Can't Get Enough of That Outdoor Living Thang

I've been spending money again. Today I ordered another extending patio table - this one extends to 130", a full 20" longer than the last one - with six chairs, a 10' by 13' rectangle patio umbrella (in taupe Sunbrella fabric), and an umbrella stand capable of stabilizing 70lbs of weight. As the umbrella is custom made, it won't be ready for about four weeks (i.e. the end of the summer), but the table and chairs will be here next Tuesday. This will give us dining capacity for 22, which is about what we need.

I've also sent my three old teak chairs - purchased about 13 years ago in England - to the patio furniture vendor to be refinished to their original brown color.

Meanwhile, back at the outdoor kitchen, the appliance guy was here again today to tweak the warming drawer, which is now straight in its space.

Inside the house, SS2 was here this morning with Dave the Bath Vendor, who started refinishing the tub in the guest bathroom. It stinks.

Remaining items:

The House:
- two exterior lights are not working.
- screen doors will be coming in about 10 days
- one sliding screen door is loose on its track

The Garden:
- still some plants on site needing to go in
- waiting for some plants to arrive, most notably two espaliered mandarin orange trees for the fence
- grass to be laid in the back
- mulch to be added everywhere
- landscape lighting to be installed (waiting for lights to come)
- the pool cover is still not closing properly every time (small gap on one side)
- pool light is not working, and different subcontractors are currently blaming each other
- mastick around the pool
- cleaning and re-sealing of the stone patio(to combat the redwood staining)
- doors under the outdoor kitchen sink need adjusting (one has sagged)
- fence repair where a couple of planks have fallen down
- creation of gate next to the office, for the "dog run" area
- a stone has fallen out of the hardscape and needs to be glued back in

House Party

As we grind to the close of the project, the blog postings are becoming less frequent. There just isn't so much to say.

(Which is a good thing.)


On Saturday we invited our good friends over and grilled far too much food on the outdoor kitchen. There were 20 of us. The kids splashed in the pool - in fact, so much splashing that we had to top the pool up this morning - while the adults grilled, drank and ate.



The menu was simpler this week: ginger and honey ribs, Kosovan mushrooms, and salmon in cream shallot sauce (from the recipe book); with grilled pork chops, halloumi cheese and sweet pepper kebabs, sausages, Piazza's finest hamburgers (really good, but very big); and a green salad, a corn salad, and a tomato/mozzerella salad; bread and fixings; rounded off with a bottle of champagne to commemorate the first time all our British friends had been over.

Another Final Inspection Passed

Today is a good day.

The city planners were here today to do the final inspection on the outdoor kitchen, and we passed (though only because Site Supervisor II made a last minute cover for the sink, which the hardscaping guys hadn't got round to doing).

The exterior lights are all in. I'll check over the weekend that they're actually working.

SS2 had a major triumph yesterday with the kitchen skylights. The operable windows now open and close and the six blinds do all the various things they are supposed to do (up, down, tilt, etc). I also got a nice thank you card from SS2's wife for a book I sent home with him for his kids: "Fix-It Duck" by Jez Alborough. In the book, the cack-handed Fix-It Duck has to repair a skylight in Sheep's caravan. It seemed all too appropriate for the long-suffering SS2 (though that's not to say that he is cack-handed, far from it!).

The landscapers are still here planting. I think they'll be done with that today, and then tomorrow morning they'll be here to start on the landscape lighting.

And I just received delivery of our new garden furniture: extending table, two benches, dining chairs (should have been six, but one was damaged so they took it away for replacement), a rocking chair, and a sling chair. Looks nice. Now we have to decide what to do with all the rest of the furniture!

The Inaugural Barbecue

Welcome to week 35, and Happy Independence Day! Which is always a curious time for those of us from the Old Country, especially since many of our children are American. As usual, we ex-pats gathered together to enjoy the great British pursuits of barbecue, swimming in the outdoor pool, and beer drinking. Well, I guess one out three isn't bad.

Anyway.

Today provided an excuse for the first use of the new outdoor kitchen. Next weekend we have the whole set of ex-pat friends over - that'll be 26 people in all - so we thought we'd have a good go today when there were only 11 of us. I bought Hubby a new grilling cookbook at William Sonoma ("Planet Barbecue" by Steven Raichlen) and selected a number of recipes for us to try, making sure that we used the rotisserie grill, of which our friend Richard had been very scornful...

The menu included:
- Santa Maria Tri-Tip (beef)= Californian recipe
- Ginger, Garlic and Honey Grilled Back Ribs (pork) = Cambodian recipe
- Grilled Tofu with Chile Peanut Sauce = Malaysian recipe
- Grilled Bananas = Colombian recipe
- Caramelized Grilled Pineapple = Brazilian recipe
- Rotisserie Onions = Brazilian recipe





We also had salads made by our friends, a summer pudding made by Deep Thought, cup cakes made by a friend's daughter, plain grilled chicken,
"British Bangers", and tofu burgers. (One family visiting us today is vegetarian.)


When the guys started, the grills were pristine and shiney. Now they look about 10 years old. What can I say: "Man, He Make Fire." Hubby will need to be out there tomorrow morning with a big, big bucket of soapy water to scrub it all down. One good thing is that we have a lot of leftover meat (intentionally), so we won't need to cook so much this week.

Here's a picture of Hubby reading the cook book. It seems to be upside down, which may account for some of the anxiety and high tension around the cooking process.

The End Truly in Sight

Around the house there is very little left to do.

Site Supervisor II finally confirmed - with the help of the Velux rep - that the remaining problem with our kitchen skylight is a bad blind, so a new one is on order. The door screens for the french windows are supposedly arriving tomorrow and will be installed on Monday. The three missing exterior lights came yesterday and should also be installed on Monday. SS2 owes us a bit of caulking in the kitchen around the sliding door threshold. We are also owed a few bits of touch up painting inside the house, nothing much.


Outside, the exterior paint job is looking good, and minimal touch ups are required. The painter said he'd return when the landscaping was complete, so that he can touch up anywhere the landscapers have spoiled. He also needs to come back to patch and paint the front door where the hardware changed.


The landscapers are working hard on the garden. Yet more dirt has been delivered. The guys move it around in wheelbarrows, it looks like hard work. The big excitement of yesterday was the delivery of a very large quantity of plants. They are currently sitting on the area that will become our lawn. Hopefully they will be planted in the near future. Just their arrival in pots has really perked up the garden.

Sealed in a Plastic Bubble

The painters are doing the outside of the house, at last. Interestingly, they do not use paintbrushes or rollers; they use spray guns. First of all they covered every window and door with plastic, and used the spray gun to paint all the woodwork white (eaves, gutters, downspouts, window frames, doors and door frames. Then yesterday they spent a while covering all the openings with plastic so that today they can spray the walls. It was pretty horrible in the house last night, with every potential ventilation opening covered in plastic film.

We also had a slightly comical moment yesterday afternoon when it appeared that there was no longer any way to get out of the house. This was solved by bursting through one of the garage doors.

In other news yesterday, Site Supervisor II was here for an hour with the Velux representative, and they got both openable skylights in the kitchen to work, and they also got five out of the six blinds to function correctly. It seems that our sixth blind is "bad" (even though it is brand new) and the Velux man has ordered a replacement to be sent directly to us rather than through the local dealer. SS2 says he is literally dreaming about our skylights; and I told him that he is now, of course, on an Arthurian-style Quest to get them fixed.

Junk

Here's a photo of Hubby struggling to cope with the doorless food cabinet. Yes, he's eating junk food.

Welcome to week 32.

Locks, Paints, and Chips

The painters are hard at it outside, finishing the primer coat on the exterior. They are also peeling off all the plastic window coverings that SS2 had carefully left on to protect the glass for the painting phase... Well, I guess they know what they're doing!

One of the guys from Jim's Bunch changed our door hardware yesterday, leaving us with yet more keys; so I got the locksmith in last night and had all the locks changed.

This morning the cabinet makers returned to the house and took away the doors from the tall food cabinet in the kitchen. The back was covered with holes and marker pen from the failed attempts to install the door shelving, and we had requested that they remake the doors. Now all my junk food is on show. I joked to SS2 that I'll have to buy a load of fruit to stack in front of it to hide our shame.

Today's Menu of Action

Several things happened today:

- The hardscape people cleared out their stuff. The outdoor kitchen is still not finished, pending a solution to "the paper towel holder doesn't fit."
- The counter top people arrived and left again without doing anything to the outdoor kitchen.
- The landscaping crew continued to rotovate the back yard. In fact they were using something that looked like a spade attached to a jack hammer. It took them all morning to do the majority of the ground.
- A very large pile of soil arrived, and the landscaping crew started to distribute it by wheelbarrow.
- The painters arrived and started to do the undercoat on the bedroom/bathroom extension exterior.
- The dry wall guys came back to fix the ceiling in the office, guest bathroom and hallway where the plaster had shrunk away from the metal beading, causing the plaster to crack.
- Site Supervisor II covered up the kitchen skylights with black plastic, at my request. It was so hot in the kitchen that you could have fried an egg on the floor.
- SS2 also thinks he has found a solution to the tub problem.

Tomorrow we have the first site meeting for several weeks.

Views of the Kitchen/Office

Note the frosted glass sliding doors dividing the new office from the kitchen.

C-Day Arrives...and Leaves

Today was supposed to be punch list day, which we might also term Completion Day. Over the course of last week, this became reframed as "punch list for the interior" day. In the event, it was not completion day at all.

Don't get me wrong: The project is very close to being finished (at least inside the house), but every room has something in it that needs completing, tweaking, fixing, touching up, etc. On the instructions of Site Supervisor II, I went round the house - though not the family room/ bathroom/ bedroom end - this morning with a pad of paper and some painters' tape, obsessively opening drawers, looking for scuff marks, and such like; and I sent him a list of 29 items requiring attention. Since sending it, I've spotted two more, but 29 seems like enough to be getting on with for now.

The list includes things like electrical receptacles unfinished, the phantom screens on the office windows being sticky, some minor dry wall damage in the dining room, scratches on the top of the dresser in the master bedroom.... By themselves, nothing major, but adding up to enough work to keep them busy for a few more days at least.

The only rooms that are finally complete are the master bathroom and Deep Thought's room, which were having only minimal work done to them anyway. The guest bedroom looks done, but then you discover that the lights inside the closet have not been wired in. The family room looks done, but then you open the TV cabinet and discover that the shelves where the DVD player and other kit should sit are not straight as the holes for the pegs to hold them have not been drilled at the same level (I kid you not). The office looks done, but the desk grommets need to be secured in place and the screens need correcting. You get the idea.

To say that SS2 is frustrated by the lack of finishing would be an understatement, I think. The cabinet makers reached the top of his hit list again last week, having made medicine cabinets for the guest bathroom that were too large to allow the light fittings to go between them (despite the light fittings having been in our garage for three months). Hubby is also getting pretty fed up with the endless fiddling about that is required at this stage. I am trying to be stoic about it as I have to live with it - and answer multiple questions every hour on all manner of subjects, from handle placement to likely mode of using the windows.

The two big steps forward of the day seem have been having door handles (well, actually finger cups) added to the office doors, which now look rather stylish; and the finalization of the cable man's work on the telephone, ethernet and cable installation. We now have a "smart panel" on the wall in the TV cabinet that should eliminate any need for ugly grommets and wires on show.

Wet Weekend Round Up

So little seemed to happen last week that I gave up writing the daily blog. So here's a brief summary of action:

- wood floors went into the bedroom, office, and the base of Little Starlet's closet, and each received their sanding and first two coats of varnishy stuff;
- the gimble mounted lights went into the bedroom and office ceilings;
- the snap-on outlet plates were installed in the kitchen (mostly);
- the baseboard and crown molding were painted in the master bedroom;
- the tile was almost finished in the guest bathroom, except for a small area around the toilet sewer pipe;
- the tub deck in the guest bathroom had the corner rounded to eliminate potentially injurious point;
- some of the cabinets in the kitchen were adjusted (again);
- the shelf inserts inside the main food pantry were installed - but they have to be removed because now the rolling shelves have no way to come out.
- the door bell was repaired, and now plays the first couple of bars of the 1812 overture (not sure this is a big improvement on the last tune).
- wood siding installation began on the exterior of the bedroom/bathroom
- the "scratch" coat for the stucco was installed on the office/laundry and the rear main wall.

That may sound like a lot, but is actually not a great deal. Most days we only had one or two guys here, which is a big difference. There was no action in the landscaping at all, as our stone layer was off with family issues.

In other news, I had a bit of taxpayer triumph. A couple of months ago, Site Supervisor II spoke with the City about repairing our sidewalk and road. The City told him that it would be ten years before they were back on our street, and that we were essentially out of luck. Last week I took matters into my own hands - inspired by new puddled formed by new rain - and contacted the Public Works Department. Long story short, they came to inspect and agreed to add our section to their repair schedule for 2010. In fact they said there were 20 places on our street that needed repair, so they'd be repairing the whole block! Hubby says, maybe they checked the computer to see how much property tax we pay....

Trying to Get Beyond 80% Done

The frustrating thing about the remodel now is that lots of things are almost finished; but not many things are actually finished.

The kitchen floor is complete, but the wine fridges can't go in because the walls haven't been painted. The kitchen cabinets still need adjustment. The office is ready to have the floor installed and the walls painted. The light fittings also need to go in. The exterior lights are here, but awaiting installation. The laundry is awaiting cabinet pulls and painting. (We're also waiting for the correct top half of the dutch door to come.) The interior doors are in and painted, but still need the correct hardware (handles, hinges etc). The family room floor is complete and the window bench is in, but the TV cabinet is having to be remade (see earlier post about how it was made up in the wrong material). The guest bathroom tile is half done. The window frames have all been painted, but the glass needs cleaning up.

The guys from Jim's Bunch have been installing the closet doors in our bedroom since yesterday. California Closets will be coming on Friday to install the innards.

I could go on. All this is not to say that work is slowing down, or that the guys aren't working hard, because it isn't and they are. It's just that it would be nice to see something actually 100% complete because every room in the house is currently impacted by the remodel.

Traffic Calming

Yesterday we had 15 trucks outside out house, including an enormous concrete mixer. Today was much quieter, just five vehicles.

The landscaping crew continued their work on setting up the forms for the front yard concrete (due to be poured on Tuesday, weather permitting). I have to forgive them their last trench, upon which I poured such scorn, as it turned out to be the base for the courtyard wall.

The guys from Jim's Bunch continued working away inside the house. They ripped out the inside of the closet in our bedroom. They have installed the dresser in our bedroom, and also finished off the wine fridge area in the kitchen. Various bumps and hammers from other parts of the house, tasks unspecified. Everything seemed quite calm today.

Site Supervisor II declares that the job will be finished in six weeks.

Photos here:
i) The old hot tub box on the side of the house, where our predecessors kept the water chemicals and stuff. We're having it taken off - retaining the potentially useful electrical outlet, because you can never have too many - and the wall made good. This photo gives a little peek into the way the house is built, with stucco, paper, chicken wire and lumber.
ii) The dresser in the master bedroom in process. This will be painted.
iii) The back yard as viewed from the redwood trees. The concrete was dry enough for me to venture out this afternoon.
iv) The fancy metal flashing at the weep screed which now extends all around our house's perimeter. Apparently this is state of the art and will block any pesky termites from finding their way in. (The little blighters had eaten quite a lot of our door steps and similar, it turns out.)
v) The wine fridge area in the kitchen almost done. I live in hope that the fridges will be moved into the kitchen and out of our dining room early next week.

Goodbye to the Closet, Hello More Cabinets

I can hardly contain my excitement about the progress in the landscaping, so I could go on and on about that; but I'll mention the wonderful progress inside the house too.

The pocket door is completed in the kitchen/study (except for the insertion of the actual doors, which haven't arrived yet). Since the drywall has been done, we are now in position to complete the kitchen floor tile and install the cabinets for the wine fridges (which have been living in our dining room in huge boxes for over a month.) Lots of cabinets have arrived and the slow process of installing them all has begun. Photo here of the cabinet that fits between the wine fridges going in. Also a big heap of drawer units and bookcases in the office.

As it was our weekly site meeting today, I got a peek at the bedroom/bathroom addition. (We may get more than a peek soon, as Site Supervisor II says that the dust wall will be coming down in a day or two.) The inside of the shower has been prepared by the tiler and is currently drying. I was hoping that some of the mosaic tile would have been installed so I could get a look with the paint in mind, but no luck. Well, you can't have everything. The valves for the tub faucets are in. The cabinets have also been installed in the bathroom and are looking good. We had a fairly detailed conversation about where the handles and pulls should go on the cabinets. It's amazing how much time you can spend on an item like that.

In the master bedroom, there has also been progress on the closet reworking. The drywall and "mud" has been completed. When we started on the closet, I assumed that the interior - the hanging space and shelves - would be ripped out. Then I had a conversation with SS2 who said we should keep them till we had chosen our new layout. Well, the net result of the reframing and drywalling is that the closet interior has been wrecked. (I never really expected anything else.) I told SS2 that they might as well rip it out and dispose of it for us. The doors for the closet have not yet arrived on site. I guess we'll be living with our clothes on wonky IKEA hanging racks for a while longer.



Time to call California Closets?

Have you been paying attention? Finish this sentence: "Another Day..."

It is Monday. Welcome to week 21 of the remodel. Guess what joyful occurrence has gladdened the hearts of the Cardboard Box dwellers today? Yes, a new hole in the front yard. In fact, to be specific, two holes. The first hole is involved in a sewer relocation connected to the "outdoor kitchen" we are building in the back yard. The second hole is to accommodate a pipe that was the subject of installation in a previous hole. This landscaping crew is worthy of employment with BT or British Gas or one of those wretched utility companies. Site Supervisor II says he tried not to notice what they were doing, it was too painful to watch.

Inside the Cardboard Box, the dishwasher finally came back to life today. Unfortunately it leaked into the cabinet under the sink. Turned out to be something to do with gravity and one of the pipes having a dip in it. Anyway, SS2 called the plumber in to fix it and told him very sternly that the whole kitchen remodel was predicated on eliminating the leaking faucet and water damaged sink cabinet, so it had better get put right. SS2 is a pretty mild mannered guy, so it's easy to see when he's not tremendously impressed. While he was here, the plumber also swapped the Insinkerator (garbage disposal) around from the big sink to the small sink, and installed the second Insinkerator in the vegetable sink. Houston, we now have total sink capability.

We've spotted various little fixes that are needed around the kitchen, but we've decided not to moan on about them just now. We'd rather the guys get on with some of the remaining big stuff than spend their time fiddling with the little stuff. That can wait for the punch list at the end, if necessary.

Our whole house fan was working over the weekend, but isn't now. We discovered that the attic fans had been left switched on, so we turned them off at the subpanel. SS2 said that the thermostatic controls for the attic fans would be installed today. Quite what actually happened I'm not sure: The attic fans are still permanently on, while the whole house fan is no longer working. It seems like that with all our electrical work: One thing gets fixed and another stops working. The electicians claim that we have funky wiring (and I can believe that) but even so, surely this isn't absolutely necessary.

The carpenters continued working on the windows today and seem to be close to finishing.



In other big news, the pocket doors for the kitchen/study wall have arrived. Yay! A couple of the guys from Jim's Bunch started to install the pockets this afternoon. This is arguably the last big piece of actual construction needing to be done. When the pocket doors are in, they'll be able to finish the drywall in the kitchen, the tile floor, install the last cabinet, and take the blessed wine fridges out of the dining room at last. All good stuff.

Now, to return to yesterday's important question about the light switch in the living room, here is a photo of it. Would you have it moved or not?

Photos of the New Kitchen

Cabinets - clear stained alder
Countertop - Caesarstone in "oyster"
Floor - porcelain tile with stone mosaic accent
Appliances - pre-existing

All we have to do now is choose the color of the plates for the electrical outlets and light switches. Do we want biscuit, eggshell, pale almond, or simply white?

Who knew there were so many vital decisions to be made in a remodel?

The New Faucet

I am about to post some photos of the kitchen. It is very important to remember that the whole kitchen remodel started because one of our taps had a crack in it and needed to be changed. As a result of that need, we first decided to reface the cabinets. That turned out to be just as expensive as buying new ones, so we decided to go for new. We planned to reuse our Corian countertops. After a long delay, it turned out that no one would be willing to do that job because of liability concerns, so we decided to go for new. And at the eleventh hour, the fact that our most environmentally-interested friend said she thought we'd be daft not to change out the floor persuaded us to replace that too. So, for one dripping tap, we give you - THE NEW KITCHEN.



I thought the replacement faucet merited a blog entry all of its own.

Kitchen almost complete

Works continues on the kitchen. The countertops and cabinets are in. The tiler is almost done with the floor. The painter has brushed a sample of "Golden Lab" on the wall so we can see that we really like it (which we do). Here's a few catch up photos from Thursday afternoon showing various elements of the kitchen, with the tiler at work.

More doors

I went out all day yesterday as the construction works were so intrusive just about everywhere in and around the house. The kitchen is going along well - the floor is nearly done, the countertops are in with the cooktop back in place. The guys from Jim's Bunch have been working away on the new exterior doors. Here is a picture of them working in our living room. I think it has an interesting "Psycho" feel to it.