7th Mensiversary

This is an update on the issues I mentioned back in the 6th Mensiversary.

Door handles are finally installed. So the right and left handles are all the same, they can be reversed. But then why two different model numbers? Just to confuse customers? So after sending back and receiving the same handles again that's what they finally told me. So apparently it's fine. However, now the keys are not the same set....something just has to be wrong.

The fridge is also fixed. The technician just had to readjust the fan which was displaced during the move. The stove top, oven, microwave and exhaust fan are all working fine. I cooked braised chicken on the stove while the fan is on, roasted vegetables in the convection oven and microwaved water. All seemingly working properly.
Hooray.

POD came home too and now the house is full of boxes. The TV is mounted on the dining room cabinet after a few adjustments. I love how the TV evens out the intensity of the orange background.

We are almost done!!! Let the unpacking begins.

What's wrong with this picture?

Can you tell what's wrong with this picture? I can and it almost gave me a heart attack.
The instruction was to center each number in the plank between the grooves and to maintain alignment. I even mentioned that curved bottom has to sit slightly below the baseline to appear aligned. I didn't assume people knows about this, but yet I still didn't get what I ordered.

So I mentioned that this need to be fixed, and I will be there to give directions. Yet again no one pays any attention and decided to just "fix it" and here is the 2nd version:

It's almost right and of course now the siding requires repairment. But the 5 is still floating!!! And now it's not so easy to ease it lower by 1/8" or so. Do I have to live with this? How hard is it to follow a simple instruction of don't do anything until I'm there?

By the way, this is Avant Garde.

Not so little glass box

I absolutely hate shower curtain, it brushes against you, it needs to be replaced all the time, the rod if it's the tension rod won't stay put, basically the only virtue is the price, it is way more affordable than it's glass counterpart... Needless to say I'm very excited about getting glass in the shower and in the tub. I have been enduring shower curtains for the last 25 years. It's definitely about time.

My first preference was to have just glass and minimum hardware and no moving parts, so a fixed half closed glass partition will be ideal. Unfortunately that doesn't work very well in my bathroom... it's just way too small to have an opening without the consequence of having to mop the floor after every shower. So the next option was to have a door that opens into the shower area instead of out since the toilet is right next to it so there's not enough room. But opening in is not to code. The last option is to have a sliding door. Originally I was opposed to it as I remembered all those sliding doors in the 80s apartments and I don't like them either. They run on a rail and it's hard to clean, but the newer version is way more superior and also devoid of a lot of chrome. So the final version is 3/8" clear Starphire tempered glass frameless shower enclosure with Clarvista Coating. Starphire is the clear looking glass without a tint of green as in normal glass. Forgot to mention one thing, the sliding direction was suggested by Danny from Franciscan Glass to avoid water spilling out. Great tip.

As for the guest bath I stick with having just a glass partition. It's not for everyday use and I like the clean look better. Besides, it's cheaper ;-) Still I picked 3/8" Starphire tempered glass to maintain the "white" look.

Let there be more light

Finally the electrician installed the Glo Ball light. Remember the one that arrived all broken? I ordered it from Lumens.com and they handled the whole episode beautifully. They sent UPS to pick up the broken one and in less than 5 days sent me a replacement. Very courteous too. I do highly recommend dealing with them. So here is the light in it's full glory, it will be right above the dining table. This is definitely one of my very satisfied purchase. This is not a very good picture, I might replace this photo some day.

And the guest room gets some lights too. This is Philips, reasonably priced  and it fits the alignment of the window ;-)

The theme of the "ball" light extends to the back exterior. The picture is rather bad, but I guess you can see the shape.

6th Mensiversary

Happy New Year. I wish you all the best in 2013 and more so for this overly prolonged renovation.

I was hoping that the new year will bring some good luck to this seemingly ill fated project. Basically everything that could gone wrong indeed went terribly wrong. Ok, maybe not everything, but definitely way too many.

As the 6th month rolls around, we are dealing with details now. On this mensiversary day, there are quite a few activities:

Radiant Heat Boiler - Lipp Hydronics Inc.

The weather has been constantly below freezing these days so finally on Sunday 12/30 I was thinking that the heater should be turned to at least 55 to make sure that the pipe won't burst. Well, no actions from the old radiant heat boiler...dead silence. I called the reliable Lipp Hydronics Inc. for a check up, but of course everyone is having heating problem so Mr. Bill Lipp didn't show up until today 1/3. The first thing he did was pump up the temperature gauge to 90. And guess what, the boiler started cranking. He told me that half of the house calls he made had this problem. Homeowners shut down the system during the summer months and then to reactivate all you need is to crank it up high, basically disregard the temperature setting. He also checked the pressure and the valves. So to make sure all is well the temp needs to remain at 90 overnight to make sure the boiler keeps working. I'm just thankful that I don't need a new boiler and that the heating is working. So next time if your boiler seems to be on strike, turn the temperature to 90 and save yourself $145.

Liebherr Refrigerator

There has been a problem with the installation of the fridge for over a month now (I was just ignoring the issue). The strip of wood at the top of the opening is too low for the fridge to go in. There has been a few rounds of adjustment, apparently it still doesn't work. So finally Peter suggested to take the strip off, put the fridge in and then adjust the wood. That should be simple enough, but now after the fridge is plugged in it is making so much noise that I need to track down Liebherr to ask for a technician to come and look at it. Why can't the fridge just plug in and work? It's hard not to feel that bad luck is just following me around. Of course I spend more than an hour doing this and the technician won't contact me until next week to set up an appointment. 

The gap on the top where the wrongly dimensioned wood strip was.

Bosch Dishwasher

Same issue with the dishwasher. It won't go in. At least now that the wood is taken out and the dishwasher is in, I haven't gotten any complaints that it's not working, yet. Really, it's ok? I sure do hope so.

Again, the gap was wrongly calculated.

Baldwin Door Handles - PullsDirect.com

The door handles were ordered on 12/3. Finally on 1/3 they arrived. I ordered 2 entry handles (keyed), 1 left handle and 1 right handle. They have different model numbers.

Baldwin EN.TUB.R.CRR

Baldwin EN.TUB.L.CRR

I ordered 6 privacy handles with lock, 3 left handles and 3 right handles with different model numbers.

Baldwin PV.TUB.L.CRR

Baldwin PV.TUB.R.CRR

Well, they took a good month and then completely ignore the order and sent me all right handles. What's the model numbers for? So I called them and of course I need to send the wrong ones back before they send out the correct ones again. I still wasn't too unhappy yet, just cursing about my bad luck. But after talking to Miss Emily on the phone I finally received an replacement order email with 4 right handles, not left. Seriously, this is a very simple order. PullsDirect can get it wrong twice? So the order is to send back 4 right handles and then receive another 4 right handles? And they sell door hardware? Dealing with left and right shouldn't be this difficult, especially for a business that's center around shipping door handles. They all have left and right versions. Towards the end of today I still haven't gotten a straight answer yet and I was on the phone for 2 hours. Think again before you order anything from PullDirect.com!

Honeycombed

Amazingly my pleasant experience with California Closets extended to Hunter Douglas window coverings. Originally I was not going to change the vertical blinds but they look really sad and tired in the new surrounding. I am also attracted to the energy saving aspect of the honeycomb shades...
If it's not because of the necessity of blocking out sun in the afternoon in one side of the house, and if I have more energy efficient windows, and if I don't have neighbors just 10 feet away, I'd much rather have no window coverings at all. However, since all of the above do not apply, the windows need to be honeycombed.

I met up with the Hunter Douglas representative on the 8th, decided everything by the 15th and voila in two weeks the shades are installed. Super efficient and smooth transaction. Basically it's just so much easier to deal with established specialized businesses, especially since I have been having so many problems with custom work, carpenter, plumber etc. These specialty stores really know what they are doing.

Finally something to cover the skylight in the kitchen during the hot summer days.

Vertical sliding shades in the dining room.

Top down, bottom up horizontal shades in the living room.

Wooden shades in the Tatami room.

Top down, bottom up in the guest room.

Vertical blue shades in the master.

Yellow top down bottom up for the study.

And in the study there is a new change. I ran into the painter a couple of weeks back and I inquired about putting some color behind the bookshelves and to remove some awkward shelves at the top. He agreed to do it with a very reasonable price and now I have background colored bookshelves ;-)

HERE COMES THE SUN

Finally I'm very glad to be able to end the year on a high note. Happy New Year everyone.

Toto Recall 2

Believe it or not, Toto problem resurfaces after more than 3 months of peace and quiet. Remember it was the wall hung toilet wreaking havoc back in September? This time around the standard toilet wants to join in the fun.

To choose a toilet it is essential to measure the toilet rough in which is the distance between the wall behind the toilet to the center of the waste pipe on the ground. Most common distance is 12 inches thus a 12-inch-rough-in. However, there are 10-inch and 14-inch-rough-ins as well.

When I picked the toilet there were 3 main elements I was looking for:

1. Toto with a washlet
2. universal height which is slightly higher than the normal ones so as to prepare for old age ;-)
3. the trunk has to be straight for easier cleaning

Other than that California already has the code to have dual flush so I was happy to find the Toto-412MF which is also reasonably priced and comes in 12 and 10 inch rough in.

The contractor wants me to buy everything and have them ready to be installed whenever. I told him the selection and he said to get the 12-inch one. The toilet then took a month to be delivered, so basically I have it since August. With all the demolition, carpentry work, painting... the original toilet was left to be used by the workers, so it's not until now that this toilet is being installed. And it doesn't fit!

1 inch OFF

I have a $400 toilet sitting there just one inch off. Both the wall and floor has been tiled, the rough in distance is 11inch. I swear it has something to do with the tiled wall behind the toilet. That wall didn't use to be tiled and the tiles and the waterproof paper must have decreased the distance. Of course an experience person should be able to foresee that, but of course not in my case. So now I am stuck with 2 options. One is to dig the tiles up, jack hammer the concrete floor, reposition the waste hole and put in a new one. Another option is to forfeit the $400 toilet and buy a new one. Obviously the first option seems ridiculously complicated even though the contractor and plumber said that they will do it for "free." Somehow it seems wasteful to do that. The 2nd option is to try and sell the 12-inch rough in toilet which seems to be a much more reasonable alternative.

I would very much like to buy the same toilet with the 10-inch rough in but that will take another month and while I was away at a wedding, the contractor found a toilet and swear that it's the same model and installed it. All happened while I was gone. So now I have a 10-inch rough in toilet but I'm not sure it's the same model. On top of that there is a big 1 inch gap with the wall behind.

Big 1 inch gap to the tiled wall.

Not sure why I've been having so many problems with toilets. Somehow Toto and I have been having a very tumultuous relationship so far. Hopefully this is the end of the drama.

with washet. Not sure if I like the look! Sigh.

Let there be some light

If you are in the market to shop for more than just functional lighting for your house, I highly recommend the following sites:

http://www.surrounding.com/
http://www.lumens.com/
http://www.ylighting.com/

They all carry modern classic designs with a rather wide price range. I'd have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by the roles that lights play in the design of a room. Unless you are using recess lighting, they make quite a statement on the wall or on the ceiling. It's practically like hanging paintings in the room except that you can't really change them out as easily, thus I do feel the pressure of picking the right lights. Hopefully I picked the ones that I won't get tired of and also serve the purpose of providing sufficient and pleasant lighting. To add to the complication, I only want to have LED or fluorescent light, absolutely no halogen. Believe me, this makes it way more difficult. Lots of the nice design still make use of halogen and haven't switched over to the more modern green light source.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if the lights are from Europe, which a lot of them are, it may take up to 6 weeks to get the shipment; and if there's any mistakes, you'll also need to deal with the lengthy turn around time. Basically plan ahead and don't schedule the electrician unless you are sure that the lights are not broken and all parts are in place. And yes, I did make that mistake and now the electrician has to come back for the rest of the installations.

In the mean time, I finally have the I-Club light and the Flos L Hide wall lamp installed in the living room. The I-Club light provides warm surrounding light through a layer of veneer. The L Hide Wall light serves as an illuminating shelf of LED lights. You may be surprised that they are installed at different heights, that's kind of classic Jessica, the girl loves asymmetry. There's also a practical element, the L Hide Wall lamp needs to be lower than the opening of the door in the shelf next to it.

Flos L Hide Wall Lamp and I-Club Wall Lamp

For the master bedroom I have the Jielde Signal Arm Wall Sconce by the bed side, and of course there are 2 colors, pastel blue and water green. This light has been around since 1950, made by cast metal and painted. The arm is adjustable in all directions.

Aren't they the cutest?

Water Green

Pastel Blue

I also have 2 different ceiling LED lights. One single light to serve as spot light to the closet. One 2 lamp ones for the hallway. They both are capable of 360 degrees rotation.

Hallway Phillips Ledino 360

Spot light for master closet.

Of course there are the recessed lighting in the kitchen, they are standard pin based fluorescent.

Broken

The Glo-Ball Light Series designed by Jasper Morrison is more than a light fixture, it's an elegant statement of diffused light. This ethereal design is made of an externally acid-etched, hand blown, flashed opaline glass in a simple ellipsoid. I like it better than the perfect globe used in the original Eichler houses but it is still a design reminiscent of many 60s lighting fixtures with the simple form of the sphere.

I still wasn't quite sure until I saw a real life one in London at John Lewis.

I found the right model for the dining room and it didn't take that long for it to be shipped. But when the electrician came to install, we found a box of shattered glasses instead.

It's really kind of sad but I guess that's the problem with breakables. it's amazing that they don't put more effort in packaging considering the consequences. Lumens.com is quite nice though, they immediately agreed to ship a new one before Christmas. All the paper work of sending back the broken pieces also went smoothly. So at least I'll eventually have an intact one. I wonder who is going to pay for this? UPS? lumens.com? manufacturer?

On the other hand, I don't have as much luck with another broken item we discovered today. The IH stove was purchased way back in July when Peter asked me to buy all the appliances and have them ready in the garage. I gladly obliged but none of them get installed until 5 months later and low and behold, the stove top is chipped in one corner. I got it at AJMadison but the warranty for returns is only for 30 days, this of course is way past that and now I have to live with having a broken stove before even using it.

Now the question is who chipped it?  The box was first opened by Noor to get the right dimensions. And then the stove top was fitted to cut a hole for the quartz counter top by the stone guy. The packaging was very thoroughly done (unlike the Glo Ball) and if it was chipped when it was opened, I'm sure I would have been told. The fact that I wasn't forewarned at all made it quite clear that one of them has to be the culprit. Yet another Noor problem.

Not so Happy 5th Mensiversary

5 months have passed and my world is now tainted by the Noir (Noor) Cloud. All was more or less fine until he dropped the noir bomb. My original reaction was shock, followed by pain, then immediately turned to anger which lasted for 10 days. Eventually now I'm just exhausted and quite depressed with the whole situation. Nothing has been resolved for over 2 weeks now. I'm swinging back to anger. Wait, why am I going through the stages of grief, maybe I'm mourning over my disappointment with the whole human race? I am still trying to understand the situation, am I dealing with some cultural misunderstandings? I suppose it's actually harder to do business in this big melting pot of United States. I'm still waiting to move to the acceptance and hopeful stages... so on this day of the 5th month, saying Happy Mensiversary is really quite a stretch.

Enough with my rants as today the plumber, Dennis, is here. I have been waiting for the faucets and toilets to be installed for the longest time. They were all purchased since the beginning of August, to tell you the truth, I'm starting to forget what I bought. Anyway I got a call and apparently one set of faucets were missing. After over an hour of sorting through dust, debris and boxes in the garage, luckily I located them. There is a second surprise, Dennis confessed that he had never installed these kind of faucets and toilets before. Should I be alarmed? Sigh!! No pictures at this time as they are still all scurrying around dealing with the more than 20 parts to a faucet. Some of the parts are so tiny that I'm quite nervous that they will get lost in the midst of stuff. Let's keep our fingers and toes crossed.