It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like - Home

Hard to believe. We moved into this house 11 months ago. At the time, our other house was still on the market and had not sold. We had half of our furniture here and half at the other house, "staging" it. When the other house finally sold, some of the furniture was sold with it and never came here at all. So we borrowed some furniture, knowing we'd have to buy a few new pieces after the remodel. When we started remodeling this place, all excess furniture was returned to its previous owners or gotten rid of since we were now living in half of our living space.

Well, now the remodeling is basically done and we are able to move into our new space. Miraculously, the new sofa and barstools we had had on order for months arrived within a day of each other. We quickly re-borrowed (on long term loan) some furniture from John's sister - their dad had been quite a collector of MCM and Danish furniture and we finally had the perfect place for some of it! So everything was able to come together fairly quickly in the last few weeks. Still have more decorating to do but we're getting there. It's actually starting to feel like home. It feels great. We really love it. It was worth the long haul.

But back to where we left off. John needed to assemble the Ikea wardrobes in the hallway - they function as our entry closets.

The entry used to seem too big, but with the cabinets and our garage sale slat bench, it all seems correct now.




Here's the view from walking in the front door - the "cube" in front, housing the laundry and pantry, and a cute little Danish chest I bought on ebay and which subsequently Greyhound mauled. I've got a claim into Greyhound so here it sits with its dents in it until I find out what will happen to it. Need some fabulous artwork here!




Then here's the view from the end of the pony wall. The barstools, sofa, and cabinet behind the sofa are new - the Ikea cabinet behind the sofa houses the fiestaware collection I inherited from my grandmother - but just about all of the other furniture is inherited from John's dad Lou.

The sputnik lamp is new, from lamparts on ebay. I love this lamp!

We still haven't come to an agreement as to what shoud go on the display shelves. I think John's vintage radios should go up there and he doesn't. He thinks the view from the back is ugly (it's not) and who is going to see them from the back anyway except us? Still under debate.

When we bought the house, we joked that it needed an intercom. So - ebay! It's a vintage Rangeaire intercom with tubes! John will get it working - it'll have connections to intercoms in various rooms of the house, the electrician wired it all in. But it still needs more work. For now, it's just for show. We love it although John isn't sure if it fits in. (It's in the hallway right by the kitchen.) I love all the dials and switches.

Here's something I got on ebay years ago - an old industrial sign of Reddy Kilowatt saying, "Live Better Electrically." I talked John into moving it home from our shop, I thought Reddy fit right in here at the end of the hallway.

And here's the current view of the entry, with a Scandanavian rug from Lou on the back side of the pony wall.

We're getting there and it's feeling homier every day!

Floor and Tile

Well, the contractor is basically finished here - woo hoo! There are a couple of details he will come back to work on later but a lot of the little details left are things we said we'd do. So we are in the process of moving back into our space, giving everything a good cleaning, and doing some finish work. But here's what's been accomplished in the last week -

1- The Backsplash. This was the one thing I was most excited about. We chose a 1x1" tile mosaic mix by Oceanside Glasstile (the Enchantment Blend in the Tessera collection). I felt like the product was very contemporary, and yet the 1x1"tile was a pretty 1950s thing.



The tiles are all hand made and irregular and come in different finishes - clear glass, matte glass, and iridescent glass. The blends are a mixture of these types. This really gives some zing to the space and yet I don't think it's overwhelming at all. It's everything I wanted it to be which is a relief seeing as this is pricey tile!



2- The floor!! Our Kahrs engineered Cherry Savannah floor arrived and was installed in 3 days this week. It comes in 8' lengths and is 3 planks wide. It's an engineered plywood type of product that snaps together. There is a thin layer of real cherry on top. There are no nails or glue in our floor, it all floats on a layer of a felt-like product.

We love our floor!




And the Marmoleum (a real linoleum product, made out of linseed oil) came in for the laundry area as well. We went for a wild orange color (Asian Tiger was the name of it I think). Well, it is LOVELY and not as wild as you think an orange floor might be! It really reminds me of my marbled papers.

As you can see, where it meets the cherry floor in the doorway, the color really transitions nicely.

3- Appliances! Husband John installed the new refrig and dishwasher (from Ikea) as well as the new stackable washer and dryer (LG from Sears). As suspected, I think the washer and dryer look obscenely huge. For a family of 2, they are overkill. I had a fairly new front loading washer at the old house and it was not as big but American front loading washers just keep getting bigger and bigger. You can go out and pay a lot more for an Ansko or Bosch or something European that is smaller but we ended up with the LG. The stove gets installed tomorrow when Jack, the electrician, comes to finish up (he'll be adding the under counter lighting and a few other things).


4- The Bar. The contractor was waiting on the floor to be installed before finishing the front of the bar. Ed used some of the birch panels from Ikea (you can buy them to match your cabinetry) and there is a 1/4" reveal between the panels. Ed used a strip of some kind of black automotive tape that husband John came up with at the back of the gap so it would look nice.


So - we have spent the weekend moving back into our space - unpacking boxes, washing lots of dishes, etc., arranging, and rearranging. And there is finish work - I've been on baseboard duty - filling the little nail holes with wood putty, sanding, caulking the upper edge against the wall, and today I will paint the areas that need it (the baseboards were pre-painted before they were nailed down). John has been working on the appliances but today he is going to work on the post by the stove, that supports the floating shelves. Installing the shelves meant notching into the post 3/4" for support and that notch needed to be cleaned up and finished. Ed suggested that husband John use caulk or even Bondo on the bigger gaps. In addition, as the post cured and dried out, it needed some more sanding, so the whole post, notches and sanded areas and all, will get touch-up painted and finished today. Then we can finally take the plastic off of the top of the bar!

And I need to put some more sealer on the hearth before we start putting furniture in the living room. So we're getting close.

And finally, here's a picture of our happy crew taking a lunch break - contractor John, Jack the electrician, and Ed the Detail Man. I'll miss their smiling faces. But not the mess! We are very very thankful for all their hard work and for the beautiful job they did on our (now) wonderful house!!

Getting There

Well, the countertops were installed 2 weeks ago today. They look nice, I like the look of dark countertops with the light colored cabinets.

Another thing that got done 2 weeks ago was the installation of our floating shelves. Ed made us 2 beautiful shelves out of maple - it turns out maple looks the most like the European birch of our kitchen cabinets. They are lovely. The 2 Johns installed them - it was trickier than it looks. It's all done with threaded rods and aluminum tubes and washers and couplers. Getting the holes drilled in the right places in the ceiling was the nail-biter part. I think the wide-angled camera view makes the rods look a bit wonky here - but it all came out with everything parallel.

At first, we were not even planning on having those supports in the middle. Contractor John warned us about the wood sagging and we assured him we would not be loading up the shelves with anything heavy, like books. But, upon installing the shelves, they sagged merely under their own weight. So center supports had to be added.

You may notice in some of the other pictures that there is a bucket on the top shelf of the floating shelves. That's because the roof has a bit of a leak there - that is where the old vent hood and exhaust pipe were and we are waiting on the roofer to come work on spots such as these which tend to leak. Happy to report that there is no longer a leak from our chimney - yipee! It has rained and rained here the last week and this area is finally fixed.



The front of the bar here isn't finished yet, they will do that after the flooring gets installed.

Ed also made the mantle for the fireplace out of the maple, and he edged the melamine shelves in the pantry with it as well. Here's a shot of part of the pantry-

A week ago, Jack the electrician came over and hooked up a bunch of our outlets and light fixtures. It made a huge difference to have light. We haven't had more than a single floor lamp in there for light for 3 months. Having light again makes the place feel much more homey.

As you can see in the pic above, there is a big patch of concrete on the floor. That is something that got done last week as well. It turns out that there was a dip in the floor there, where the old wall used to be. So contractor John filled in the low spot there with a floor leveling product.

We were expecting our flooring (a Kahrs engineered cherry) to be here a week or two ago but it got held up. The tile for the backsplash was not in either so John and Ed packed up their stuff and left and went on to another job site. They'll be back as soon as the floor shows up. After the flooring is done, we can get the refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, and washer and dryer installed. So the main things left for them to do are the floor and the backsplash tile. Until then, John and I decided to help out with a lot of the little details that need to be done. So on Saturday, we took down all 5 old doors in our hallway and patched and sanded and repainted the doors and the trim. The hallway itself had been painted (and the 2 doors to the furnace area had been replaced and painted) and so repainting the old doors needed to be done before the floor went in. The doors were a real mess, original to the house I'm sure, and all had hooks or towel racks or some hardware on the back that had to be removed and the holes had to be patched. In addition, all of the hinges had paint on them so all the hinges got cleaned. They are all rehung now and today I will try and put the new handles/ locksets on them so they will all match.

Husband John has been installing and adjusting the cabinet doors, drawers, handles, and other hardware and he just finished that up this weekend. After that was done, I started moving stuff back into the kitchen! Everything over here has a good coating of dust on it so everything has had to be washed. I spent quite a bit if time this weekend washing and arranging and organizing. When they install the floor, there will be more sawing and dust-making but as long as they cover the cabinets with plastic, I think it'll be ok. Anyway, we moved our dining table, microwave, and electric tea kettle back into place yesterday - they will just have to be moved out again when the floor and tile are being done, but it's nice to have everything in one room again, at least for a little while.

Sorry I seem to have taken most of these pics with the lights off. It'd look a lot better if I had the lights on! I'll have better pics next time....

Whole Lotta Concrete

This week, there was a whole lotta concrete work goin' on. First up - the chimney cap. Our chimney box is a pretty big box of pumice block, and it was capped by a mound of concrete (think of bread rising out of a loaf pan). Well, this 6" high mound of concrete had developed hairline cracks on the top over the years. After much hosing down of various parts of the chimney, these cracks were implicated as the cause of our roof leak. (We had had the chimney masonry repointed in the fall, as there were big hunks of grout falling out, but this did not solve the roof leak.) This problem needed to be fixed now, before the new wood floor goes in. Anyway, contractor John recommended that we remove the old concrete (jackhammer it out, basically), lay down a thick plastic membrane, then pour a new concrete cap. So husband John spent a large portion of last weekend removing the old concrete. This week, the job got finished - the membrane was laid down, a form was made, new concrete was poured. The result looks great and fits right in. The concrete had a little black stain added to it so it'd match the house better.

Oh - and door and window trim got done this week too, now the front is finished (for now anyway).

Meanwhile - down below - more concrete work was being done. The hearth on our fireplace had been chopped into several times - first, when the post supporting the beam was installed next to the fireplace, and second, when they recently cut out part of the hearth to get to a heating vent underneath. So - they sawed off the remaining hearth (you can see it is gone in the photo in the last post). The plan was to pour a new base out of stained concrete and to pour a new hearth to sit on top. A form was made for the base directly on the floor in front of the fireplace and the concrete was poured in, around our new heating duct. A strip of wood was added into the form so that when the form was removed, a little groove would be at the bottom - this is where the flooring will neatly fit into. For the top part of the hearth, which is a bit larger than the base, another form was built out of melamine. This form was also filled with stained concrete. The idea here was to let the concrete cure for a few days, then it would be flipped out of the mold, so that the part on the bottom that was next to the melamine would then be on top. The melamine gives the concrete a wonderful smooth finish.

Well, on Friday, when husband John was home, the hearth got taken out of its mold and flipped. Tricky business flipping an 8' long chunk of concrete. But John, John, and Ed got it done and slid it into place.

We love the look. It will lighten up some more as it cures, but it will darken some when it gets sealed so this is probably about the tone that it will be when it is finished. I think it's perfect, as it will tie in with the charcoal of the countertop in the kitchen. New heat registers are on the way but here it is now, with an old one.

Quite a bit different than when June was living here (this pic was taken on the day of the building inspection)-

Husband John is working on the fireplace this weekend. The box to the left of the fireplace is a box for wood storage, but John is turning it into a stereo cabinet. He spent some time yesterday insulating this box with blue foam (as this large drafty space takes up about one third of that big chimney box). Today he is starting on the construction of his stereo cabinet. Contractor John didn't want the edge of the hearth to be damaged so for now, he's got the melamine mold on it, upside down, for protection.

Other news: Ed tiled the guest bathroom floor and it looks terrific. It's a porcelain tile by Mohawk - the Gravura line, Ember Forest is the tile. Love how the tiles are all different. It looks like slate, but also has a modern concrete-y look to it. Easier to care for than real slate. Again, this bathroom was not really supposed to get remodeled yet but that old carpet in there just had to go. In addition, the wall on the left got some holes in it from wiring the kitchen, so husband John patched and drywalled and painted in there last weekend and now it is done. Some decorative tiles got replaced in the shower area as well, now they are all white. Eventually, those tiles will be redone but that is for another day. It sure looks better in there now though.

And here's a pic I found of how this bathroom first looked, again from building inspection day. That's white shag carpet on the floor.

On this week's agenda- the laminate countertops get installed tomorrow! That'll be fun. I assume the sink will be installed then, although the plumber won't be here yet to make it functional. The appliances won't actually go into the kitchen until our flooring comes. That could happen at the end of this week. That was originally the ETA for the flooring but apparently it is on a boat or something and everyone is being vague about when it will actually be here. If it actually gets here, I would think this project would be wrapped up in a couple of weeks. But if the flooring is late, then we are pretty much on hold until it gets here. There are a few other things that need to be done, but that list is dwindling. Will have pics of the kitchen, with countertops, soon!

Cabinets and Colors

Well, things are rolling along over here at Rancho Tostado although I have to confess, Rancho Tostado may be in for a name update as well. Toast Ranch fit our old house perfectly and when we moved here, Rancho Tostado seemed appropriate. But - there is a classic MCM hotel in Scottsdale, AZ called the Hotel Valley Ho. We happen to live on Valley Dr. and I have been calling our place The Valley Ho for awhile now. I guess it can have two names for now.

Anyway, all of our walls have been painted. For those wanting particulars, we used Valspar from Lowe's - Woodlawn Whitewash is the white we chose, Arid Plains is the taupe color, and Araucana Sage is the pale green on the rafters (it's in the Martha Stewart line of Valspar paints). I was worried it would be too green. We had tried several greens on the rafters before and they hadn't worked. I'm real happy with this color, it is very subtle and in certain lighting, it almost looks white. It is also very similar to the cool green concrete of the patio outside the sliding glass doors. We used the taupe on the "cube" of the pantry and laundry room - and on the kitchen wall behind the cabinets - and on the opposite wall, on the fireplace.

I'm still not sure about it being on the fireplace but everyone else likes it and says it is better than the white was. I guess my problem with it is that it looks too much like adobe brick (a la Santa Fe style), not the look I am going for. But I think with furniture etc. it will look better and I think it is nice to have taupe on that wall opposite the kitchen so that is what we are going with for now.

The cabinets are in but most don't have the doors or drawers in yet. So for now, they all look a little plain and so will the countertop once it is done (in a basic charcoal Graphite Nebula laminate by Wilsonart). But all of this was meant to be low-key because of the tile which we will be putting in, which has more of a presence. We'll have to wait a few weeks to see it all together.

A few other things got done which were less thrilling. The main water cut-off outside was found to be a couple of feet underground, with a long, flimsy rod sticking up out of the ground which you supposedly would turn to turn the water off. Only the thing felt so flimsy, you were sure it might just break off, which would not be good.


The plumber was not happy with this, it certainly is no longer code - so after John dug a hole to get down to everything, the plumber redid the cut-off and now it is easily accessed through our own personal manhole. John still needs to fill the dirt back in.



And another little detail. My workroom gets afternoon sun and really warms up. The rest of the house stays relatively cool with not much solar gain. We decided that if possible, in this remodel, we would try and do something to increase the airflow between my office and the living area. So, when they were doing demolition and taking down the dropped ceiling in the hallway (well, they didn't take down all of the dropped ceiling, but they took down some of it), they cut into my office wall. The result is like a high clerestory window, except we are going to try it with no window. A few of the rafters from the hallway go through this space, so John painted the rafters in my office this weekend so they wouldn't turn from green to white as they went through the window. The gaping hole on the end of the dropped ceiling is the plenum for the heating system and will have some sort of cool grille on it, haven't decided exactly what to use yet. Since John is a car mechanic, everyone likes the idea of using some sort of auto grille which would be cut to fit the space. I need to hunt around some more for these online.

And one more thing- online shopping and ebay are a great resource. I bought a fabulous contemporary Modern Fan Co. fan on ebay for our last house - it was brand new, in the box, and cost incredibly less than you'd pay for it anywhere else. So - for this remodel - I have bought a cool rimless stainless steel sink at overstock.com, I bought a Hansgrohe kitchen faucet on ebay, and interior door handles on ebay (all new).

Highly recommended. In fact, I'm getting ready to go on ebay right now and buy some barstools, which you can see after I get them!

And a final note. John was just now removing the vanity in the guest bathroom . As you may recall, we tore the white carpet out of there at the beginning of the remodel and now it is floored in dingy bits of the original linoleum. Even though remodeling the guest bath was not to be included as part of this project, redoing the floor ended up on the list. As they are going to be laying the new tile in there tomorrow, John decided to help out and remove the vanity. When he was doing this, he found a hole in the wall behind the vanity and upon looking in there, he found tons of old razor blades. I know old houses sometimes had a place you could dispose of your old razor blades in the wall and I guess we just found ours!

Another Window Goes In

Well, the other trapezoidal window went in this week also. We love how much light we now have in the living room. And we love how the outside of the house looks. (Some day we will get around to having it repainted and the color scheme will change. But that's another project for another year.)

We ended up having to put a pony wall by the front door - which separates the entry from the living room. We had always planned on putting something here but we weren't sure how we were going to do it - perhaps make something like a giant bookcase or entertainment unit sort of thing that could function as a room divider but could be moved if the need arose. Well, the contractor told us the new door/ window area needed structural support and we would need that pony wall to be permanent. So in went a pony wall, I really like it.

And here's a shot just to the right, with the newest window.

And an overview, from down the hall. The beam is where the old weight bearing wall was. Much more living room space now, much more openness, and much more light.

I wanted to post some old pictures of everything so you could have a pre and post comparison - and when I was looking at old pictures, I found a video I'd made, touring the inside of the house. It was really fun to look at this again so I thought I'd post it. This is from right after we moved in, I see we are sort of camping out. Anyway, enjoy! Things have really changed. :-)

As you can see from the above photos, a lot of drywall work was done this week as well. The sanding is almost complete, then they will paint. And then, the Ikea cabinets can go in. They will go in before the flooring, as the floor is an engineered floor that will be floated and the cabinets cannot sit on top of the floating floor. Other work that needs to be done soon - fix the cap on the chimney, which is cracked and which John tracked down as the source of our roof leak. Gotta get the roof leak fixed before the floor goes in.

And finally, our yard is just starting to really look lovely. The lilacs are in full bloom and the apricot tree is finally green (we did have a hard freeze when it was blooming weeks ago so no apricots this year but that's ok)- had to throw in a shot of what I see out the sliding doors from my workroom-

New Trapezoidal Windows

I haven't posted for awhile. A tremendous amount of work has been done, but for the last few weeks, a lot of it was stuff you wouldn't notice so much - the electrical wiring was all redone; the subfloor in the entryway was all taken out and redone since it was not level; the semi-functioning sliding glass doors were replaced; plumbing work was done; and a lot of work was done on the plenum for the heating system. Finally, at the end of last week, drywall started going back up. Here's a view of the kitchen, and a shot of the area just to the right of the kitchen - "the cube" which houses the pantry and the laundry room.

Our custom windows came in for the front of the house and one of them got installed today. Here's how the entry room looked this morning, with the old windows and door.



And here's how it looks now!



And here's some intermediate steps- tearing out the door and windows-

Tearing out some more to accomodate the new door and windows-

Framing in the new door and windows-

And now-

It still needs some more work but we're really excited how it looks from the inside to have nice big windows up there. And another, smaller trapezoidal window will be added to the other side of the front of the house in the next few days, it'll go on the other side of the fireplace. Stay tuned!