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.