Productive Week

A busy week of spending money and amazing transformations.

This is a view looking through the kitchen into Stan's office/guest room. Note the floors :-).  Not only is the Sautillo tile gone but the concrete is as smooth as can be, ready for new flooring.

This view is from the living room looking at a new wall (kitchen & pantry on the other side).  To the right of the new wall is a half wall that will be bar height.  We ended up not changing the arched window at this time.  Instead we got a blackout shade that will roll up into a sofit in the ceiling and can be used when we want to darken the rooms for t.v. viewing.  If we stay here long enough we'll replace the window but it just didn't seem important compared to other things and it needs to be a large window for the view.

Another view from the living room looking at the entry, new dining room and down the hall to our bedroom.  The wall on the right will house a large bookcase/entertainment center and next to that wall, where the concrete is darker (it's drying), is a very teeny closet that will house all the audio/video stuff, the server, etc.  Stan's bailiwick.





Monday we bought a new couch and chair.  We ordered all our lighting:

    This is the flush mount light for the entry


and this is the dining room fixture, both by Hubbardton Forge.


Some things are coming in higher than we'd hope.  We picked out the doors a week or two ago - wrong, we're not getting Mahogany.  Instead we'll get Douglas Fir (like we had in Cambria which is fine, they just didn't think they could get them) and have the painter stain them.  On-line we found a front door we like very much, it was about $1700 pre-hung.  The entry-door through Marrokal's supplier (Mahogany with glass insets) came in at about $4500.  We're taking a trip to L.A. to see if the door we found is as nice in person and if necessary we'll rent a truck to bring it down.  If that doesn't work out we'll keep looking.  The finish on the walls (what we had in Cambria) is known as "skip trowel".  The plaster (or whatever you call it) is shot on the walls, then they go back over it with a trowel to smooth it out, but not evenly.  This leaves a finish that looks (and is) more interesting, has texture to it.  Originally the budget called for just shooting it on, which is a builder spec look and not our favorite.  So this is going to be $3500 more and includes our bedroom which didn't lose any walls so they have to redo the current ones.  Getting the picture?  The good news is the painter's bid is lower than we'd expected but includes only 2 wall colors and a ceiling color.  Oh dear, I'm gonna want more colors than two and each additional one costs another $200.  The painter's bid does include staining doors, prepping, putty, caulking baseboards and all that good stuff so it isn't too bad.  Perhaps I'll use fewer colors and live in the house for awhile before picking additional ones.

Today I met with the gardeners to plot the next section of garden tear out and planting.  Steve reminded me that I need to get things in the ground early so they'll survive hot weather.  Coming from up north that hadn't occurred to me.  Still no trees which means I can't get too deep into planting in the backyard.

This is a section we've already ripped out except for the Bird of Paradise (which will be moved) and the Palm trees (which won't).







They'll continue to rip out above the wall to the end of the house (but not the plants & trees closer to the street - yet) and what is growing at the base of the wall along the driveway.  We'll just keep doing this section by section until one day it will be done.  Challenging!  Creative!





Our project manager, Mark, says we're still ahead of schedule.  After the electrical walk through the "rough"electrical and HVAC (heating and air conditioning) began.  Next week will be inspections on both those things then insulation and the insulation inspection.  After that, starting on or around 4/15 the dry wall gets hung.  Also the cabinet maker did the CAD drawing this week which we'll review next Tuesday, they then start building the boxes which takes 3 wks.   At the house during that period they'll finish the dry wall and skip trowel, the doors and painting will start and the floor will be laid in our bedroom (at the very least) so we can get back in when all the dust is gone.  Time can't move fast enough at the moment.