More updated photos

New fridge, old stove. Next big projects are a ways off, but we hope to go with cork flooring in the kitchen. It would be nice to rennovate the cabinets, keep them just refinish them. Would be nice to update the stove at some point too.

A little baby Hobo spider, yup, it's hobo season. These guys are similar to a brown recluse in that their venom will eat away flesh and can cause bad infections. Oh and they are really aggressive. Again, this is a baby, I just killed "Mom" in the master bath and at first we though it was an ugly mouse, it was that big.

The living room with big front windows and some vintage furniture pieces, including a fabulous rug from my parents. This rug is from my childhood. The couch is "Andre" from Room and Board, we love it.

Living room again, built in book case and flokati rug. The fireplace surround will hopefully be replaced at some point.

More living room, with exposed brick wall.

The front door, joy. 

Update Time #2

the Dude abides, Nixon bowls.

the new media room, without the old door.

destruction.

Destruction of the old office, preparing for the media room.

the "office" when we moved in, complete with second front door. This was our first project, removing the front door, all the wood paneling and creating our media room.

the guest bedroom.

our new master bedroom, there were no windows when we moved in, we added three awning type windows.

master bedroom, with "his" and "hers" closets on each side of the bed. Actually we don't have a bed yet, so still sleeping on the floor. You actually step down into each closet side. 

Master bedroom. the cubby in the corner with the dresser is actually the location where the old shower stall was. The old master bathroom came out to about where this chair is. We removed the entire bathroom and added in our master bath suite off the back of the room. The windows are crank out awning style, I love them.

Our Ikea cabinets in the bath suite. They are actually kitchen cabinets which stand a bit higher than normal bath cabinets. So far we are really pleased with the quality and finish.

Michelle doing some finishing touches on the seat in the shower. Cutting the tile for the seat was not fun and well, I did my share of wasting tile getting the perfect cuts, but it was worth it.

Our shower controls in the new shower, one controls the overhead rain shower, one controls the hand shower wand, and yes, you can have both of them on at once. I never thought I'd want two showerheads, but the wand will make it really easy to wash the shower down or possibly a dog if we ever get one. The rains hower, well, that's purely just cause it's awesome.

the rain showerhead and light in the angled ceiling.

the view of the shower from the backyard, through the french doors.

the Kohler tea 4 two tub with the 3-form resin surround. We still need to install the surround, hook up the plumbing fixtures tile around the surround, then finish the floor tile up to the tub. There will also be subway tile up the wall to just above the light switch. It will run along behind the sinks as well.

looking towards the sinks as you step down into the bath from the bedroom. His and hers sinks. There will be tile along the backsplash up about 12 inches. Then we will have a single mirror that runs the length of the back wall between the sinks. All cabinets are Ikea, including the large double glass door cabinet, great for towels. 

finishing tile work in the toilet room prior to the installation of the toilet.

Update Time

Ok, where were we? Oh well I'll blame the lack of posts on the Olympics. How about that Michael Phelps? I know you are probably sick of hearing of him, but that's something we may not see again in our lifetime. And it's due to hard training and of course, some of our secret formulas at Powerbar. 

Back to work at hand... I haven't put up any photos in a while so here you go.

This is installing the Ditra underlayment which helps prevent future cracking in tile job

s. I highly recommend it and it's pretty easy to install. Simply thinset it to the subfloor, then anther layer of thinset on top, followed by 

the tile.

We finally finished the water closet and again, it's bright red. It kinda reminds me of a dive bar in SF, like you should be writing all over the walls in sharpie. Not sure if that's a good feeling for your home bathroom, but I actually really dig it.

We installed the Grundtal tp holder from Ikea, very simple yet functional design. 

We also put in a small wall heater to help on those freezing winter mornings. This little heater along with the under tile NuHeat, we'll be toasty.

 

Getting a little bit closer.

Slowly, we are getting closer to completion, spring is in the air and it's only a matter of time till we've got a functional bedroom and bathroom. The wall tiling in the shower is done, still needs to be grouted though. We also need to tile the top of the seat and the wall "nook". Then tile and grout the floors. But it's coming together. The tile is laid in the "water closet" room already. just needs to be grouted. The Nuheat mat has been installed and it's amazing. It was turned on the other night by accident and you could really feel the heat radiating out from it. Now just to lay it under the underlayment and tile over it. The door has been installed for the toilet room, we've painted all of the trim around the windows, finished up the french doors, cut the 3-form. We hope to finish the floor tiling this weekend and also keep finishing up the shower.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

Oi, I think the last post was way back on Nov 7th, quite some time ago. Well, we took a bit of a break for the holidays and now we are looking into starting back up for the final home stretch (pun not intended). Well, I've got a few updates to share about the progress to date. The shower surround is built, in all it's glass shimmering glory. During the day, it really lets the light come in.  The second image is from inside the shower during the day.

We've also painted the separate little 'water closet' room, bright red, we'll see how we like it once we are actually up and running with it. But for now, it's looking pretty good.

 

The french doors and large 'privacy' window 

have been installed and really open up the bathroom with heaps of light. 

We originally requested "rain glass" for the large picture window in front of the tub, and when it arrived we noticed it was actually "privacy glass". I have to say i actually like the look and feel of the privacy glass better. It's much more of a diffused light, which floods in right in front of the bathtub, yet still keeping the bathroom private from the backyard.

We've also had the awning windows placed into the bedroom which is really great. They are high enough to be private, but will again allow in lots of light from the backyard and provide some nice breeze in the summer months. This shot shows the house from the backyard where you can really see the layout of the new windows in the bedroom and the window and door in the bathroom. All of our tile has come in so we are just getting ready for the install of that as well. 

We will be using 1" hexagon on the shower floor and 2" octagon on the bathroom floor with black accent tiles, we are hoping it'll be a pretty clean look together with the vertically stacked subway tiles on the walls. We've still got a plenty to do so please stay tuned.

been a while

yup, been a while since we've posted. We had Rob, Angela and Zander here all weekend visiting. We got to visit the Zoo for the first time and see the much talked about baby Gibon monkey, which was well worth it. Like a combination little old man/infant.

Anyway, we also went to SF for a week a little while ago and while we were gone, Ric and the guys put in the three awning windows in the bedroom, the french doors in the bath and the big rain window in the bathroom. 

We were shocked to come home to that. Now it's time for painting the walls of the bedroom and closet.

The wall / shower tiles should be arriving tomorrow which will obviously go on the walls, tub surround and shower. We still need to order the floor tile, as fastfloors.com did not have the tiles we wanted in stock for the floor. But we did get the subway tile for a good deal through them.

The glass block shower is fully installed and looks fabulous. It' s much bigger than expected. I hope to take some photos tomorrow to get posted and show off the progress.

more soon...

a little overboard?

So I came to an almost embarrassing conclusion last night when walking through the master bed space. You can still see outlines on the floor where the original master bathroom sat, and well, it appears the footprint of our old master bathroom would fit entirely in the new shower alone. Holy smokes! Here you see the curb outline, corner seat, in-wall shelf, double controls on the wall. Next steps are the glass block walls, floor and wall tiling, and finish work. Up near the light you can see where the rain head will drop from the ceiling. Then there will be a hand wand above the controls.

The gang also put in the tub this week. I missed that.... darn, and apparently it was pretty humorous as it took 6 people to drop in that sucker in. Next steps are tiling the surround, and putting in the 3-Form Chroma cap on the tub surround. The 3-Form Chroma is a recyclable resin, that will also be the top for the vanity.
Ric has been a HUGE help in the whole project, team leader, cracking the whip, throwing out design ideas, and fabricating all the little details.

Porter is the master sheetrock and mud guy, he's been teaching Michelle a thing or two on sanding and putting up sheetrock, the guy rocks.

Oh, and we've put up a ton more photos on flickr showing the progress, the newest images are on the last few pages.

So now we are ready to start painting or at least priming the masterbedroom. good times ahead....