5 Bits of Advice on Remodeling

1. Say "no" to toilet storage. Do not allow your husband to store old toilets in the backyard because "it's funny". OK, for 24 hours it was funny and then it was over.

2. Be agreeable within reason. Any renovation is challenging and you should expect to live without creature comforts for quite some time. However, just because the electrician says that there's no other way to move forward, do not agree to demolish the whole house and move into the litter box without consulting your husband first.

3. Throw more bodies at the job. Your incredibly smart, talented, curious husband may want to try his hand at every project, but it will take 30 years to renovate the whole house if he does it all by himself since he has a very full time job already. Do hire people.

4. Be kind to your mother. Do not tell her how much anything costs. It will freak her out. I learned this lesson long before we started this renovation. She will sleep better and so will you.

5. Be sensible. When your plumber roughs in the plumbing downstairs, make sure he/she caps off the sewer vents so that your entire house does not smell like a porta-potty.

Cue the Violins

OK, boys and girls, today is a real doozy. Our electrician arrived promptly at noon to wait for the electrical inspection. I eagerly awaited the report from our electrician that all was well and that we could soon proceed with sheet rocking. Well, as you might have already guessed, we didn't pass. Our electrician explained to me that the inspector said that she couldn't sign off because of all the work that we would soon be doing upstairs. Basically, if she signed off, we would seal it all up with sheet rock and when she came out to inspect the wiring upstairs, she wouldn't have any access to see what he'd done from down below.

SO, what this means is that we basically need to proceed with demolition and framing upstairs. The trouble, my sweets, is that we still live upstairs. Our magical plan had involved us fixing the downstairs, moving down there and then doing the upstairs. That was apparently wishful thinking. I guess there's been a lot of that going around.

We will see, but my new plan is for us to move to the very back of the house, seal it off as much as possible and then demolish everything except for that room and the bathroom upstairs. The room, unfortunately, is the coldest room in the house. It is full of single-paned windows that create a lovely wind tunnel effect. It is also home to the litter box and our washer and dryer. I am pretty sure that our bed will touch both walls.

** I just heard from Josh and explained the situation to him. He says that this is crazy and that it's easier for the electrician to run the wiring through the bottom, but with a little extra effort, he can run things up and over the ceiling instead (thereby preventing us from having to demo anything up here). He's going to talk to him. Sigh. I hate not knowing these things. I hate that a contractor could force us to live in the kitty litter room and demolish the whole upstairs because he doesn't want to take the time to go up and over. I will endure most anything to get this done. I want to expedite this situation as much as possible, but don't make me do something that dramatic if I don't have to, ok?

Knob and Tube

Just in case there was any question in your mind, this is NOT what proper wiring should look like. This, my friends, is just a sampling of the scary wiring that was somehow not burning our house down all these years. If this is what yours looks like, call an electrician now!

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.

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.

Not One, But Two Indoor Geysers

Why travel all the way to Yellowstone Park or Taupo to see a beautiful geyser when you can see one at our house? Thursday night was full of excitement. Josh had to continue rerouting some of the plumbing for the heating guys when we had our first geyser in the garage. This was tackled quickly by releasing the pressure on the hose outside.

We then moved upstairs where we decided to tap into the new plumbing currently under our bed. Blowtorch in hand, Lucy and I stood aside to supervise (as always) while he soldered and cut through more pipes. What we had forgotten, however, that the plumber had tested these lines that we wouldn't be using for while, so there was a little water in them and they were, in fact, pressurized. So, the water suddenly shot up in a huge stream towards the ceiling landing all over the floor and the bed. We both collapsed in hysterics and he instructed me to run downstairs and release another valve. The water came to a quick stop and he finished up the soldering while I mopped up the water and changed the sheets. The very strange linoleum flooring in the bedroom made the cleanup rather easy.

A few hours later, we had cold water again enabling us to flush the toilet. Excellent news! Today, Saturday, we now have hot water again and gas for the stove and dryer. It's funny, but after living without any water for a day preventing the toilet from working made it seem like no big deal when I knew we wouldn't have hot water or gas for a few days more.

In other news:
- We got our estimate from the nice tiler, but he wants what I consider to be a not so nice amount of moolah to do the tiling for a pretty simple 4.5x10 ft bathroom. I am now on a quest now to get additional estimates. Yes, I know, that's always a good idea.
- I made other important discoveries in the land of shower doors and tile which I will share later. I figure the geysers are enough for today.

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.