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.

Comforting Closets

I love to organize, to categorize, to arrange, to systemize, to catalog, to program... Well you get the drift. I am absolutely obsessed with anything that has to do with organizers. So you can imagine how pleased I am with the installation of my closets. I am also delighted that there are no complications, no crooks to deal with. Absolutely instant gratification and not too expensive. From design to commitment to installation is all within  3 weeks. So here are my new closets completed with pull out trousers rack and removable dividers. It's just so comforting to have them.

I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.

Not really. It's more like I wish....

After over a month of hiatus, Noor sauntered in to finish up the rest of the cabinets. Or so I think.

On October 15th, after discovering that the sidings are rotten and that the phase 2 project is really not to code meaning it's not just violating the minimum depth requirement, which I don't have any issues with, Peter told me that if I build cabinets into the garage I need to build a real wall to meet the fire code too. This is all new to me and practically will increase the project price once again. So I told Noor to cancel the 2nd phase cabinets. OK, or at least he didn't protest at all. Granted in the original contract around $5000 is allotted to the 2nd phase cabinets, but since the first contract there were significant change orders that more than cover that. Anyway, he didn't say anything, so I assume it's ok as he wants to move on to a different project anyway. But no, on November 16th around midnight, a full month after I suggested the cancellation of the 2nd phase project, a full month since he last showed up to install cabinets, he decided that all work will be finished on the 17th and that I need to bring him a check, do the walk through tomorrow. And that's not all, I need to pay him an extra $7000 dollars since I violated the contract of not doing the 2nd phase project, so the $7000 discount he gave me no longer apply. In a nut shell, I need to pay him more for not getting extra cabinets. How delightful! So instead of replying him, I basically had to avoid him a bit as I know my temper, I will most likely regret what I will say to him.

Then on Sunday morning, just after 24 hours, he said that I didn't show up for the walk through, I didn't pay him even though his work is done, I didn't communicate with him so he took 8 of the cabinet doors. Well, how self righteous can one be? Did we ever agree on a walk through time? Ah, it's convenient to him. Why would I pay when I don't agree with the numbers and I haven't had a walk through? Umm, I didn't answer emails for 24 hours, I'm practically MIA? He hijacked 8 of my doors from my house. I thought I'm not as angry now, after a couple of weeks, but yet, I guess I'm still rather emotional with this whole episode... Not to bore you with too much details. He didn't want to do the 2nd phase project anymore, and even if I want to, he won't do them and I have to pay him the extra $7000. Nothing has been resolved, at this point I'm still waiting for him to come back from his vacation. Umm. He can go on vacation, but I need to reply him instantly.

So this is when I fantasize about Don Corleone.

Here are some pics of the missing doors and the bathroom cabinets:

Missing upper doors. Handles are in.

Missing upper stainless steel door.

Guest bathroom cabinets and medicine cabinets.

Master bathroom. Sink still not installed.

Medicine cabinet.

New Front Step

Finally the bad quality, top peeling, old slate tiles that have been broken and fixed and broken again were trashed and new tiles are installed. I thought I have a picture of the old tiles but somehow I just can't find it. Oh well, here are the new concrete colored tiles. I hope this won't fall off as easily.

And That's How the Brits Do It.

During my short but memorable excursion to England I discovered some very nice features in their building practice. I was at a new development, the Marconi House on the Strand, which transformed an old theatre from 1868 into flats and a hotel.  Basically the facade is from the 19th century but with all the modern amenities. Need I say more, modern plumbing, which I still find abominable even in the nice hotel. Somehow water pressure hasn't been translated correctly across the pond. So hopefully the Marconi House did it right. Seems like they are targeting young expats with housing allowances and most likely would never bother to cook at home. The kitchen is unbelievably small. What's behind the cabinet doors are not real storage, it's taken up by the fridge, a dish washer and a washer/dryer combo. Basically there are only 2 shelves that are real storage:

Look at the bathroom, they even put a TV in the shower, yes, shower not bath tub. So one can watch TV during the 5 minutes in the shower?

The wall hung toilet and fixtures are quite similar to mine. I sure do hope mine will turn out just as nice. As for the shower area, it's just so much more pleasant without the "curb." Too bad I can't go curbless ;-(

So what are the features that caught my attention the most? The light switches and plugs and the baseboard. Compare to our switch plates, theirs are way more streamlined and attractive. Also look back at the other pictures and look at the plugs. Beautiful.

Nice switch plates and iPod connector.

The base board is flushed with the wall instead of awkwardly sticking out and giving problem to furniture placement. Have you been frustrated with trying to place a chest of drawers against the wall and ended up with a gap just big enough to have things fall off and disappear into the yonder? At least until you are smart enough to move the chest of drawers and try to dig out your missing items. Anyway, great idea.

Lovely Baseboard.

Goodbye Marconi House.

More examples of switch plates ;-)

4th Mensiversary

Can't believe it's been 4 months already!
Most of the major jobs are done including demolition, new soffit, gypsum boarded, electrical wirings, plumbing and rough-ins, flooring, kitchen cabinets installation, tiling, interior painting, exterior painting. So what's left? well, many many more small decisions, but no less critical, at least in the aesthetic sense, that I need to make...

Believe it or not, I haven't decided on the handles. Actually it's the color that I haven't decided on. Yes, it's color again. This time is silver toned or black! Why is this so difficult? It's because I want to tie in with the door knobs. And somehow I can't find nice looking, reasonably priced black door knobs. So the search is still on.
Lighting is also another big issue. Dining room light, bedroom lights, hallway lights...

And then the house numbers. I removed the original lit up number box so as to replace with numbers of a nice font. I looked up the original Eichler numbers, but not sure that I like the stamp like characters with the black background. Besides they are actually rather small. I am leaning towards these metal numbers from a collection of rather well known fonts. I love the 9 from Ribbon and love it's dramatic thin and deep look in black anodized. The other selection is Avant Garde Medium and I love the 4 which has a sailboat look with equal distance in the two hanging stems; however, I'll have to use Medium as they don't have the regular width. Another issue is the size. I really want to have a height of 6", but because the siding I have has a <4" flat surface in between grooves, the 6" Ribbon with a width of 4" spills outside of the grooves. Here are pictures of the prototypes I made:

6" Ribbon spilling over onto the surrounding grooves which will then run into the next number.

4" Avant Garde Medium looks a bit thick to me

I will definitely pick one of them. Check out this site: http://www.westonletters.com/?catID=23&file=HN-Styles.htm. What do you like? Please vote on them.


Here are the remaining items that I have to do:

• pick out house numbers
• pick out handles
• pick out door knobs
• pick out lights

Here are the other items to be done by the contractors:

• install faucets
• install toilets
• install bathroom cabinets
• install kitchen appliances

The Wonderful World of Color 2

Interior painting was basically finished by Friday October 26th, and finally we have sunny days ahead. The weekend was picture perfect and Monday continued to be brisk and sunny, but no painters in sight. Throughout last week while they were painting the interior I worked very hard on selecting the exterior paint color. In fact lately I have been driving around looking at house color like a maniac, swerving around meandering streets, halting randomly to have a better look while contemplating color combinations...dark or light roof and eave? Dark or light main house? Separate trim color or no trim color? Door? Fence? The more I look, the more I feel that I'm not up to making the right decisions...

Actually I have decided long time ago to have a yellow door. Yes, and that's amarillo ;-) but what yellow and what combination? I always think that yellow goes very well with dark grey, but how dark am I comfortable with? Should I have a dark grey house and then off white trim around the roof and eave? It seems natural since I have a very white foam roof, in that case, the whole upper part of the house will be like a "cloud." The house color will be dark and then a splash of yellow to give a focal point. Before going to the paint store and look at swatches, I did a few Photoshop mark ups to look at the effect.

1st photoshop attempt

Of course the front of the house doesn't look like that as the glass blocks had been covered up. But more or less this was the color scheme I started out with. Somehow, I'm a bit nervous with having a very dark main body of the house. Will the house get too hot? I just know that if it's not dark enough it will look neither here nor there. But if it's too dark, am I running the risk of having a big black box? I think a very dark house looks very nice if it's surrounded by mature vegetation; and if the entrance is not with a very high ceiling. I'm just not too comfortable with having this house painted all dark. I am also a bit bothered by the white outline.

So how about the alternative? Flip the dark and the light color and maybe orange instead of yellow? Actually I have tried out many other combinations, but here is one of better ones.

2nd attempt

Actually I like this less stark contrast better, but somehow the monotonous tone of the very wide garage and side gate looks very "boring." There are absolutely no other elements like windows, trimmings, level changes to offset the monotony! There's also one other issue, somehow Jessica doesn't like the orange door, not sure why, but I guess I'll stick with yellow than...which was my original plan.

Then one day on October 22 I drove past a modern house, not Eichler and it has different siding materials. It's a mixture of off white wood color, dark wood and then silver tin siding. The combination looks harmonious and interesting. And then I have an epiphany! I will use color to simulate the effect of different siding! This will solve the monotony issue that has been bothering me.

Dark eave, light putty main color, silver grey front and side gate.

Light putty is still the main color of the whole house, but in the front it's intercepted by a silver grey color which also matches better with a yellow door than the light putty. Voila. This is it, now the challenge is to find the real life right color.

Again after numerous trips to Benjamin Moore and Orchard Supply Hardware. Going through stacks of color fan deck and buying those awfully expensive cans of sample paint and wasting almost the whole can. Why do they have to come in a pint (16 oz)? Seriously a 4 oz can is more than sufficient to try it out... Ahhh such a waste, but without sampling it's just too risky. Finally this is what I gave to the painters:

Eaves and all beams: Gray Pinstripe 1588 – Soft Gloss FinishDoors (front, back patio and garage door): Sunflower 2019-30 – Soft Gloss FinishFront facing entrance (as in photo), side gate and chimney: Silent Night 1613 – Flat FinishMain House: Tapestry Beige OC-32 – Flat Finish

Finally on Tuesday October 30th, Enrique, Julio y Juan came back to work on the exterior. They are each painting one color and by afternoon I can see glimpse of different color in working. Wait!! The Gray Pinstripe is way too light, not dark enough. Why? It should be dark enough... we sampled it... I saw it next to the other color... but after applying it on a big space, it just doesn't give enough contrast!!! But they already bought all the paint, this needs to be fixed. After talking to Enrique he is willing to stop the work on the dark grey and wait for me to get the new paint. Once again, back to the paint store to look for darker grey, much darker grey this time as the last one apparently is not dark enough. Finally I decided on Temptation 1609. Another 3 hours of running around, another 3 gallon of paint, another 3 days of painting, the exterior is done by Friday November 2.

This morning I went to take pictures. This is my house at 8:30am:

Sun is shining right in the front to see the color correctly.

Backyard gives a better idea.

Side yard with the new non-rotten siding.

You can see slightly better from a different angle.

At 11:00am:

And again in 3 in the afternoon:

These pictures were taken from the iPhone and not in the best lighting and condition. Hopefully I will have better pictures later when the project is done. We are inching towards that now.