Sunday, January 27, 2008

I Can't Leave

So, I go to the house probably 4 times a week on average. Sometimes I go to answer questions about what goes where, or ask questions about what's next... sometimes I just go to soak it all in. It doesn't matter if I go to the house for a couple quick questions or just for a quick peak, but I end up staying for half an hour or an hour. I walk from one room to the next, and back again. I'll just stand in the Master Bath with a huge grin on my face. I tell myself, "OK gotta go now" Then I end up standing in the main bath for 15 minutes. I'll stare at the slate, trying to find my favorite pieces, or just open and close the cabinet drawers. Then I'll shake myself free and say, "OK gotta go now." But I'll end up in the new bathroom upstairs touching the tiles...

I just can't leave. Good thing, cause we're moving there in a month!

OK, so here's an update since the last post. Most of the tile is in now, the bath vanities are in and there's paint going onto the doors and walls. Here's the pictorial history.

The master.

First, here's the floor tile. Still kind of messy with all the install dust.


Now it's cleaned up a little and the cabinets are installed. Also, the shower pan and curb is all tiled.

Here it is with the shower surround all complete. The accent tile will continue over the cabinets as the backsplash. All we need are countertops.


Here is a close up of the accent tile in the shower.


The new bath

First here's the floor tile. Again, it's messy due to being early in the process.



And here's a closer look.


Here's Chris the tile guy putting in the shower surround and accent.


And finally here's the tile all done. Still needs to be cleaned up a bit. But it gives a good idea of what the New Bathroom looks like.


Main Level Bath

They started here by putting up the shower surround.


Here's a close up. See the variation in the slate? We love our slate! See why I end up standing around choosing my favorite pieces... Also I love that Damon, our contractor, knows that we like unique tiles and tries to use the cool ones in highly visible places. Thanks!


Then they moved onto the floors. And dropped in the cabinets.


Then they did the grout and put all of the drawers and doors on the cabinets. Can't wait to see this one all done.


So this is really hard to describe, but here's a picture of where we are going to do a little tile inlay. See the "missing" tiles? There will be bamboo flooring there, and the tiles that are "supposed" to be there will be "drifting" away - inlaid into the bamboo down the hall towards the camera a little. If this doesn't make sense, just wait a few weeks and we'll show you the finished product.


OK, so that's all for now. More soon.

Tom

Sunday, January 13, 2008

More Stuff!

So, they've basically finished all the drywall, taping and mudding now. And as the title indicates, we have received more stuff. Hooray! Here are our appliances...


OK, fine they are still in boxes so it's not THAT exciting... but it IS really exciting that the construction is pretty much done, and all the finishing touches are starting to arrive. Like our cabinets...



And our kitchen sink...



And some of our tiles...

Oh alright, so boxes really aren't that exciting. I'll give a you a peek inside. These are going in the master bath...


Since they are still in a construction zone I didn't want to totally take them out of the boxes, so please excuse the plastic and cardboard. But notice the silver trim that surrounds the "tigerwood" faces.

And then these go in the kitchen...


That's Alder Wood with an Autumn finish. And they haven't been field adjusted yet, so those doors will line up when done.

And these go in the main floor guest bath...


Sorry that's not the best pic. There's a lot of dust still in the air. They are the same style of cabinet as the kitchen, only much, much darker.

And then, not all the tiles got deliverd, but we do have the tiles for the new bath...


Now that was a really hard one to get a picture of. You can almost sort of tell, but that's a linen pattern on the tile. And here's the accent tile that's going with it...


Again, ignore the plastic. We will be using thin stripes of this to accent the new bath.

And finally, this combo will go in the master bath...


Again, we'll use small stripes of the mosaic tile. And the larger grey tile will be on the floor and shower surround, and the smaller darker tiles will be on the shower floor. The colors didn't quite come out right in the pic, but it looks really cool in person. Trust me.

Oh and perhaps the most exciting thing is that they will start laying this tile down later this week!!! Man it's going fast.

Tom

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Back up

Ok, for you non-immediate family members, or for those of you who have made specific requests, I'm going to back up a touch. If you read the first post you have a general idea of what's going on, but were probably pretty lost by the last post. So here goes...

We are renovating the house to do several things.

1) Reskin the whole thing. New paint, new cabinets, new countertops, new sinks, new floors etc... It used to be classic worn out 80's, and we want it to be contemporary/modern.

2) Turn the current upstairs bathroom into the ensuite master bath

3) Add a new bath upstairs (because we stole the only upstairs bath and donated it to the master).

So those were the goals. No walls were being moved downstairs, so I don't have drawings. But upstairs we were moving things about. Here was the plan...

First is my crappy initial drawing of the original layout.



You can click on it to make it bigger. And as you see you come up the stairs and there's a short hallway in front of you. If you take that hallway and turn left there's a guest room. And if you take that hallway and turn right, there's another short hallway. To the left from there is the bathroom, and to the right is the master bedroom.

And here's my projected drawing of what we were going to do.


Again, click to make bigger. We were going to take a little piece of the guest bedroom, and turn the hallway into a 3/4 bath. We were going to wall off the entrance to the master, and add a new one. Also we had to add another door to get you into the guest bedroom up there.

Then the contractors came and did a non-crappy drawing of the upstairs.


And when we saw their drawing with the measurements all drawn in we realized that we could fit a full tub up there. So I edited the drawing...


And that became the final plan!

So there you have it. Now you are all caught up.

Enjoy.

Tom

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Progress

So we've made some pretty serious progress on the house. And when I say we, I mean our contractors Damon and Fred, of Quality Remodel. Although honestly with the amount of time we've put into designing the remodel, and coming up with all the finish and fixtures, it certainly feels like we are in it with them. I can't imagine how any sane person can put this much effort into choosing finishes, and then spend the time to install them all.

Anyway, the house is coming along nicely. Here are some before and "in progress" pictures for your enjoyment. I can't call them "after," because after isn't done yet.

Here's a picture of the kitchen before we did anything to it.Note that the fridge kind of juts out into the kitchen a little, which doesn't look so good, and kind of makes getting into the cabinets behind it a bit of a chore (click on the photo to enlarge). So we decided to bump that wall back a bit to make a little nook for our new fridge so it was nice and flush with the cabinets, making them easier to access.

Here's the back corner of the kitchen with the cabinets removed. You can see the spot where the fridge was just to the right of the cabinet outlines.

Here's the fridge nook being framed in. There used to be a closet behind the fridge that you'd access from the hallway. We donated half that closet to the fridge nook. And while we had all the framing open, we also decided to add a pocket door behind the fridge that would close off the guest area of the house. You can see the horizontal framing for the pocket in the picture. Also notice the stringer that's going over the hallway to the right of the fridge. That's where the door will cut off the guest area.


And here's the fridge nook all drywalled out. You can see we just bumped back the part where the fridge will be so that the cabinets above will also be flush with the fridge front.


Upstairs is where the big stuff is happening. We have changed a hallway into a bathroom, and created a master suite. Here's a picture of the hallway at the top of the stairs before anything was done. Straight ahead is the hall. Down that short hall and to the left is the entrance to the upstairs guest room. To the right is the Master Bedroom and the bathroom.

Here you can see the framing for the new bathroom. We took about 18 inches of the extra bedroom on the left and donated it to the bathroom. We also had to add a door to the extra bedroom to the left of the bathroom. And finally a door into the master bedroom, on the right.


You can see the tub being wedged into its spot. All the spots you see in the air are actually the flash reflecting off all of the dust in the air. Hooray lungs!!

And here's a pic of it all drywalled in. Again, the door on the left is to the extra bedroom, then the bathroom door is in the middle, and finally the door into the master is on the right.

And the interior of the new bath.


Also we are changing around the master bathroom. The biggest change in there is that we are making the shower larger. Here's a picture before.


And here's a pic mid destruction.

Since the shower is going to be all glass, we had to move all the plumbing. Here's the old plumbing hanging free. It used to be inside the wall that we took out.


Here's a pic of the framed in new shower. you can see we extended it out to where the vanity will go. I'm pretty sure that red stuff is water proofing.


And from inside the master bedroom, The bedroom and bath used to be separate. Now there is a new door, and a short hallway created to the now ensuite bath. I don't have many shots of the master before. But here's the closest one. This is looking towards the detached bathroom. On the left you can see the beginnings of a new door. Just behind that is the original door, and then the bathroom.

Below you'll see the same scene with the new design fully drywalled in. The original door converted to a short hallway to the bath. And the original hall closed off to create the new bath.

And here's a better shot of the new hall.

Also we doubled the size of the master closet. I don't have before pictures, because it was just a 2 foot deep reach in closet. Now it's much larger, and the top of the closet can be used as a neat shelf on which we can put some art.


Finally here are some more random pictures of the goings on at the house.

Stuff piled up in the garage. We are going to use the old kitchen cabinets to create a bike shop area in the garage.
Here's a paint booth they've set up in the garage for painting all the doors and trim.

Here's a picture of all the trim pieces stacked and organized for painting and reinstallation.

Here's all the carpet and padding they pulled out.

And a bunch of other construction debris. Ready to be tossed.

The final before and after. And it's a bit of a stretch. But here's a shot of the upstairs hallway from below. Notice no doors, and the small hallway on the right.

Here's the upstairs hallway from upstairs. Notice the 3 new doors and the small hallway is covered up.

So this is it - about half way done. There will be more photos as the finishings start going in.


Tom