaking off in large scary chunks. Kind of like a car window, I suppose. Anyways, good thing we're not actually using that bathroom yet.

The Pedestal Tub Moves Upstairs

The boys unpacked the tub from its' monster crate this afternoon. Very well crated, we all agreed. Luis was kind enough to enlist the help of three of his brawny friends to come over and help move the tub upstairs. They carried it around the house to its' first resting spot which is featured below. Then, we borrowed a dollie from our neighbors to turn it on its' side to get it thru the doorways.
I stayed downstairs while all of this was happening. It all made me too nervous and I didn't want to make the boys crazy. So, I gave them my ridiculous advice for 5 minutes before they moved it and begged them to be delicate with my soon-to-be best friend.
Here she is in the master bath! She won't live so close to the wall, but this is where she'll be for the time-timing. Not a scratch on her or the floors. Beautiful. Isn't she gorgeous?!

Second Bath Tiling

The original inspiration featured above from SJP and Matthew Broderick's bathroom in the Hamptons. Below, our pussycat dares to tread on the concrete late at night while the floor is setting...
The subway tiles start to go in

The walls tiles are complete.
The patterned floor starts to come to life.

The grouting is complete!

Dour Donald

I am very frustrated with our dour painter, Donald. The only photograph that seems appropriate to post is the toilet that we might get for the upstairs bathrooms. He was supposed to start Tuesday morning. He finally started doing some prep work Wednesday. Today, after multiple calls from me inquiring as to his whereabouts, all he could do was claim that he was still waiting for the primer. I also think that he was asleep when I called. He finally showed up at 3pm with 15 1 gallon containers of primer. This pregnant lady has no time for dilly dallying no-shows. He is also a walking tragedy. Everything I ask him about seems like the most extraordinary request on Earth. As you know, we are on a tight schedule, people! Boy was he lucky 'cause just as I was about to call him and threaten to hire someone else around 2:59, he showed up at the door. He claims that he will prime the family room and kitchen this afternoon and the rest of the house tomorrow. He arrived wearing sandals and a nice blue sweater -- not exactly painting attire. I most certainly will not be purchasing dour Donald any coffee in the morning or the day after that. Take that!

Oh, Glorious Tubbing!

I have been waiting my whole life to own a tub like this and we are finally about to order it. I can hardly wait. And the amazing thing is that we will hopefully be able to get it installed before cupcake arrives. So, the rest of the house will be unfinished, but I will have my tub which will be a great place to hang while we are waiting to go to the hospital rather than our shower downstairs. Is that too much information? She's a beauty -- 68" long and holds an alarmingly undrought-friendly amount of water. I can't wait!

Do Not Touch Unit

Josh has this week off of work so he has been busy upstairs scampering around in the attic working on the low voltage wiring. Too tired to shower last night, he crawled into bed and fell right asleep. This morning he really wanted to take a shower, but I prevented him because the shower door people were due to arrive any moment and I figured, why create another lake in the middle of our new bathroom when we didn't have to? 

Well, five hours later they finally arrived and installed our doors. The good news is that the shower doors look even nicer than we expected. The bad news is that we can't use the shower for another 48 hours. Lordie. The above pic is how dirty my sweetie got today. Notice that his smile gets bigger the dirtier he gets. There wasn't even a remote option that he wasn't going to shower tonight. The layer of grease and grime on him was so thick that could have scraped it off. We went over to Jonathan and Arminda's to shower tonight. Believe me, this was no small act of generosity. Jonathan's offer to hose Josh off before getting into the shower wasn't such a bad idea. Now we are fresh and clean. Josh did get the clothing dryer installed yesterday which is extraordinary. I've done about twenty loads in the last 24 hours. So much freshness we can barely stand it. 

White on White

It may sound dull, but we've gone all white for the bathroom. I wanted to go classic Victorian, so we went with white subway tile. I doubt they had white subway tiles in the 1880s. Come to think of it, they wouldn't have had any indoor plumbing in 1880 and thus, no need for tile inside. So I'm not sure why I'm calling it "classic Victorian". Anyways, we've spiced it up with two rows of these deco-inspired tiles in the master shower. The second bath gets the same treatment except for a yummy row of white polka dots. I couldn't resist. 

Approximately 60 days until The Cupcake arrives. 

 

Shower Pan

And you thought a nailing inspection was exciting! Before you can tile the base of a shower, you have to build a shower pan with includes a protective membrane to prevent any leakage. The inspector has to come out and make sure that it's not leaky. The tile guys came out and installed this shower pan in a couple hours and then were on their way. So efficient. I love it!

T is doing more mud and tape downstairs. He estimates that we won't be ready to paint for yet another week. I am confused as to why.

Bathroom Tile

Here's the tile for the downstairs bathroom. I love the little hexagonal tile -- always have. We're using the small version on the main floor and then a larger hex on the floor of the shower. The square tiles are Italian and delicious. I found the beige about a year ago in the bargain area at Import Tile. I fell in love with them and consequently, they have been sitting downstairs ever since. We needed just a smidge more, so we ordered the wine country aqua on the right. They all have that crackle glaze to them. The aqua is much more crackly than the beige. It will just go in the two niches and around the front edge and curb. The 1/4" rounds come in these small little boxes sweetly sealed with a colorful sticker and something in Italian. It makes me love them even more! Oh, how I love tile.

We Passed!

Miracle of miracles, we passed yesterday's electrical inspection. Now we schedule the general inspection for early next week and barring any issues, we move forward with the sheetrocking. Hoorah! Technical difficulties abound this week and are preventing me from uploading my new artsy pics. I bet you can't wait.

Our amazing plumber worked yesterday afternoon to finish up the gas line downstairs. I wish all contractors were like him. I told him just that. He stayed until 8:30pm to finish the gas lines.

Our electrician started talking about how it would make it a lot easier for him if we were to move out for a week when he wires the upstairs. This makes no sense because we'll be living downstairs completely separate from the upstairs wiring. I got the name of another electrician from our amazing plumber.

I'm off to retrieve the rest of the tile today from Import Tile. Oh, golly, I cannot wait to for the tiling to begin!

Sliding Doors

Here is what I learned last week at the shower door store: that I am a raving lunatic. The door lady practically laughed me out of the store when I told her what we were planning. And the miraculous thing is that after setting me straight on what was actually possible for our tiny bathroom, her solution cost LESS that what I had wanted to do. This NEVER happens.

The shower that we are building is only 2.5'x4.5'. My vision had always been to have a sleek piece of glass covering most of the shower going floor to ceiling with an opening that you would simply walk through. I have been determined to build it this way to make the bathroom look bigger and because I think it looks pretty damn sexy and cool. So, I explained my vision to the woman and she practically started laughing after I told her the dimensions. She said that even with a curb, that all of the water would end up in the middle of the bathroom. "All righty, then what if we add a nice glass door? How much more will that set me back?" Not exactly the look I was going for, but still very nice. She mockingly explained that those were still not going to be completely water tight due to the small size of my shower. "What, then?" I said, starting to get more than a little annoyed with her attitude.

She explained that the sliding glass doors were the only reasonable solution for our situation. I let out an audible gasp because we currently have sliders in our bathroom. They are made of wavy plastic and the top comes to my neck, so I have to duck about a foot to get into the shower inevitably banging my head every third time. As if I need another reason to promote tubbing! I got over the horror after she showed me the model above. They can make it taller (yes, please!) and can trim the width and it costs 1/3rd less than my sexy glass option. And it is pretty much completely water tight. Done and done.

Alien Spacecraft or Toilet?

Maybe you think it's weird that I keep writing about toilets, but I'm committed to sharing all the details of this reno. No one can try to tell me that a toilet and sink are not important things in one's day -- each and every day.

Over the years, I haven't exactly kept tabs on trends in toilets. Except for that pill box toilet that came out a few years ago, I haven't been interested enough to notice. I took a trip over to Excel Plumbing yesterday which has a huge selection of all bath and kitchen related fixtures and faucets. I was rather mesmerized by their fancy display model featured above from Toto. The way it's displayed with the bright lights and the toilet seat that goes up and down every couple of minutes, it really seemed like a little alien spaceship ready to take off. I couldn't imagine having one in my home. It's one of those new toilets that's the combo toilet/bidet. I know it's supposed to be hygienic, but it it grosses me out. And it has a control panel next to the toilet. That is too complicated for me. I feel like you'd have to follow your guests into the bathroom to show them how to use the toilet and that is not something that I can imagine doing any time soon.

The good news is that Excel has fantastic pricing on everything -- even cheaper than the cheapest online deals I could find. I'm still liking the Promenade. It's one of the cheapest that Toto makes and pretty snappy. It's no lunar lander, but I think it will do...

One of Those Yards

You know those houses that have a big tub in the back corner with all sorts of crazy things growing out of it? And you always wonder, how the hell did a bathtub end up in their backyard? Well, lemme tell you. Yesterday, Tommy did a little demo in our upstairs master bathroom so that the electrician could pull through some wires to the upstairs. (We stopped using that bathroom about six months ago because the shower/tub leaked and we removed the plumbing for the toilet.) Tommy removed everything and put most of it on the floor of our bedroom where it still lives. The rest of it made it to the backyard. He usually puts stuff in his truck and carts it away for us, but for some lucky reason we get to enjoy the toilet and sink in our backyard for a while.

Tommy does little odd jobs for us. He did most of the framing and helps with things like the bathroom demo. He also has a pickup truck which is incredible because we used to pile up all the junk and rent a U-Haul truck to take it to the dump. Dealing with U-Haul and shoveling dirt and junk in and out of the back of a U-Haul and then dealing with the dump is not one of my favorite activities. Having Tommy take it away is fantastic. Maybe he left the toilet in the backyard just to remind us how wonderful this service is...We appreciate you, Tommy!

Sage Advice on Toilets

The in-laws popped in yesterday and lent us some very important advice on toilets. This all started when our very practical Irish plumber said that we were not allowed to consider buying a toilet and sink at Home Depot. This was sad news to me because I had settled on this nice Kohler set that was going to cost less than $300 for both. He said that what the Depot carries is the bottom of the line Kohler and that if we didn't want to be replacing our toilet in the next year, we needed to consider investing in something nicer. This makes perfect sense, but so much for my bargain shopping.

I shared the plumber's thoughts with the in-laws and they could not agree more. They had a tenant in their house that seemed to call them almost weekly with tales of clogged toilets. The strange thing was that the in-laws never had any issues when they occupied that house with four growing children, but these tenants seemed to be having issues constantly. I still wonder about what kinds of things her youngsters (or her, why am I blaming the children?) were putting down the toilets to cause such problems. I also wonder about her inability to use a plunger. Regardless, the in-laws are a big fan of the super duper all-mighty strong power flush to minimize any problemos down the road. Their top recommendation is Toto which I think is also known for being quiet (obviously a great feature in a studio apartment). I like the Promenade featured above.

Photos from Toto.com

Honeycomb Lover

I never tire of the honeycomb tile. I have always loved it and am pretty sure I always will. I bought a bunch of honeycomb tile from The Tile Import Co. over in Berkeley. They seem to have the widest selection of tiles at decent prices. I want to do this little black edge around the sides. I think it's a really nice detail. And we've been trying to figure out what to do with our shower downstairs. It's tricky because it is such a small space, but I think what they've done in the back there will work for us. As much as I hate a shower curtain, I think this is about as chic as a shower curtain can get. They've done a white subway tile here which I love, but I've already bought some Italian glazed ones in a light light beige from the bargain room at Import. They're square and beautiful and a little more modern.

Faucets & Trim for the Studio

Kohler Purist Rite-Temp Pressure Balancing Shower
Kohler Purist Widespread Lavatory Faucet
Delta Grail Kitchen Pull-Down Faucet

We've finally decided on the faucets for the bathroom and kitchen for the studio. I really want to go more modern down there and I think these are really elegant. After drooling over the $2,000 options on Waterworks for far too long, we've settled on these more affordable Kohler and Delta options. Does anyone do polished chrome or is it a no-brainer to do do brushed chrome these days? I'm out of the loop on this one.

The Almost-Perfect Bathroom

This bathroom from last year's Elle Decor has been pasted up on my dream wall for almost a year now and I never get tired of looking at it. The major flaw, of course, is that there is no visible bathtub. The lack of tubbing opportunitites and the wooden floors (and counters?) seem almost as impractical to me as the pink shag carpeting in Josh's grandma's house. Only an extremely disciplined person can maintain either, but ignoring that, they are wonderful to look at. It's my inspiration both for our bathroom in the studio and for the bathrooms upstairs. I think that the glass shower divider is a really clever way to allow the eye to continue thereby making the room feel so much bigger. And I love the beige glass tiles. Yum.

Photo from Elle Decor