Are you worthy of custom cabinetry?

Do you know that one of the major expenditures of most renovations are spent on cabinetry? I actually didn't realize that until I started getting estimates from different contractors. Of course you can go with Ikea and save loads of money with some very good looking cabinets. But your room better be of certain height, build around the dimensions of the cabinets and if you don't mind that the base cabinets are built with particle boards. Besides, you also need to factor in the time you spent designing your own kitchen with not much help and finding someone to assemble it. Don't get me wrong, I love Ikea and the modern design, but for this big renovation, I think I do want something more custom made.


Recently my friend Karen just finished building her most amazing net zero energy home with beautiful cabinetry throughout the house. I was reluctant to ask for her cabinetry maker as I assume that it will be way above my budget. So originally I went with some semi-custom cabinets and was more than shocked by the absolutely not so frugal price...So I started working with Noor Adabachi of Spirla III Design of San Bruno.


I am going to use the same plyboo plywood throughout the house. Plyboo is sustainable and green certified which is part of the reason I chose it. I also like the interesting side details of the bamboo.

Another challenge is to choose the right finish! Stained to which color? Bleached? Less grain? More grain? I practically went through at least 6 finishes before narrowing it down to 2, and eventually to the one after at least 3 weeks of contemplation. I kept telling Noor that I like the "unfinished" color, basically the most natural color to me, but with the sealant and the stain, apparently it's almost impossible to get the same natural hue. I do like the eventual color that he was able to make for me. I sure do hope that it will look good in the finish cabinetry.


On Friday I went to Sprial III design workshop to look at the progress of the cabinets, and they do look good so far. It's getting to be quite exciting.

the inside of the cabinets

Noor holding up the exterior plywood to one of the base.

Drawers interior. FYI, drawers are the most expensive elements of cabinetry.

The double ends are necessary to cover the interior layer.

Cracks and cracks

For the last 2 weeks the floor is being prepared for the eventual installation of the bamboo flooring. In a couple of previous postings I have been showing pictures of new concrete being poured to even out the overly uneven region, debris being scraped from the removed previous floorings and there were tons of those including 2 layers from previous installations of the original laminate flooring and later on, tiles, carpets etc.
Well, so far it's just been a routine leveling and standard preparation, and then I was told about all the cracks and their undesirable effect of cracking the adjoining windows. Apparently the buckling of the foundation has a lot to do with the high ground water level underneath the foundation which most likely has been seeping through the bare ground right next to the house. Throughout the house the cracks are most apparent next to exterior regions that only have bare earth with downspouts.

Look at the crack on the window and the soil next to it.

Again cracks inside and outside.

To fix this problem Peter suggested to dig trenches to lead water from all downspouts away from the house. Basically this means that renovation will have to extend to the outside.... Apparently this is a rather common problem with Eichler houses. Once again, the pros and cons of owning a classic mid century modern tract house.

Hole in the Wall

Literally I have holes in walls. We worked with the electrician last week to decide on plugs, lamp positions, on/off switches, tv outlets. Not sure if I am still ok with my decision, but hey, he already punched holes everywhere.

Living room wall sconces but not sure what are the lower holes for.

Jessica's room wall sconces. Again, why holes in the middle? The lower strip must be for the wiring to go across.

Guest Bedroom wall sconces.

Master Bedroom swing lamps. Is this the right position for bedside lamps?

Seems like the plumber was there too. Rough-in for showers are installed. They are quite expensive, over $100 each...

Day 21: Right to bear arms and Toto toilets

While you are free to buy combat rifles and unlimited amount of arsenals online, go to a movie theatre as Joker and start your rampage; in California you cannot have nice Toto toilets if you are doing a renovation with a permit! 

CT418FG

CST412MF

Never mind that the Toto toilets that I picked are CalGreen compliant and have EPA seal of approval with their dual flush system of 0.9 gallon and 1.6 gallon. I cannot install these toilets because of Title 24 which limits the water consumption to be less than or equal to 1.28 gallon/flush. Never mind that 0.9 is acutally less than 1.28, but as long as there is another option to "waste" water, one cannot install these toilets legally. They rather have me own an automatic assault rifle and hoping that I won't ever snap? Of course it's all for my own good?

Day 18: Everything and the kitchen sink

Almost all the kitchen appliances, fridge, oven, stovetop, dishwasher, hood and the kitchen sink were delivered and neatly tucked in the garage. I ordered all the above back on July 5th, but it took 15 days to deliver.

During the process of monitoring the delivery I helped to clear away stuff from the garage to make space. While shuffling things around a rod bumped my head, right on the temple and till now I still feel a light headache. Not sure if it's psychological, but maybe I should consider wearing a hard hat from now on! I suppose there's really a reason for wearing them.

Day 17: what now?

So I haven't posted anything for over a week now! The thing is after seeing the gutting process, changes are not nearly as dramatic now. During the last week I actually have been really busy trying to decide on the tiles, choosing the exact toilet, sink, faucets, lightings... Aside from shopping, I need to decide where to put the lights, how high, how many, where to put the sockets, how to mount the fan. What color cabinets? How many shelves in the living room? Too many questions and way too many decisions. At this point I started wondering about why I'm doing this renovation myself. In fact, at least 3 or 4 of you have been asking this question. Apparently for those who have not been in my house, or even for those who have been, you seem to think that the old house was just fine. Well, I cannot say that it was uninhabitable, but there were so many problems in the kitchen, in both bathrooms and many of the walls with big cracks on them. The fridge had been broken for over a year; the stove top had been an issue almost since the first day I moved in; there were loose tiles here and there; the cabinets started to fall apart; the showers were abysmal; the walls had nasty looking cracks... Of course what began as a kitchen and bathrooms renovation evolved into removing walls, removing doors, changing layout, but I guess once you started thinking about a project it's so easy to keep adding changes onto the list. Am I having some sort of "buyer's remorse?" Hmmm


The next stage of the project is to put in rough-in for the showers and other plumbing work. The electrician is going to lay down all the wirings and clean up the existing ones. The floor guy is busily trying to level the ground before installing the new floor. After pulling out all the tiles, the floor is full of glue and other debris. It's a lot of work to chisel, to sand, to smooth out!!! I do have 2 pictures to show here:

New beam support across the new opening.

New concrete in part of the floor, it was simply too uneven.

IMO? Metris S?

Dorn Bracht extraordinary line of faucets IMO.

Hansgrohe Metris S.

Gutted

Completely and utterly. Even the posts between the kitchen and the hallway. Yes, and this information is for Jessica. We can have the opening in the kitchen again! Apparently the post we found is not essential to the well being of the house. I am so happy that we do not need to fall back onto plan B. They are also going to redirect the pipes from the sink so that the opening is possible. All the tiles, carpet and Pergo floorings are out, you can see some cracks in the concrete... hopefully it's not an issue. I suppose it's nicer this way to layout the new floor than to leave the tiles just to save some demolition money.

The pipe needs to be redirected.

Can't believe how bare this is.

Now onto the bathrooms. We were going to keep the bathtub as it was really under utilized so it looked really new to me. Apparently it's rather rusty with the drainage and Peter got it removed. Here we have a totally gutted bathroom. I noticed that one of the toilet is still there, probably they left one there for them to use. ;)

This is a picture of the big crack in the guest room. You can even peep through the crack and have a glimpse at the bathroom. It's getting worse everyday. I wonder if it has to do with all the jack hammering of the tiles in the kitchen and hallway?!

Day 7: Shopping and Garbage

So it's time to look at tiles and faucets for the bathrooms. I decided to make the "long" trip to San Francisco, well, if you know me at all, that's quite a sacrifice ;). I finally went to the showroom of Ann Sacks, and it's absolutely worth the drive. The tiles there are just unbelievably beautiful, unfortunately they are also insanely expensive. I'm leaning towards 2x8 misty blue earthenware tiles with grey interlace, moon white sliced pebbles shower floor and off white 4x18 field tiles. Most likely I'm just going to order the sliced pebbles from them as those are rather unique. Instead of having pebbles that force an uncalled for foot massage in the shower, these sliced pebbles are made from real pebbles, but sliced to have a flat surface. They look marvelous too. Here is a pic of the sample tiles I got:

Misty Blue/Grey earthenware, Moon White Sliced Pebbles, Matt Biege/White floor tiles

The color of the image most likely do not reflect the true color of the tiles, in real life, the pebbles are whiter than in the image I am looking at on my screen. Basically this gives you an idea of the color combination. I just realized that this is the first "pretty" photo I posted... all the others are dusty, messy demolition images.

Today I visited the house around 2pm and found that the garbage in the middle of the kitchen had been removed. They also cleaned out the side yard, the only garbage left are the appliances.

View from the garage. There's the new door opening.

View from the living room

Only left with the various appliances.

Day 4: Under the carpet

After just 3-4 days, demolition is almost done except for the floor. I believe we are now on to a more investigative phase before dealing with the actual electrical wirings, plumbings etc. When the floor guy first came to give an estimate of the cost he suggested to keep the tile floorings intact to save on demolition cost. The bamboo floor was going to go on top of the tiles and just level it differently with the carpeted area. However, after pulling up the carpet in the study and taking out the tatamis there are just way too many levels to content with, as there are no "flooring" underneath those area. So the conclusion now is that we need to take out the tiles after all !!! Oh well, I was hopeful...

More garbage in the side yard. Wonder when they will be removed. I can't even water the plants behind them now.

And here is a picture of the original exhaust fan from the 50's hiding above the soffit all these years.

Day 3

After a 1-day break on 4th of July, demolition resumed.
These are pictures at the end of the working day.

Kitchen

As you entered the house, the curved wall is quite noticeably gone, but you can still see it's footprint on the ground.

The kitchen and it's ceiling are all piled in the middle.

Space of the new door is opened and the old door is semi-closed.

 Just another picture from the dining area.

Bathrooms

Actually why did they take down the wall between the 2 bathrooms? Easier to remove the tilings? The bathrooms look even smaller than before. Strange.

My room

Without the tatamis.

Day 1: Before and After

This morning I walked into an almost empty house with a faint echo. It's time to take the last pictures before demolition. Thanks for the good and bad memories in the last 13+ years. The remodeling is finally going to happen after more than a year of planning.

Day 1

Demolition started at 10:10 am, July 3, 2012.
By 2:30 in the afternoon the first problem surfaced. When the kitchen cabinets were removed, we saw that one supporting post had been sawed to put in an electric socket!!!
This is a picture of Peter Fu, the contractor, pointing to the unbelievable action by the previous contractor.

It only took them less than 3 hours to remove the whole kitchen and the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room!

The wall of cabinets that used to face the hallway. You can still see the "curved" wall at this point, but not for long.