A Step in the Right Direction

As I mentioned in the last blog, I'm still catching up on my posts, so even though it's already July 3rd, I'm writing as if it's May 1st!

It never ceases to amaze me what patched walls, new drywall and basic primer can do to make something look complete, even brand new. It was during the wrap of our electrical project at the old beach shack that I realized that I'm in love with the clean, earthy smell of joint compound, how forgiving its water-solubility, and its ability to seal cracks, fill in holes, and make things just about perfect again.

The house suddenly looks like somewhere we can make a home for our family for a long time. :-)

Here are some great pictures of the progress:

The Living/Dining Room, and Christian with Robert, one of our amazing contractors:

The Front and Back Bedrooms (ours, and Beck's, respectively):

Our Pride and Joy - the new back bathroom:

A kitchen you could cook, entertian, maybe even live in:

Tomorrow (ok, really it was a while ago, but in "Blog" time zone, it was May 3rd), Andrea and Bill are visiting from Scottsdale to help us contemplate paint colors for the interior. Right now, we're considering a bright white for all of the ceilings, but a creamy beige for the living and bedrooms, a cool, sagey green for the bathrooms, and a clean, cheery (but not too much meringue pie) yellow for the kitchen. We know the bathrooms are going to have white tile - wainscoting around the bathtub in the back bath, and white tile surround in the walk in shower in front. And we know both bathrooms, and the kitchen will have bright white trim for the baseboards and moldings around the windows, and we think we'll go white trim for Beck's room, while trying to keep our bedroom a little richer/more mature with the dark mahogany stain color that the living/dining room has. We're hoping by keeping our pallette fairly coherent, we can keep doors open and walk from one room to the next without feeling like we're in a totally different house.

My parents' house growing up was always the place where my friends gathered on weekends - it was cozy, welcoming, always had good food, and good conversation. I'm hoping to finally recreate that comfortable, home for my little family - a place where friends are always welcomed, invited in for a glass of wine or dinner or a playdate; a place that is a retreat from the daily grind for those of us lucky to live there, and those who visit for a short break. (I think that's an open invitation!)

Next up: the results of the painting experiment weekend... plus: tile work and all the bathroom fixtures are in!

More Destruction (and I swear, this blog is not abandoned!)

OK, so before I'm accused of Blog abandonment, I'll post. We've made a ton of progress on the bamboo bungalow, and it's amazing! So far, we have found our contractor and his crew astoundingly easy to work with, quick to action, and wise about suggestions to make the project better. It's very impressive. We're actually getting close to completion, but since the Blog is all about documenting the journey, so we cherish our new home, I'm going to back-track for a few posts.


Given where we were when we started this project, there was quite a bit of 'Yuck' that we needed to excise from the house.

So you get an idea of the scope of 'Yuck', this was our high level project list we gave to contractors for bidding on the job:

1) Foundation Work - fix broken areas, level the house, and retrofit it for earthquake safety
2) Reroof the house
3) New electrical throughout, including relocation of the main panel
4) New plumbing througout, including all new fixtures, new tankless water heater
5) New Furnace and A/C with all new ductwork throughout the attic
6) Insullate as much as possible
7) Complete overhaul of both bathrooms
8) Complete kitchen overhaul, including new appliances, fixtures, and cabinets
9) Reglaze and repair all windows
10) New doors
11) Remove all plastered ceilings for earthquake safety and redrywall
12) Repaint interiors
13) Repaint exterior
14) Make sure no termites survive


Whew - no wonder we're exhausted!


At one point in April, you could stand in the living room and see the California sunhine from the roof above. Thank goodness April is our sunniest month. See below for "No Roof" and "1/2 way done Roof". We'll show the end state near the end!



















The kitchen demo was the next exciting milestone, with all the "butcher block" (really, cuttingboards stuck together) and water damaged cabinets were ripped out. This was extremely liberating! Here's the before & post-demo pictures!

This will be my last deconstruction post. Next up, I'll show what we've done since we've "taken it down to the studs": Bathrooms, Kitchens, Windows, Doors, Lights, Paint, Cabinets, oh MY!

We're hoping for a move in date sometime next week, so I'll do my best to keep blogging & catch everybody up!

Kohler

So I know I promised a kitchen update, but I have to talk more about plumbing. I mentioned in my last post growing up in my dad's hardware store. There are few experiences that I can distinctly say shape every day of my adult life, but working at Sliters' Ace is one of them. My dad made me go to plumbing & electrical repair school in order to pay my way to a shopping trip in Spokane when I was in high school. That experience (making my 3-way switch work!) gave me the confidence to take on the rewiring project at the beach shack, and to even imagine a project like the Bungalow. For my day job, I work in technology consulting, where I have to talk a little bit about every aspect of running a business and I have to figure out how to make the technology work. It's the lessons I learned as an assistant bookkeeper at Sliters' that laid the foundation for my business knowledge. And it's the ethic of "getting my hands dirty", figuring out a solution to a problem, that make me a valuable asset to my clients. It's a philosophy that I hope I can pass on to my team, and one day to our son.

Anyway, on a less sentimental and light-hearted note, yesterday we spent our lunch break at Plumbers Warehouse! I had done my research ahead of time, came with my product list of exactly what I wanted, how much it should cost, and what the special options would be. After a half-hour of discussing delivery logistics and lead-times from Wisconsin to LA, the bath design clerk offered me the equivalent of pornography for a girl who grew up at the hardware store... the SPRING 2009 KOHLER KITCHEN & BATH CATALOG - EXTENDED EDITION. Christian said he could feel electricity in the air when she mentioned it, as if my ears perked up and something inside me stirred.

I remember my first experience with the Kohler catalog at the hardware store; I was probably 8 or 9. It was a strange realization that a sink or a toilet could be sexy. Cast Iron, porcelain & chrome have never been the same for me.

ROUGH IN!

We've had 2 successful in-progress inspections with our city and our HUD consultant. (I'll get to the HUD consultant situation on another posting.) With 2 successful inspections, we're feeling encouraged by the progress. We've been going down into the deconstructive valley of the project so far, and now we're starting the climb out of the hole, toward the constructive, built-it-back-up side.

In 4 weeks since our project started, our contractor (Jose) has fixed our foundation, roughed-in the plumbing, the electrical, demolished the baths, the kitchen, the ceilings, reroofed, and fixed all of the broken windows. It still looks rough. The best part of it is all the ugly, unsafe stuff that's GONE!

Although I would never purport to be a building expert, I learned a lot growing up in my family's hardware business. I like knowing about how things are built, but I've learned I like even more pointing out when things are wrong. Nowhere in the new house has this been more apparant than in our 2 bathrooms.

The front bathroom had 1" thick travertine floor to ceiling, in a gothic cross in the shower. Despite the zealous application of Italian marble, the installation wasn't properly sealed or supported, causing the subfloor to soften underneath, the tile to crack. The only place where the marble tile was absent was behind the toilet, where a rectangle of tile was removed to install the tank, so that the door swing would still open. One quarter of the floor space of the front bath was taken up by a hot-water heater that would keep a family of 12 happy - which was of course, not vented at all, filling the adjacent bedrooms with carbon monoxide gas.

By the way, the creature hiding in the shower drain, to my delight, is a 4 inch plastic rhinoceros. He hangs out now on my desk. He has a mate that we found in the mailbox shortly before we closed escrow. If only they could tell us what the previous owners were thinking...

In any case, we're glad that the front bath has been stripped of it's former "character". It's down to replaced subfloor and studs and new copper plumbing, and it's ready for new drywall, tile, fixtures & paint.

It has been even more exciting to see the back bathroom get deconstructed. Perhaps to make it more inviting, it used to feature an arched doorway made of crackled plaster-of-paris and painted pea-green chartreuse. Textured wall paper and finger-painted faux brick were intended to bring to mind turn-of the century nostalgia. The shower was sealed with crown moulding. Note, this is the only crown moulding in the house, but it was put to good use. It's hard to picture, so I hope the photo helps.

In addition to getting rid of the black throne, the crown moulding and the painted windows, Jose has installed copper plumbing throughout, replacing many bad galvanized-to-copper unions (some things shouldn't mix). They've replaced the foundation under the back bath, and rebuilt the wall where the studs were cut through to install a line for a washer & dryer. Now, we won't have to go through that archway to sit on the black throne, AND the back of the house won't fall off.

I feel like our house has just gone through chemotherapy. We've gotten rid of al of the bad, and we're ready to be healthy again!

Next Stop: Kitchen!

The Bamboo Bungalow

The Bamboo Bungalow

I'll build a bamboo bungalow for you,
Big enough for one, but room enough for two,
And then we'll marry, happy we'll be,
Down in our bamboo bungalow for two...
or three...
or four....
or many more,
Let your conscience be your guide!

This was a fraternity song that I remember from my college days. I think it stands out because it was one that didn't make you feel harassed hearing it sung to you. For me, it's always stuck in my head as a fond memory, because it captures that sweet time when you're starting out with your love, building a home together, building a family. I always think of my mom & dad in their pictures "before the kids" when they had a tiny apartment & were just starting out... cozy.

We've started a building project of our own, and on the urging of my sister, I've started a blog to try to capture the adventure of building (as we call it) "The Wonder that IS THE HOUSE!" - perhaps to provide a sneak peek into the daily trials (and errors) of our process, and maybe this will become our way to capture our future adventures once we move into what I think of as our own little Bamboo Bungalow.

Bungalow it is, Bamboo it is not (really). I'm not sure why we can't take the easy route, purchase a newly constructed 3-bedroom condo in a new development with parks, good schools, etc. Realtors hate shopping with us - our target market seems to include the worst houses in the best neighborhoods. There's our current 650 sq ft 1924 beach shack on the 18' wide lot, where we renovated the electrical wiring over the course of a year. We're very proud of this accomplishment - the work was all permitted, passed inspection.... and we're still married. This time around we're doubling our space, but quadrulpling the scope of the project. Piece of cake.

Our home is a 1225 sq ft Craftsman Bungalow in Southern California. We're not sure how old it is - by some accounts it's from 1910, by others, 1930. It's in the kind of neighborhood where people have a glass of wine on their front porch in the evening & watch the sunset or the neighbors walking their dogs. We can walk to our favorite Italian restaurant, our favorite playground, and there are 2 Starbucks options for me within 3 blocks.

We found this neighborhood by chance. We started looking for a home closer to our client - an attempt to avoid spending our lives on the 405 or the 101 or the 5 or the 73 or 210... you get the idea. A friendly couple invited us to join them at their table for dinner one night. They had overheard our discussions about potential neighborhoods closer to work, and felt they could share their 20 years of local knowledge. They talked of a place with fountains, trees, wood frame homes, with restaurants, shops.... it sounded dreamy, & it was. We checked it out the next weekend, and fell in love.

It took another 6 months of looking - The places we liked, we couldn't afford, even in a downturn; others were places where they forgot details, like... a kitchen. And then one day.... Christian found the place - 1225 sq ft. It had a guest room. 2 full baths. Huge backyard. Garage. Fruit trees. Gardens. Well below our price range. Hmmmm...

.... and then we looked at it. It's a beautiful home, with "good bones". And we're up for a challenge, right? We lived with one outlet in the beach shack... for a year! Ok - the house was a foreclosure that had been stripped of fixtures, windows broken, etc. One of the sets of previous owners had cut unpermitted points of entry into the attic space leaving gaping holes throughout the house. A shower was constructed of crown moulding. One bathroom was renovated mausoleum-style, in case of emergency baptisms perhaps? Those were the improvements. The most recent owners ran amok. Of the windows they didn't break, they painted over. Electrical lines were wired out of windows to provide light to extra living spaces in the garage. I feel my words don't give it justice, so I'll provide pictures instead.

Overall, we're keeping nothing but the floorplan. The house needs a foundation, new copper plumbing, new wiring, new furnace, HVAC, a kitchen, 2 new bathrooms, new roof, drywall, paint... and in the words of the real estate listing, it "could use a little sod".

This is all I'll post for now, as it's getting late, and the baby needs a bath & bed. We'll keep building the blog along with the bungalow.