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!

The Sink and a Car Jack

Leave it to J to use a car jack to put in a sink. It was dang heavy, so I'm glad he did it to try and preserve his back. Here are J and JJ bending down to position it just right and here's the glorious sink. I think she looks great. They popped in the faucet for effect. It's not hooked up yet, but I think she looks dandy!

Don't Watch

We were finally able to have some guys pick up our fridge (the one I bought off of Craigslist last January) from JJ's house where he kindly stored it in his garage for us all this time. I shouldn't have watched them do it, but I couldn't help it. It wasn't as bad as watching them bring the tub inside, but it was pretty crazy. They had one of those automated stair dollies, but it was really sounding as if it was on its' last legs. The motor really didn't sound like it would make it to the top of the stairs. Isn't that the kind of thing that you double-check before heading out for delivery?

Tiling Is Complete!

They finished the tile work on Wednesday. I love it!

The poor counter guy spent about 1.5 hours trying to improve the look of that seam on the counters. I'm still not thrilled with it, but I think it's an improvement. It looks better in the pic than it does in person.

The Fearless Magician

The fearless magician has struck again. I had picked out a 3 hole faucet for the kitchen sink which is gorgeous and kinda perfect for our house. But then we also need an air gap and a sprayer. The trouble is that none of the porcelain cast iron sinks out there seem to be the right size that also have 5 faucet holes. It's plain stupid silly they don't make it standard to have more holes for an undermount sink, but they don't. I really wanted to do a porcelain sink because I think it's so much nicer with the carrera marble. Little did I know that that would cause some extra challenges. Mr. J said, "Have no fear. I can drill two holes thru the cast iron porcelain sink." And he did! The magician used two different bits on his drill press that he rotated in two times each thru the different layers. Here are some shots of the miracle man at work!

Wolferama

Here's the Wolf range that I got from our Craigslist appliance guy. She's a little banged up since she's 3.5, but I think she'll clean up pretty easily. At a fraction of the original retail price, who's complaining?

Counters and Backsplash!

The tiler installed the slab on the counter yesterday and the tile for the backsplash today. All the tile work is done! Yet again, I am surprised about how different tile looks after the grout is added. Luckily, for the better. 

The plumber is coming tomorrow to put in the faucet, dishwasher and sink in the bathroom. 

Meanwhile, we FINALLY got that pesky beam approved by the city which means we can finally finish the sheetrock and painting in the bedroom area of the studio. Cesar was back at work finishing that area today. He just needs to finish that back there as well as the baseboard trim and then paint. And we need to install the appliances. But that's it! 

We really are moving back to the studio this Saturday. It's crazy how much we've accomplished in the last six weeks. 

We've lined up Pat's roofer to do the kitchen area on Friday. We'll install the skylight in the kitchen on Saturday. We will schedule the framing inspection for early next week and then it is full speed ahead. The framing inspection is the only real hurdle ahead. 

We have three sheetrockers coming out to give us estimates for the upstairs this week. 

Today, Elder and I tried to figure out exactly how high the towel bars and toilet paper holders are supposed to be. This pregnant lady was trying to squat in the bathroom area to determine the optimal height. We'll see how that measurement turns out! 

Studio Cabinetry

Upstairs Kitchen

Sky Light

Hello, world. Apparently, the roof was so poorly constructed in the kitchen that it had to be ripped out entirely. It's supposed to rain on Thursday. Pat and his boys will be able to finish the kitchen in one day, but they can't come back until this weekend. Meanwhile, almost all of the other framing is entirely done. It looks amazing. Those windows from our neighbor's house are unfortunate. A rather unpermitted add-on, otherwise we could make the ceiling match the height of the rest of the house. Bummer. Expanding the width of the kitchen by about 2 feet has made a huge difference though. 

The plumber is making amazing progress upstairs. We're just waiting for the valves to arrive so that he can finish the showers. He'll be here the rest of the week working upstairs. He'll also spend a day downstairs doing the finishing work on the studio. 

Wackadoodle Kitchen

Josh and Elder contemplate our crazy kitchen. Elder repaired the floor in the kitchen today. The tile guy grouted the studio bathroom. Holy crap does the tile look better with grout! Cesar is back tomorrow to finish prepping and sanding. I hope he can start priming the studio this weekend. 

Metal Panels for a Kitchen Backsplash?

I have always loved these old metal panels. In my dreams, we'd do the whole entry hallway up to the railing with this. I'd love to do the kitchen and dining room ceilings with this stuff. It is impossible for us to justify the cost for a ceiling that can just be painted though. We do, however, need to get a backsplash for the upstairs kitchen. By my estimates these new panels from Armstrong could actually be cheaper than the white subway tile that I was planning on. I think it's also a lot more interesting. They make all sorts of different styles, but I like this one this best. It comes in this white version which is paintable. Hello, excitement. The tile is also 60% recycled. Has anyone ever seen these used for a kitchen backsplash?

Adventures in Cabinetry

While the boys have been somewhat busy sheetrocking the downstairs, I've been on a new quest to get every last inch of the upstairs mapped out. I don't want any delays once we move the demo up there. Yesterday, I spent a good amount of time with a nice fellow at Home Depot planning out our kitchen for the upstairs. It's much easier to plan for a larger space than for that little studio, so it was a pretty straightforward process. The Depot is having a 20% deal off custom cabinets until the beginning of May which I'm pretty excited about. I don't love buying things at the The Depot, but they are a necessary evil in our lives right now. And we do need to find the cheapest cutest options we can. Ikea would fit the bill, but I want a nice white cabinet for upstairs and the Ikea ones look cheap in white. I think they're really cute in darker hues.

Today I ventured over to Young's Custom Cabinets which is where our pals, J & G, recently bought new cabinets from for their snazzy new kitchen. J warned me that it was a weird place and it was indeed. First of all, it is so far South in San Francisco that I really think it's San Carlos. Next, there is absolutely no indication from the outside that they have any sort of showroom or are the slightest bit interested in random people like me stopping by. J also warned me about this. I hollered out to one of the guys operating a large piece of machinery inside who let me in. He directed me up the winding staircase where there was one little room with a wall of cabinet doors. Again, J also warned me about this but I didn't believe it until I saw it.

I was greeted by the one man that seemed to occupy the space. He seemed to surprised to see me. I explained that I already had a plan and I could tell him exactly what we needed. He didn't want me to stay or to discuss options. He wasn't able to tell me if the cabinets were all wood or not. His first language was, in fact, English so that wasn't the problem. He made a copy of my plan and told me he would contact me in 2-3 days with the price. 2-3 days?? They didn't exactly seem booming with business, so I didn't feel badly urging him to do it sooner rather than later. After approximately 2.5 minutes in their showroom, I was shown the door and told that they'd be in touch.

Several hours later I received an email from them with a price that is 50% less than The Depot cabinets-- even with their discount. Now that is exciting! I have not confirmed yet whether or not they can do pull-out rolling shelves or other built-ins that would be nice. My fear is that he only costed out one of the sheets than I gave him instead of both, thereby accidentally giving me a quote for half our kitchen. The only real piece of information that I was able to get from him while I was there was that they import the doors from China and then build the boxes here. That would explain the cheapness, but the quality really seems as nice as Kraftmaid. I am a little fearful of the imported from China items at the moment after learning about all the drama with the Chinese sheetrock. Who knows what kind of toxins are in the finish. Sorry if I sound like a grade A jerk, but I think it's true.

Kitchen Backsplash

Here's the marble backsplash we ordered yesterday for the downstairs kitchen. The little squares are only 1"x1" and was $7.99/sq ft. We found a surprisingly nice and affordable selection at Modern Way Home Supplies on Bayshore. There is such an odd assortment of warehouses down there. Some are nothing but the cheapest crap and others are fantastic. A new door and molding place just went in that I need to check out next week.

**In other news, I went to the Day School talent show on Friday night. Can you say 6th graders performing Metallica?? It was brilliant. None of them were over 4 ft tall. The girl lead singer came out in a tutu with knee length pink hot pants. All the boys had elbow length blond hair and acted liked they'd been playing for far more than their 12 years.

Kitchen Layout

Here is the layout for our little studio kitchen. That's not a farmhouse sink. It's just transparent for some reason. All the numbers on there are the dimensions of the cabinets. Oh, I can't wait to install these!!

Small Appliances

These are the little baby GE appliances that just arrived from Home Depot for our studio. The range is only 24" and the dishwasher is only 18". So many tiny appliances only seem to come in white. I don't understand why it's so difficult to find these smaller ones in the US, but I'm happy we finally did. I'll report back on how they work after we get those puppies installed.

In other news, I think we found a tiler for almost 1/2 the price of last estimate. And he comes recommended by our general contractor friend that we trust completely. That is a big relief. I think he'll be able to start on the shower pan on Monday so that we can finally get that inspected.

Counters and Backsplash

We finally settled on our kitchen counters and they are as impractical as one can find, but we both love them. It's called Crema Marfil and it is gorgeous. Creamy and elegant and lovely. I really like granite and know that it is so much more practical (esp as a rental which this studio will be down the road), but we got the Marfil. Here is the really exciting part: it comes in smaller 63" slabs which is exactly the dimension of the large area that we need. We need an additional 18" width piece to fit in to the left of the stove which was going to force us to buy an additional slab, however, I found a small broken piece in the bargain area that will work out perfectly for only $45. I was very pleased with my scavenging.

We are most likely going to go with a small square stone tile like the one above as well. We'll do that last after the counters are installed. I think that we are pretty effectively going to be emulating this kitchen that I fell in love with before.

Import Tile has a great selection of granite slabs at really reasonable prices in addition to all of their beautiful tile. That's where we got the Marfil. The small backsplash tile is from Best Tile which is a bizarre place on Bayshore. They didn't have much, but I did like this tile.

Our Very Own Spaceship

Little did I know that seeing that alien toilet ship at the plumbing store yesterday would lead to our studio starting to resemble its own spaceship today. There are giant E.T.-style ducting tubes going in every direction in our studio. There are sheet metal tubes poking through flooring and up through the ceiling for venting in places where we will some day frame upstairs. There are holes in the floor right now that are silver and shiny that our little pussycat, Muffin is so intrigued by. To her, it would act like a little slip'n'slide and she would land hard on the concrete floor below, so I hope she doesn't try it. I hope that we've made all of these calculations correctly because it's quite possible that the vent pipe is actually going through where my tub needs to be. And we all know that we will not be building a bathroom upstairs without a tub. I remain optimistic.

In other news:

- Poor Josh had to move the water pipes again. We now have hot water in the bathroom sink, but no water anywhere else. That means no toilet and no kitchen sink. Vavooom!

- The tile guy came out today. I am very excited to watch him tile so that I can possibly do some of it next time myself.

- Electricity down in the studio/garage seems to have diminished since this morning.

- The furnace guys have disconnected what was working upstairs. It will be at least another week until they can come back and get it operational again and finish the job.

- Our cabinets arrived today! I am so pleased about that. We are attempting to minimize the workable space downstairs as much as possible. I timed this best I could, but what can you do? It appears that they are even in the correct color which I still love, thankfully. The sweet delivery guys thanked us about three times for ordering cabinets. They said that no one is ordering right now and that business has been really slow.