Broken Bow Finished

It is a few days past two months since my last post and this will likely be the finale.  I've had to overcome my delusional idea that everything needs to be completed and in place before final pictures.  My perfectionist self needs to take a rest!!  And who am I kidding, it's just not going to happen any time soon.

We're comfortably living in our home with an eye toward more improvements in the future.  Almost all of them are outdoor projects; landscaping, house painting and so on.  Yes, we do want to remodel our bath but I'll have to be institutionalized during the process.  The entire experience was very good, the pluses way outweighed the minuses.  Except for the tile people, every subcontractor that worked here was excellent, respectful, clean, professional and had a sense of humor.  We couldn't have asked for more and managed to snag all their business cards for future projects we'd like to handle ourselves.

Things we love:

1.  Brazilian Tiger Mahogany floors - just beautiful, darkening with time, strong and scratch resistent (we've already babysat the dogs to prove that point) and enriching the feeling in the house.

2.  Simington dual paned windows and doors - there were dual paned here already but what garbage!!  Not only do we get a $1500 tax credit, we get much less noise and heat in the house.  Very worth the money although the tax credit v cost of the windows is huge.

3.  New front door - oh my goodness, no ugly dried up wood with huge air leaks!  Who wouldn't love that.

4.  Kitchen counters and appliances - all great, easy to clean, beautiful to look at  and very functional.

5.  Bathrooms - a huge improvement however, limestone is tricky so I wouldn't select this product again. Basically I can't clean the tiles with anything other than hot water and have to be careful when using harsher products in the sinks and toilets.  Limestone is a soft stone that doesn't hold up well to lots of use.  When asking why I wasn't told this the "designer" said "well these are bathrooms that will get little use so I didn't think it would be an issue".  Didn't think!!  Both bathrooms are beautiful but not practical.  The guest bath, because the floor is not polished stone, will be less problematic.

6.  Yard - we've lost our hardworking gardener to the bottle - a factoid that came up late in our relationship.  As you can see from the pictures, landscaping the backyard presents challenges.  Stan is the Mountain Goat and does all the up hill work. He enjoys it, so he says, but I'm not crazy about his being up there.  Most of the plants are now in place on our hill of granite.  Our only concern is debris (rocks) sliding down during the rainy season.  Everything would head straight for the pool which wouldn't be fine with us.  Our plan is to plant ground cover to keep everything in place.  You can see that there isn't lots of soil to work with, a totally different way to garden for me.  Note that most of the succulents and cactus on the patio level of the garden came with us (in pots) from Cambria.  They are so much happier here, growing like weeds.   Everything is happier.  I had fabulous begonias this year and two orchids are blooming now.  I wasn't anticipating this good fortune.  It's likely the very mild summer weather has helped more than anything.

7.  Living in a single story house - oh this is so nice!

Although this place is bigger than our main house in Cambria it doesn't hold as much.  The walls are not as large so decisions about where and how to hang pictures has been frustrating.  There is little storage space which means more of what came with us has to go.

To sum up this experience I would say we shouldn't have moved to remodel so quickly but what's done is done and we're content with the final product.  Without question a major remodel has to include moving out, there is no other way to maintain sanity and live comfortably.  The people you hire will become your family for awhile so it's important to have a good feeling about them, it's important to know you can communicate easily about tough things.  Add 25% more time and 25% to the budget you are quoted because no matter how hard you try to stick to it, something will come up.  You'll see an opportunity to make a cubby hole with glass shelves (that requires dry wall, paint, counter top, glass for shelves) or need to cover windows you hadn't figured on - whatever......if you factor those %'s in at the beginning of the budgetary process it will allow you wiggle room.  Easier to feel you've saved rather than overspent at the end.  A couple of things we learned before our first remodel, years ago, that still hold true for us....request a budget meeting with your contractor weekly or biweekly (difficult for us to do on this project which was frustrating) and always get "materials releases" from every contractor or sub working on your project.  Materials release is proof that your sub or contractor paid "in full" for materials used on your house.  Since you will be responsible for those bills in the end and you who will have the mechanics lien placed on your house if the contractor goes fishing in Montana or kayaking in Hawaii :-) with your money, you just gotta do it.  If your contractor is unwilling to agree, you need to find another one.

So the B&B on Broken Bow Ct. in Rancho Bernardo is open for business.  Come one, come all!!  Thanks for following this, patiently waiting for the last post (some of you were patient :-) and being so supportive.

Much love,
Ellen & Stan

Below is a link to "Broken Bow Finished" You can view the pictures or slideshow.   Photo's begin at the entry/front door and travel through the dining room, living room, kitchen/my work space, Stan's work space/den, powder room, guest bedroom, guest bath, our bedroom, hallway, laundry area and the mountain of granite.  Please enjoy!

You are invited to view Elly's photo album: Broken Bow Finished Broken Bow Finished Sep 16, 2010 by Elly View Album  Play slideshow

Per Suzanne's Request

We received some questions about our choices and why we did certain things.  Aha - you've figured us out!

Regarding the guest bathroom, more pictures might help.  The rock comes flat, polished and on mesh - ready to go.  What I didn't visualize was how much grout would be on the floor and how uneven it would be.  Mostly what didn't occur to me was the cleaning nightmare it would be.  To try to talk me out of pulling up the floor they applied a sealer that enhances the stone and darkens the grout as well as seals.   Well, to me it wasn't that big an improvement.  Still will be hard to clean and there is just too much grout.  Should have remembered this from mosaics.

Guest bath counter.  Backsplash still not complete.

Bath floor.  In the center by the left hand corner of the cabinet is the enhanced portion (god forbid they should have done the whole thing!).  While it looks better enhanced it doesn't look good, in my opinion.







Close up of the difference.







Another view of shower stall.  Seagrass limestone, a double row of glass tile as an accent, rock on the floor.

Accent tile.







I'm trying to arrange the furniture.  The two seater piece is supposed to be in the living room with the sectional.  I think the woman that looked at our floor plan and measured everything was on drugs!  Today we tried moving the two seater up to the level above the main living room.  Not liking it there.  The goldish colored thing you see on our metal table is the ceiling fixture for that room.  Me thinks that was a mistake too.

The two stools are where the two seater should go.  Looks more open to me now but have to play with it some more.  Note:  still need flooring in here.






New chair designed by Candice Olsen for some furniture company.  I love this chair!!











Suz, if you'll notice you can see both edged of the Ceaserstone here (could've been a better photo).  Notice the bar counter extends out without the support of a cabinet.  Same is true for part of the island in the kitchen.  Because of the way it is structured we had to have a wider edge on the counter material.  I had chose just a simple polished edge (you can see that on the lower counter where the cooktop is).  Two reasons - 1. it's less expensive to have that edge (no fabrication, just polishing) and 2. it's more contemporary - our taste.  Cambria kitchen had that edge as well.  No one seemed concerned that we had both edges in the same room and I think it looks fine.


Better view of the differences.









All for now.  Happy Sunday.

Pain Has No Memory

The saying "pain has no memory" is so completely true!  The first time I heard that was after Steve was born.  I had asked my Dr. how women can keep having children once they've been through the experience of birthing.  Though not at all the same, remodeling (or building from scratch) is a birthing experience and perhaps we've learned, finally, that we don't want this kind of pain anymore.  The last month has been especially difficult.  I have felt, more than once, that I'm losing it and we've been very tense with one another.  Don't ever let anyone tell you this will come without pressures and frustrations.  In the end it is good to put your feelings into some kind of perspective.  Is this as horrible as the oil spill in the Gulf?  Is it as awful as losing something precious to you?  Is it a lasting pain?

After moving back into our bedroom/bathroom, May 15th, progress seemed to slow although people were here all the time.  The reality is the schedule was way too ambitious.  It didn't account for things like being one tile short of a floor and having to send to New Jersey to get another or the flooring bullnose and tread coming in the wrong color.  It didn't include the floor people wanting to be alone (no other subs in the house) when they worked or a host of other things, like my picking the wrong color for one of the bathrooms and not being here the day they painted the wall to yell STOP.  One of my worst nightmares was when the tile people started using their saws (two saws) IN THE HOUSE.  We weren't here then either.  The painters had just finished painting the house, including the purple wall in the dining room.  One of the tile guys just parked his saw adjacent to said wall and proceeded to cut, splashing everything!  I was sooooooo mad.  There is no excuse for using a wet saw in a house where plenty of outlets are available outside (extension cords work well also), our tile guy in Cambria taught me that.  Five tile people here, all of them barely out of diapers and not two brain cells to rub together.  They chattered like teenage girls, they congregated in the guest bath to talk (all of 'em) while only one worked, they'd work for an hour and take a 20 minute break.  All of this, as Steve pointed out, would have gone unnoticed if we hadn't been living here.  Even the other subs were complaining about the tile guys.  Eventually things were straightened out but not before both of us were in knots over it.  It's not like these kinds of things haven't happened to us before but......pain has no memory.

I should add that upon completion of the guest bath with the rock shower pan and floor I decided I hated it.  My instinct was to go with the limestone on the floor, except for the shower pan, and I should have stuck to my gut feelings.  It's going to get ripped out and redone.  Ugly!!

So here we are getting very close to the family party on Memorial Day weekend and I can see there is no way we'll be near the end.  Steve is starting to worry the party will take place at his house.  Our project manager knows/feels this and is caught in the middle, so to speak, because this is what Marrokal had promised us (let's not talk about our obvious naiveté).  As we realized it wasn't going to come together, I had to let go of the idea that everything would be perfect - actually, I was just praying for a functioning toilet and sink.  The day before everyone was to arrive, Kathi (one of my dearest friends of a lifetime) flew in from Reno to help me stay calm and unpack boxes.  The date is now Thursday, May 27th and the granite people are installing all the countertops while the flooring people are laying down the dining room floor.  Kathi tells me it is alright to order in pizza's and salads for the 11 expected guests the next night (hard to believe I needed to be told that was o.k. to do!) and we shopped for weekend necessities (beer & wine) until we could get into the house to unpack boxes.  We vacuumed and cleaned all the kitchen cabinets while Stan brought in a few choice boxes to be unpacked.  We were looking for Heathware, silverware, glasses - just the basics although we ended up opening a few more things just to find what we were looking for.  When the floor people had finished that day we had two completed rooms and the hallway - our bedroom and the dining room.  They also had partially completed the kitchen and den/office with the wood.  Stan spent the night at Steve's while Kathi and I shared our bed (no guest room or guest bath).   Friday we woke up, already exhausted, as Stan and several workmen arrived at 7am.  Picture a house with no appliances, sinks, toilets, doors, light fixtures, furniture other than some of our bedroom things, molding, etc.

In what can only be described as an episode of Extreme Home Makeover we had a fully functioning home by the end of the day.  Everyone, save the tile guys :-), who had worked on this house showed up to put as much as possible together.  Plumbers, appliance installers, electricians, finish carpenters, movers, etc.  At some point one of the carpenters yelled out "bus driver, move that bus".  Hilarious.  Steve went to the airport to get Mom and Karen (the other half of the friends of a lifetime) who escorted Mom here to her birthday party.  Kathi and I met the three of them for lunch while Stan stayed home to tell the movers where to put furniture.  I was wound up so tight the two glasses of wine I drank for lunch didn't even phase me!  When I got home, a couple of hours later, our project manager and one of the carpenters were washing windows.  It was an amazing experience.  It was a gift that just blew us away.  By the time people arrived for dinner, we were in business.

I am not there yet but I will love this house.  It is light and open with views out of every window.  We love the way it flows, the colors we chose and the floors.  Most of all, at this point, we love the JACUZZI.  There will be another week to ten days of work, the tile isn't finished and the living room floor needs to be laid.  We have a long punch list of things to be addressed.  At this point we want to be alone, enough intrusions!  I'm including pictures to give you an update and will add new ones when we've got everything in place.  When it is all said and done we'll forget what the past 3 1/2 months have been like and just reap the rewards.

The guest bath shower

OMG!!!!

It has been a very trying time.  Just thought I'd say we are alive and struggling to have some semblance of a home for Memorial Day weekend.  This project won't be nearly finished, likely there will be no appliances in place or toilets working until late Friday afternoon.  Needless to say, Mother will stay in a hotel.  It is what it is and hopefully the family will be comfortable enough for meals and gathering.  Some of the floor will be wood, some will be sealed concrete.   It's not pretty!

This is the update for now.   I'll feel more like a lengthy msg. and pictures next week.

Trying to Breathe

Were it not for the challenge of trying to get a livable house by May 28th, we'd be fine.  Well, having to pack up again isn't that swell either.



Our flooring, albiet covered plaster dust, and the gray/green color of our bedroom walls.  Fireplace ready to receive a granite covering.







View from the entry looking into the dining room (sort of)

Looking from the kitchen toward Stan's office/guest space (the other side of the pocket door) and my desk space

 The new retaining wall.  Citrus and herbs planted above, rose bushes (my first, ever!) below on the right at about the center of the photo.








Some of the succulents and cactus transplanted into the yard.  The two above pics are of backyard.   I won't show you pics of the trees cause they look like lost little things sitting on top of rocks.  I can't say enough good things about our gardeners and how hard they've worked.










So above are the accomplishments for the week - drywall completion, tons of yard work, painting of all the ceilings and priming of all the walls.  This coming week the "finish carpenter" will install all the doors and do whatever else a f.c. does, except not the molding just yet.  The electrician will finish up everything except the switch plates and I don't know what else is in store.  More yard work......

Oh yes...I do know,  the cabinets come in!!  On the 17th the granite templates are made, the painting is continued, the flooring will start progressing and hopefully our windows and front door will also be installed.  The bad news...it takes the granite people two weeks to complete fabrication (cutting of the pieces to match the template and polishing).  Granite (at least the kitchen and guest bathroom) will be installed on the 28th.  Mom and family arrive on the 28th.  No cooktop, no sinks in working order!  The next day, a Saturday, if the plumber is willing, we may get those things.  I'm creating a menu for Friday night that involves a BBQ, plastic plates (maybe I'll spring for Melamine) and a large trash can.  Other bad news....Stan tried plugging in our magnificent refrigerator today (in the garage where it lives) so we could use it for the next two weeks.  It doesn't work!!

The good news - we'll take a little vacation to Ashland, OR beginning Wednesday which should relieve stress nicely.  When we return we'll move into the bedroom/bathroom/closet of our house and I am just so happy at the prospect of living there, I don't care how many rooms we'll have.

I'm trying to breathe, Stan is exhausted and we're both sore.  Other than that it has been a great week :-)

Can It Be May?

No pictures this week.  You'll just have to believe me when I say our bedroom has been painted, the concrete floor is prepped for wood, most of the walls (in the house) have been finished and are awaiting paint and the backyard is coming together.  I have to go away more often, things move swiftly in my absence.

This week saw the planting of trees on our mountain of granite and the building of a retaining wall out of concrete blocks.  Today we shopped for herbs and roses.  Our gardeners come Monday to finish working on the drip system and plant.  We're putting in a Meyer Lemon, a Mexican Lime and a Cara Cara Orange with the herbs underneath.  We'll also put the roses in and work on planting all the succulents we shlepped from Cambria.  Last Sunday I stepped up on the lower part of the back slope (to place the pots of succulents for planting) when what should I meet passing by - a King snake!   In my mind it was at least 10 feet long, Stan says it was 3 1/2' at the most.  I uttered a mumble and then said "Mother of God" which I'm convinced never crossed my lips (or mind) before this chance meeting.  While Stan finished whatever it was he was doing, I sat in the car completely stunned.  I don't know if I can ever get up on that hill again.  I'm not cut out for this kind of stuff.  Lizards are one thing, snakes.....not a chance I'll adjust and while Stan was the usual Mr. Calm & Collected, I didn't see him smiling either.

Next week there will be pictures and more progress to report.  We are two weeks away from moving back in, four from Mom's birthday (OMG!).  Everyone seems intent on making this happen.  All the lights and plumbing fixtures are in the garage, the tile has been ordered, flooring and cabinets come in at the end of next week (I think).

More soon..........

Garden & Further Optimism

We have a busy weekend with Doug & Sue here.  Tess vaults today at a meet at UCSD, this will be our first time to see her compete this season.  Busy, productive week at the house, all good.  Next week I'll be up north to see Mom so will write a brief post.

Our bedroom has been drywalled and skip troweled.  Look - no monster fireplace wall, no more ugly blue tiles!  The fireplace surround and the small built-out hearth will be a granite remnant we found. The room is ready for paint and floors to be layed.  They're working quickly and efficiently, now patching the holes in the living room ceiling made by rewiring and close to completing all the walls in just 2 days.  Bedroom wall color is Herbivore, a meduim grayish green - that is Frazee's name for it.  Moving back in get's closer and closer.



Dining room








We met with the tree guy and the landscaper.  As I listened to the landscaper talk and began to brainstorm with her,  I thought why am I going to pay this person $50 an hour to come up with drawings and oversee the work when her ideas are similar to mine.  So with our gardeners, Rudy & Abel,  we'll do it ourselves.  After cleaning the back completely of debris it's clear that the hill is mostly granite.  Dirt for planting trees above and some below, nothing in the middle.  It will be interesting and challenging to figure this out.  We can always ask for help later.  Meanwhile, I can't find a single gardening tool in the packed garage!

I don't know about other credit card companies but American Express has a "shopping mall" through which one can make purchases and earn triple points.  I never paid attention to it before (even though I used to regularly order things from stores that are on their list), finally I have wised up!  By ordering on-line (through their "mall") we get something extra out of this!  We'll take a free upgrade any day.  Then there are the rebates!  Replacing windows, buying appliances, getting window treatments that keep heat out/in, toilets that are low flow... now is the time to do it.  It's another way to get something back while making improvements.

That is all for this week, next promises to be very fully packed.  I'll catch up when I get back from Palo Alto.

Here are but a few of the interesting sites that have inspired and aided me.  So much out their to assist the creative in you......

The Improvised Life
Reliable Remodeler
Decorating Diva
The Kitchen Designer
Kitchen Remodeling Blog
Houzz