Little things mean a lot

I suppose this is the part where it seems as though I have a heart too soon made glad: some of the things that make me happiest about our new spaces are things most people wouldn’t even notice. And I wouldn’t have bothered fixing them, or trying to, if they weren’t part of a larger product. But here they are, and they delight me.

The air conditioning vents in the attic used to blow out on either side of the bed. I like sleeping by an open window, but an icy Freon-based blast is not a good substitute.

Bed goes between vents. Occupant with XX chromosomes freezes.

Now the AC vents are in the ceiling. The patronizing previous owner, who kept pointing out that warm air rises, never  mentioned that cold air sinks. I don’t know why; it certainly wasn’t because he thought we’d be able to work out that particular corollary. Still, I’m excited about next summer’s climate control.

If I sleep standing up at the end of the bed, I guess I'd feel a draft.

I used to keep knives in a drawer across the kitchen from where I did most of my chopping. I’d seen some nice butcher blocks with knife slots, and then I saw this arrangement (scroll down). In our kitchen, there’s some dead space in the corner of the counter run near the fridge, so I bought an insert and Dan Stone, Wondercarpenter, made it happen.

Reach over, grab knife, cut what needs to be cut.

The work on the bathroom has not only given us a place where we can brush our teeth without falling through the floor, but a place where both the air and our towels will be warm and cozy:

It's a towel warmer and a radiator. And shiny.

Our feet will be especially toasty, thanks to heat beneath the tile:

Ignore the toilet, ignore the TP. That little screen is the display for the tile thermostat. The thing tucked behind it is not a tiny newpaper, it's the directions. I thought we were ignoring the toilet, anyway.

I’m looking back at the things that make me happy, and I’m realizing I must be part lizard, because I don’t seem to be able to regulate my own body temperature very well. So although the photo above seems kind of film noir to me, maybe it should be something with a little more of a science fiction vibe to it.

Not an “It is finished!” post

But, at least, a “We have our kitchen back!” post.

Today I handed my punch list to Lou and he sent the cleaning service to make our remodeled space habitable.

The punch list seems epic to me, who has never done a remodel before. And I don’t know when the furnishings for the third floor will arrive, so moving in there has to wait, but still. Cooking! We redid the kitchen, and it became a place where we can cook. Cook food. And then eat it. All in our very own house. It seems amazing.

Not the first time it's been in the niche, but this time it gets to stay.

Until we cook that food, we can store it here:

Ever tried to find a large fridge that doesn't have ice and water through the door?

As much as I missed cooking, what I really missed was having a kitchen sink. This, however, was definitely worth the wait:

Only the finest liquids will be dumped down this sink.

Not every item on the punch list is the result of workflow. The decisions keep coming. Our electrician thinks we should have a black line painted on white switchplates. My middle child and I like the plain black. All opinions are welcome — vote now!

Remodeling allows you to become someone who cares a lot about switchplates. A LOT.

The final 10 percent

“The first 90 percent of a project takes the 90 percent of the time, and the final 10 percent of the project takes the other 90 percent” — apologies to the person who said this first, because I can’t find a citation and therefore can’t give you the credit you deserve for describing our remodel so neatly.

We’ve been so close to done for (what seems like) so long that I no longer have any idea what to say when people ask when I think we’ll be done. Even when I run through the list of things of things that are left on the remodeling side, I start thinking about the interior design elements that are yet to come, and the point at which I sink into a comfy chair and gaze contentedly at the Magnolia shade seems very far away.

That said, tile is providing more joy than pain these days. We have a backsplash. Or two, depending on how you think about it:

The brown paper looks a lot like the butcher block underneath. OK, a little.

 

The stove went in a while ago, but it came out again so Orlando could work his magic :

Wood, paper, stainless, plastic, lizard, Spock . . . .

 I keep heading into the kitchen to admire the backsplash, one tile at a time.

Waiting for grout, once again.

 

Unfortunately, Orlando’s magic did not extend to getting all the tiles right side up. I caught some of them, but a few hours after he left, I saw that the garlic was upside down, with a clove floating at the top of the tile. I tried to pry it off, but astonishingly, that didn’t work. Then I moved on to figuring there was nothing I could do about it right then. I am confident it can be fixed, and I am confident that I am not the person to fix it.

“Tile.” Spoken calmly, without any veins bulging anywhere.

I knew roughly what sort of tile I wanted in the kitchen and bathroom before we’d even signed a contract. You might think that would simplify things, which in turn would speed the process up. I didn’t do a controlled study, so I can’t prove that my advance work didn’t help, but it’s hard for me to see how the tile part of the project could have gone any more slowly.

Timeline:

Some time in the 90s: I see a tile I like in a magazine. I think about how nice it would look in a backsplash.

Winter 2008/2009: I spend an evening going through about twenty years’ worth of Bon Appetits. I find the tile. I get on the Internet. It is no longer available.

I move on to spend vast quanities of time on the Intenet looking for tiles I love. I even go through every page of tile on CafePress.  CafePress has about 15,000 tiles. I look at all of them, finally finding something that is almost right, except the tiles have words on them. I write to the artists, asking if they have given any thought to making them without the words. And, because the world evidently revolves around meeee, they have.

So I order these tiles. I don’t know who will be installing them or what else will be with them, but these will be the highlight of the kitchen backsplash.

Spring 2009: I spend a lot of time designing the backsplash, blissfully unaware of the realities of available tile sizes and such.

May 2009: We sign a contract with the man who will eventually accuse me of being a Russian spy.

First week of June 2009: The contractor’s in-house desginer and I go to the contractor’s preferred tile showroom to meet with their preferred tile designer. She hates my tiles. She hates my proposed symmetrical backsplash design. Eventually, she suggests we move on to discussing the bathroom. That goes better, but it doesn’t resolve the kitchen issue.

Most of the rest of June: I e-mail the tile designer a few more times. We make no progress.

End of June: The contractor’s in-house designer goes to the beach and I go to another tile designer, who produces designs I like much better. When the beach vacation is over, I fax the designs. In-houser attempts to get designs to work with contractor’s preferred tile place. No go, because they don’t have the sizes and shapes we need. And the place that produced the tile designs I love doesn’t meet the contractor’s standards.

I remain calm. I have faith.

Mid-July: In-houser and I eventually go to a place owner by a friend of hers, and we manage to put together an OK plan.

Late July: At least I think it’s OK, but then it turns out that I can’t get a cove or sanitary base there. And in-houser is going out of town again.

Clearly, this is a job for Heather the interior designer who is too good for me. She hooks me up with her woman at Waterworks. Tile in the right sizes! And colors! And shapes! And a five-week lead time.

Beginning of August: In-houser and I meet at Waterworks. Everything goes along tickety boo until I say something about wanting the mud base. Waterworks says we probably want a cove base, because the mud base tile is only for bathrooms that are getting a mud base floor. In-houser says we’re not. Waterworks gives us a list of the colors and types of tile we’ll need for the kitchen and bathroom.

Middle of August: Tiling subcontractor provides list of what he’ll need.

Middle of September: First batch of tile arrives. It does not include the cove base, so nothing can happen yet.

End of September: Second, final batch of tile arrives. I meet with contractor and tile subcontractor. When I show the cove base to the installer, he tells me that it is the wrong type to use with a mud base. Which we are having. I announce my intention to kill in-houser and throw in a Bad Word, just to show how understanding and collaborative I’m feeling. I am sure he is impressed by the rationality and good nature of the homeowner he’ll be working for.

Now it’s the beginning of October. We still don’t have the backsplash up; we’re waiting for a countertop. But once the tile came in, the bathroom tile got done in a week, including grout. And it is lovely, even if the Streamline soap dishes and towel rings haven’t gone up yet. Now for some plumbing . . .

Hers and his

I took the next photo before the tile was grouted. I keep getting barred from my own bathroom while something cures or sets:

Tub/shower enclosure, with niches for our various toiletries and suchlike.

We’re going to need quite a threshold from the bedroom to the bathroom:

Our bathroom is on a higher plane.

They can call it a mud base, but it looks clean and white to me.

Let’s just say it’s mysterious

“Mysterious” sounds better than “baffling,” right?

I am ever-mindful of the fact that some day, decades from now, when we leave the house, the buyers will look at all the things we are so excited about and be every bit as excited about getting rid of them. That’s OK. Tastes change.

I am hoping, however, that future owners will not have cause to look at anything in our house and wonder, “What is that?” or “How did that happen?”

First, to anyone who ever thought of me as staid, I can now say in my defense — not that I’m defensive — that I lived for years in a house with an illegal junction box. I was playing with fire, or at least playing with fire hazard. Did I tremble? Did I blinch? No! I was as brave as Piglet, and somewhat cleaner. So there.

Second, we have this, which I thought was yet another innovation in wiring. And again, was I afraid? Ha!

Maybe I could use it as a clothesline. I mean, as long as I'm so fearless and all.

 

On the plus side, it wasn’t an electrical wire. Not that I’m afraid of that sort of thing, of course, but still. The bad news is that even our contractor wasn’t entirely sure what it was. He suspected it was some sort of radio wire, then asked if I was a Russian spy. Gee, I dunno, Yuri Sagatov, if there’s a Russian spy involved in this project, who’s that most likely to be? Hmm?

Another mystery: What was the original bathroom layout? Or was it even a bathroom? I have already trashed the bathroom design, but would the plan suggested by the doorway and window? medicine cabinet? below have been better?

Who said, "I know! I'll put the door next to the low wall -- a six-foot doorway is just the ticket!"?

 

(Note the child’s rake in the corner. It belongs to my youngest child, who had his tools appropriated and then was not allowed to use the carpenter’s power tools. There is no justice when you’re three. )

 

Then there are the “You just really couldn’t be bothered, could you?” discoveries. For example, when someone or other put up a knee wall and a new closet to create a sleeping area, it was evidently too much trouble to take out the bookshelves that were there. Why bother, when you can just drywall over them?

Taken in the closet. On the other side of the stud wall is the sleeping area.

You can save even more time by not bothering to drywall over all of the old bookshelf.

Why, you don't even have to paint the shelf when you paint everything else. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy!

And as long as you’re saving time by not bothering with a proper gut, don’t get rid of all the wall-to-wall carpeting if you’d rather not. Just nail the new stud wall through it.

How hard is to to pull up an old rug? Harder than building a wall?

Fortitude

Two days ago, I returned home to find that the kitchen was full of boxes:

Prefab vanity for the powder room mingling with the custom kitchen cabinets

 And I felt like I probably felt at Christmas when I was a child. “Oh, Santy Clause! You brought me a toilet!” I imagined that the next day, plumbers and such would swarm in, wave their arms in front of the the boxes like the Peanuts gang in front of Snoopy’s doghouse, then wave their arms in front of the half bath, and voila! Everything would be done.

Yesterday, I came home to see more boxage:

Some day, I will use this to vent Spam fumes.

I don’t think I have a future as a project manager, but at least I have some time to ask that they be careful with the box so we can make a fort — where I can sit and wish for a working toilet and sink on the first floor. And while it might not happen as soon as I deluded myself into thinking was possible hoped, I think it might be coming, because this has to mean something:

Doesn’t it?

Home again

One of the funny effects of remodeling is the opening it provides for conversations. At the beginning of our project, I was in the elementary school office and one of my child’s teachers asked how things were going. Evidently the move to the Deluxe Apartment in the Sky was his big topic of conversation that week. And then another teacher chimed in, and they both talked about how long their projects had taken. They’d both lived in their houses for the duration, and while it wasn’t as though they were going all Monty Python’s four Yorkshiremen on me, I felt like a bit of a lightweight, with my dust-free living space and my operational kitchen and whatnot.

Even if the kitchen looked like this:

Has anyone ever not had this kitchen at some point?

 

Anyway, we moved back into the house this weekend, so I will get to establish my remodeling cred slightly, because we have no kitchen, one fully functional bathroom, and three bedrooms for five people. So far two of the boys have been sick during the process (I never thought I’d be happy about a fever, but at least a fever doesn’t require a bathroom), and I am biding my time, waiting to see what happens next on the life side of things.

On the remodeling side of things, the kitchen cabinets are in:

Imagine the paper towels are a microwave.

Hutch — my cookbooks will have a nice home behind glass.

Rebecca from HomeCraft Cabinetry is very of protective of her (and Jerome’s) work; after Dan Stone, Wondercarpenter, installed them, she came back and put the pads over the lower cabinets. I probably should have taken them off for the photos, but what if I didn’t put them back right and she found out?

The third floor isn’t as far along, but it’s been painted, and Dan has worked more magic:

Big bookcase

The theory:

What Dan drew

The practice:

What Dan built

 The counter for the vanity is supposed to arrive at the house next Monday. The tile (oh, the tile) is supposed to arrive at a dock somewhere on the 14th. I am wondering if I could drive to pick it up, assuming it arrives on the East Coast, and assuming no one is sick by then.

On vacation

We have gone away, and I can’t stop noticing housethings, even at a motel. (The sinks here are from Kohler. Some of the toilets are from Kohler and some are from American Standard. My children are stymied by 34″ vanities, so it’s a good thing we got a 32″ for the powder room, as I am still learning to call it.) I have also noticed some recreational opportunities here, but I’d have to stop looking at plumbing fixtures to avail myself of them. So no.

Before we left, I spent some time making decisions so work could continue full throttle at the house. It was the biggest joint meeting so far: Lou and Laura from Sagatov, Heather from Steponkus Interiors, and Dan from Dan Stone, Wondercarpenter. (Not his actual title, or that of his show, but he should have one. He could solve the mathematics of framing and provide designs for staid homeowners and . . . well, I’d watch it.) After all my grumping about the tile, it was nice to have some things fall neatly into place.

I was so puzzled by the difference between C2 Banff on the chip and C2 Banff on the wall that I took my little sample can back to the paint store, where the staff was equally baffled, because C2 chips are actually paint sprayed on cardboard. There shouldn’t be any difference between the chip and the can. Their solution was to create a custom match of the color on the chip. Ingenious or twisted? Whatever, the color is perfect with the fabrics Heather chose, so that was settled.

The paint in the master bathroom is the custom Banff lightened 50%, so that was settled.

Then we needed a light blue for the ceiling of the dining room and the walls of the kitchen. I’d grabbed a few Benjamin Moore samples when I was attempting to unravel the mysteries of C2, and as Heather and I went through her fandecks, she pulled out Mystical Blue. “That’s on the wall over there,” I told her. We held up the opal schoolhouse fixture with the blue band, and it looked great. “It’s that simple?” Heather asked. I think we’re owed a little simplicity.

The other happy event before our departure  was meeting to discuss the built-in bookshelves for the third floor. We’d expected to fill one wall with bookshelves, but that wall runs under the shed dormer, so a tidy rectangular bookcase was out.  After we all agreed that bookcases at two heights was the way to go, Lou asked if I wanted a CAD drawing of the plan, a sketch, or something else. I said I’d be fine with just a rough drawing, and Dan offered to do it on the wall. The rest of us went down to the kitchen to discuss the work in there, and before we were done, Dan called us up to see the bookcase:

We need a better photographer to do this justice. One with a better camera.

 

Do all design-y folks learn to do that handwriting somewhere? Does it just happen?

Details, details

 

I am awed by people who do long-distance remodeling. How does that work? What happens at each Unfortunate Discovery? Each Delaying Event? Each Necessary Substitution? But while I am gone, Heather is picking the color for staining the hardwood floors, which also went in last week.

The deconstruction company wanted to know if we wanted them to save the old wall-to-wall carpeting. No, thank you.

 

I appointed proxies for any other decisions that need to be made in my absence: Dan, who likes traditional design, and Heather, who is much more contemporary but can channel my tastes like a champ. Together, they could probably come up with an entire remodel that I would love. But that’s assuming I could become a laid-back, control-ceding sort of person, and I doubt that’s possible.

Grinding along

We are now horribly off schedule, thanks to a tile situation. A friend reminds me that being off schedule is a princess problem, so I am trying not to whine about it. Besides, being horribly off schedule is a traditional part of remodeling, just like discovering something bad about the plumbing, right? We’re two for two! And soon we’ll get to live amid chaos, because our temporary rental is up, meaning we’ll have about six weeks to bond with the workers, whose favor I won’t be able to curry via refreshments, because we won’t have a working kitchen. Three for three!

Still, we have managed to go from bathroom cabinets in the living room

Cabinets galore -- we're lucky the sofa is at the rental with us. They need the space.

 

to bathroom cabinets installed in the master bathroom

 

Plenty of storage, and eventually, two sinks. Now if it were just going to be usable before fall -- sigh.

A rare DIY moment

I used to watch a lot of home improvement TV, in which motivated homeowners would save money and feel the glow of satisfaction of doing their own projects around the house. I used to think I’d do that some day. Instead, for the most part, I’ve used what I learned to understand why we’re paying other people to do that stuff.

So far, aside from cutting off samples of flooring to be tested for asbestos and surfing the Web for items for other people to use on our house, I haven’t done much.

I did, however, paint some squares of drywall when we were trying to decide on a paint color. Well, to decide between paint colors Heather chose. I should add that I have never watched an interior design show and thought, “I could do that.” I may overestimate my motivation, but not my abilities.

I started here:

The least-dusty workspace in the house was the utility room.

I used the squares because I didn’t know when the drywall was going to be up. As it turned out, it went up sooner than I expected, so when I took the squares to the third floor to see them in their natural habitat, I ended up propping them against drywall, like so:

Bird's Egg, China, and Old Pickup with fancypants to-the-trade swatches

Once the drywall was primed, we got to see them on the wall. The kitchen wall, for some reason, but still, a wall:

Ben Moore China Blue on the left, C2 Banff on the right

Having moved out of the DIY realm, I proceeded to ask everyone I could to weigh in on colors. I don’t know why, given that the Benjamin Moore was much better with our fabrics. Heather and I are surprised that the C2 is so different from the chip. C2 makes these huge chips that should help you decide, but all they really do is make you think that C2 is the paint for you and you’ll get to be one of the cool kids who use C2 paint, and then it goes on really grey and breaks your heart, although not as painfully as if you’d relied on the chip and gotten your entire master suite painted the wrong color.

I do all my own rants.