Bathroom Revisited

Wall hung toilet stayed. Guest bathroom has been redesigned. Blah.
A shelf is going to be mounted under the mirror unit instead of extending from the sink.
Tiles are going to flush with an additional built out gypped board to avoid round ends.
This translate to having extra gyp board on the mirror side and the door side, which means the door frame has to be changed too. I swear, this bathroom is the most troublesome.

The walls that are going to be tiled have been prepped to have one layer of water proofing sheet and one layer of cement board. The hole on the ground is also filled with concrete. And of course the tub is in.

As for the master bath, the shower pan is built, in-line drain, water proofed and should be ready to add the cement board next. The old toilet is finally out.

Next Monday is the beginning of tile work.

Handles Handling

Most of the cabinets are installed except for the sliding doors, toe kicks and handles!

From the very beginning I planned to use "edge pull" handles, but Noor said that there will be an additional cost due to the necessity of routing down the surface in order to embed the edge pull seamlessly on top of the cabinet. I didn't want to incur additional cost so I decided to go with surface mount handles.

As it's time to make the selection, I basically picked out two stainless steel style and trying to accept them:

But putting them next to the finished cabinets just made me really want to have the edge pull/tab pull again. However, since the cabinets are done, now Noor wants to charge $30 extra per drawer to install them. I understand that routing is a lot of work, but an extra $30 seems excessive. Besides I have over 40 drawers and doors... Don't forget, this is in addition to the cost of the handles. So I am trying to find edge pull handles that are very thin so as to avoid the routing cost.

I looked at so many sites, and they are all just a little bit off.
In order for the tab to look nice, I want them to flush with the overhang of the counter.
The counter is 3/4" projected from the side of the cabinet. The thickness of the plywood is 3/4 " , so the ideal is to have 1.5" depth, 1/16 inch of thickness, 3" to 6" length.

This is the closest I could find:
For a tab pull:

For an edge pull:

Both of these fit the requirements of thickness. The edge pull fits the requirement of depth but not the tab pull. However, there is another issue with edge pull that may make using them impossible. The problem is the drawers are built with a base box and then a face is added to the front. The top drawers are all fine as their inner boxes are lower than the front face. But the rest of the drawers the inner boxes are too high with less than 1/2" difference with the outer face, so only tab pull can be used in those cases...

Top drawer with a good inch gap between the inner and front face.

The rest of the drawers have less than 1/2 inch gap.

The major reason I objected to the surface mount handles are because of the massiveness of the handles. I want to have a minimal surface look instead of a lot of hardware. So Noor suggested to use the same wooden handle to blend in. Here is how it will look:

Not sure about that either. Of course none of these choices are "bad," just that I really want the edge pull look. So the search must go on.

Making an "entrance"

The ceiling of the new opening between the kitchen and the living room is connected through the built down soffit. Actually the only reason for the soffit is to have recessed lighting. In retrospect, the room will look more "open" without the built down, as the house has such low ceiling to begin with. Of course it doesn't help with all the mistakes that have been made with the even lower ceiling... Anyway, the new unacceptable issue is that the soffit creates too many "corners" in the transition. Jessica spotted it through my posting back on August 30th, titled "PASSED." Please note the region on the upper left corner.

She wants to have a nice entrance into the living room and requested the soffit to be pulled out:

Thanks Peter. I now have a much nicer "doorway."

A more leveled "door" is created.

the yellow taped part is the new extension.

And yes. You can see glimpses of the new cabinets in the living room and kitchen.

Counter in

Kitchen counter is in. The seam is at the right place. But it doesn't seem to be as "black" as the sample I chose. I seriously have problem with looking at swatches and getting the real color that I want. I'm afraid by the time I'm more familiar with going from sample to actuality, the renovation is over.

¡Todo va mal!

This is the one of the first Spanish phrases, if not the very first, I learnt more than 20 years ago from my Spanish influences. I used to say this every time when I broke the code and before the bugs were found and all was well again. Obviously this is a chronic issue during software development. Apparently this applies to renovation as well. When I was coding I wasn't really that concerned, I knew I would fix it sooner or later, but not this renovation... I really have a feeling of doom and gloom.

So I mentioned about the cabinets last, well, they are still being installed. I don't want to give an estimate anymore as it seems to be quite irrelevant.

Of course more electrical issues. The recessed lights in the kitchen along the upper cabinet side are all misplaced.  They are a full inch off. The living room junction boxes may not be moved again, god knows why not.

The guest bathroom design is an awful mess, creating needless shouting sessions among all parties involved.

And now the master bedroom tiles.
Here is how one of the walls should be tiled.

There are 2 field sizes of limestones.
One is 2x8.
One is 12x24.

In the vertical dimension, we should be able to put three (2x8) in one (12x24) and all should be well. In fact manufacturers supposedly make smaller tiles in a way to accommodate a 1/16 or 1/8 grout to fit into bigger ones.

But of course not the ones that I got. I chose them and the tile guy went to buy them. But apparently alignment is not to be:

Left is the desired alignment. Right side is reality.

There are 2 ways to make them align.

1. have a very fat grout as shown on the left side of the picture. Not recommended. Grouts are awfully hard to maintain. And fat grouts are ugly.
2. Cut off the big tile to align with the stacked up small tiles. But they are only 1/4 inch off... Cannot cut such a narrow strip off limestone.

Basically the small tiles are too small and also too big to align with the big tile.
Why did the tile guy buy these when he knows that they cannot be aligned? Shouldn't he come and ask me first? No, they just do it. Just like the electrician, if he can't put it in a place where it should be, instead of asking, he just put it somewhere else.

And so the continuation of doom and gloom.
What to do? Hmm. I don't know.

Cabinets found!

Two days later and the cabinets arrived.
I assume installation will take a good 3 to 4 days.

Of course the electric outlets are not in the correct positions! For one of them is because the designated place has a post. But instead of telling us that the location has a post and asking where do you want it now? The electrician randomly placed it on one side, and of course it's the wrong side! Then there is the microwave and oven outlets which he has to change placement to be up to code and now holes need to be drilled in the cabinets to get to the outlet. The code requires appliances to be unplugged before being pull out of the built-in unit. That makes the placement more tricky. Anyway, these are problèmes du jour, well if you could say that.

I already begin to miss the empty rooms. It's so nice to have all the empty space. But here are the cabinets.

Where are the cabinets?

It's Tuesday now. The cabinets were going to be in the house on Monday September 10th. It's now Tuesday evening and I have not seen one single cabinet...

Most of the floor has been installed except 2 bedrooms. The entry way and part of the other areas have cardboards as protective layers.

Here is how the the master bedroom looks like. See the closet has the same floor. Finally ;)

I am going for the washed out look, and it turns out actually better than I anticipated.

Strand Bamboo

The guest bathroom issue is still on hold for the time being....
In the mean time the floor is being installed in preparation for the cabinets installation next week.
I have no idea where Peter found his crew, but hey, they all work on weekends! Most likely the floor in the whole house won't be finished by Monday when the installation is going to take place, but only the kitchen area needs to be completed for the cabinets to be placed on top.

Kitchen and dining area.

Soft cushioning underneath the floor.

I like how the floor turns out as I was a bit worried at one point with the coloring. Just in case you are curious about which bamboo flooring I'm using, check out the Plyboo site. You are looking at Plyboo Stiletto Strand Bamboo Cerused Taupe. Strand bamboo is a better product than even the regular horizontal / vertical bamboo floor. It utilizes up to 84% of the raw materials. Learn more about Strand bamboo here. On top of that it's 3 times more durable than regular hard wood floor. This particular brand also passes the air quality test with no formaldehyde.

So far this is one of my more positive posts. However, I would still like to share with you one anecdote confirming the necessity of 100% monitoring of a renovation project.

I have 8 closets in the whole house. The flooring of these closets is a mesh of different materials including carpet, Pergo floor, laminate floor and original concrete. It's more expensive to change the flooring inside a closet, but I decided that it's just way too ugly and too much of an eye sore. So the order is that all the floor is going to be the same including the closets except the bathrooms. It cannot be more clear, right? NO. One of the closets still have the original floor. One out of 7. Good thing I was there on Saturday and caught it before they decided to leave that one particular closet alone. Seriously, they don't think! I really want that one closet to be different? I didn't notice that before as a lot of junk was piled up in there. Anyway, all is well now, but only because I caught it.

ToTo Recall

I was hoping that I would not need to use this title...even though I thought it's "cute." It's really getting to a point where all these "ToTo" issues are totally driving me crazy.

So the saga of the wall hung toilet continues. Nobody spotted the big mistake that the plumber/contractor made, including me; that is, until Jessica read the blog and saw the pictures. Why is the tank not built out? The wall is flat, it should be furred out.

With all the drama of the tank installation and how to stuff it in the wall, I didn't see it either. And amazingly they didn't follow the plan! I really should have looked at the plan more closely as I should have learned by now that everything needs to be monitored!!!

The consequence is not just ruining the design, I ended up with no counter top at all. The whole idea is to have a counter top behind the toilet. You can't have a counter top right across the toilet! You can't sit in the loo with the cover not being able to move back? What a disaster!

The new flat design also removes one of the medicine cabinet. Instead of two, I only have one now. And the worse thing is no counter top. I placed this bathroom on hold for the moment. Jessica is going to think it over to remedy this mistake. Below is Noor's drawing omitting the whole toilet. And why did I think it's doable?

Where is the seam?

Let's talk about counter today.

This all started from a phone call I received on Thursday morning:

"Where do you want the seam for the long counter top? The fabricator said that the slab is not long enough. Do you want it around the sink so that it won't be as apparent?"

My gut feeling is absolutely NO.
The sink area is most highly utilized, how can you put two pieces of stone together there?
And a good thing I didn't agree to the suggestion.

Let's backup a bit. The counter top is to be pure, natural quartz, one of the hardest and most common minerals on Earth. It has the natural look and feel of granite, but more durable. It is nonporous and will not absorb food and liquids like granite does. And best of all, it is maintenance-free. Among the different brands I actually picked Cambria, instead of CaesarStone, the more popular one. As Cambria is from US thus it doesn't has as big a transportation impact on the environment as it's European counter part. Cambria is also certified by GREENGUARD as a low-emitting product for indoor air quality.

Well, so I asked Jessica where should the seam be? And of course she flipped and asked why? The counter is not that long, it's only 106". There should be slabs that are long enough. Besides how can you put it near the sink, it's the worst place to have a seam, which I agree.
So I went back to ask how long is the slab, why can't it be one slab for 106". Eventually I was told that it's 107" but the usable area is only 104".
Jessica suggested to look for something else then, but I can't change brand since I have already signed a contract with them. Another suggestion is to have 2 different materials so as to make it an intentional change so that the seam is not so awkward. However, I really do not want to introduce another material into the kitchen....

What to do?
It suddenly occurs to me that 107" or 271cm is a funny number to manufacture! Generally a round number is chosen. So after a bit of searching I found that Cambria slabs are 120inches long!!! http://www.cambriausa.com/choosing-cambria/common-questions/

Am I being pushed a left over slab that's 107"? I sure do feel that I am being duped... I am paying good money for the counter, I should get the original 120" slab! After emailing back the facts that I found, I was told that there was a mistake when the information was given to me. Really? Good thing I didn't just answer the phone call and just say yes. I will forever be staring at the unnecessary seam.

This is so wrong in so many levels.

Day 64: Doors and Pro Line Drain

By day 64 walls are gypped, plastered and closed (for the most part).

2 new doors are hung. One from the kitchen to the garage. One from the master bedroom to the bathroom.

And Peter gave me a surprise!
He is willing to do the pro line drain system after all. Here is the plan again and the cross section for the installation, and a picture of the jack hammered concrete floor in preparation for the installation.

This is all very nice, but Peter's reluctance from the start may not be so unfounded. He was concerned that when the concrete is jack hammered it might hit a water pipe. And lo and behold, that's what happened! There is a pipe and it's been nicked. You can actually feel that it's wet to the touch. Peter said that it's not a big problem and should be able to fix it with not much trouble. I sure do hope so.

It's at the bottom and up against the wall, it's not easy to see from this picture.

2nd Mensiversary

And 2 months have passed and the carpenter crew actually work through the labor day weekend. Amazing. No complaints from neighbors so far... as I guess the work is all done inside.

The wall is practically gypped and is progressing into plastering and smoothing out the joints.

Another trench is being dug for the tv cable to go across the room from the exterior. The concrete flooring is really getting in the way.

My latest worry involves broken heating pipes in the concrete. I hope nothing is damaged while cutting these trenches. Other than that, happy mensiversary so far. If you have no idea what's the meaning of mensiversary, go back and read the blog in August: 1st Mensiversary