Now that I can actually see myself, I have a prayer of putting on my make-up on properly.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Bar backsplash set
Tile is set - waiting for the main kitchen wall to be done. A kitchen just looks naked until the backsplash is tiled.
The Capri pants of fridge panels
Just a tad bit short, ya think? Apparently, due to a fax machine printing error, the 28" tall panel became 23" tall. New ones on order but this is par for the course. Everything done twice. Why do it once when you can do it twice?
Monday, August 09, 2010
More railings
These railings finish the concrete off nicely. Also notice my pretty persimmon tree. Look for persimmon bread for Christmas!
Now if we fall, it's our own damn fault
The railings are in around the egress areas. The wood cap still needs to be installed. But the steel cables are lovely!
View of the great room
The wood ceiling is installed and the windows are stained. Lights are also in. The white sprinkler caps will be painted to blend. I don't have fancy lenses so this photo kind of sucks but you all get the idea.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Master bath vanity
This is "Opal White" quartzite from DaVinci Marble. It's a gorgeous stone that really can't be captured here. The Duravit sink will sit on top.
Jack and Jill bath has a counter!
The stone is called Fossil Brown. It has really cool little fossils buried in it. More photos to follow!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Evidence of anal-retentiveness taken to the nth degree
We are using a tile called "cubika" that has a really interesting pattern of little white blocks that catch the light in fun ways. They are large format tiles and I asked that they appear completely seamless so the grout joints are minuscule. If you look very closely there is really only one seam that pops out at you. And of course it's the one where the wall-mounted faucet is. :-( If the funky seam had been one tile up it would have fallen behind the mirror but nooooo. It just had to be where the faucet is going to be.
Now it's possible that once everything else is in I'll never notice the seam. But right now it's all I can see. Flaws are all I can see right now and it's doing no favors to my mental health.
Stucco meets wood
This is the front of the house. The stucco has an integral color and the surface shows the hand-applied character of the material. It looks like plaster. It's very cool!
Making the most of vanity storage space
This little vanity has two drawers but to accommodate the pipes, we have this fun U-shaped drawer. Maximum storage!
Alas, mistakes happen
We have radiant pipes in the outdoor patio area (indulgent, I know). Sadly when removing the concrete forms a pipe went *pop*. Here is a photo of the section that was removed to fix the broken pipe. I just hope that patching doesn't look too awful.
Pool house shower tile
The accent tile here is a lot of fun. I love the way it looks but I am concerned about it not being centered on the wall. The pattern starts two field tiles from the top and in the layout pattern, there were supposed to be two field tiles at the bottom. Unfortunately, it didn't layout that way and it dead ends into the floor. I think the strip should be redone so that the there is one field tile at the top and one at the bottom to create visual balance. I hate having things done twice!
Friday, May 21, 2010
Fireplace window and "slot"
There will be a fire element here with a window so you can enjoy the fire outside in the courtyard.
Entertainment cabinet wall
Sheet rock crew is keeping busy. You can see an interesting architectural detail here. There is a "slot" running down from above. The entertainment cabinet will fill in most of the area shown. The cabinet will end at the right of the parallel walls. It'll be obvious what I mean in the next few weeks.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Coping
Here is the new piece of coping that was installed last week. Looks a lot better than the two funky pieces they had in there before!
Friday, May 14, 2010
Lynx 42" grill
This is sitting in our garage right now along with half of our worldly possessions. Use your imagination and envision it as the centerpiece of our future outdoor grilling area.
I found a great deal on eBay (love you, eBay!) on 2009 Lynx built-in grills. These things never seem to go on sale! They are harder to find at a discount than Jimmy Choos. The only downside to this model is that it's missing the "ProSear" feature. Alas, that would have doubled the cost of the grill as the model with ProSear was not available in overstock. So we'll just have to suck it up. My cheap husband is fine with it. He still gets 42" of red hot grilling surface.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Pool coping install today
They are installing the coping today. The coping is 24" square. I asked the tile guys to modify the install today because we needed 6" more than a full tile. Rather than throw an extra tile into the mix and shave off a uniform width to make everything look the same, they cut two pieces into 15" to make it work. Which looked like complete crap. It didn't help that they put the narrow pieces right smack in the middle of the coping run. So I asked that they pull out the two funky pieces so we can order a larger piece to cut down to size. I don't think the tile guys were so happy with me.
Penny round pool tile
The tile looks darker in person than in the photo but this will be used at the waterline and on the "Shamu" shelf (the it's a shallow area near the steps that can be sat on). We'll probably grout with a dark gray grout.
Behind the tile you can see the coping we are using.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Scratch coat of stucco!
The front of the house is no longer clad in chicken wire. At last we have the start of our finish coast. First layer of stucco is now applied here. More to come around the house. We had crappy weather today. Hoping for more sunshine!
Vandalism sucks
This window in our foyer was broken. It was broken from the outside and a very small (tiny!) hole looked to be about the size of something from a BB gun. It's gotten worse now and the glass needs replacing. Another window bit the dust and it's all very suspicious.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Skateboard heaven?
As the weather gets warmer I have been looking upon my pool-in-progress with longing. Right now, it's just a skateboard park. But someday it will be an inviting oasis of cool, dark water flanked by teak deck chairs, green grass and a bubbling wall of water. Someday....
Stained cedar siding
Here is the one place on the house exterior you can currently see the stained cedar siding going up. The stain is meant to be close to the dark bronze color of the window exterior so it's a bit on the dark side. Our color palette evokes a Spanish Colonial vibe, albeit expressed in a modern vocabulary. The wood is dark stained and the stucco will be a sandy, creamy color.
Yeah, I've been spending too much time talking to my designers.
Slot light framed into the hallway
Instead of "normal" sconces for the hallway we are using long, linear, fluorescent lights that are recessed into the wall. Sort of like slots of light. The idea is that the light will appear as kind of a knife-edge of light at intervals across the hallway. That's the idea anyway.
Dining room insulation
I guess no more Pink Panther insulation from Owens-Corning. This stuff looks like it came off an alpaca - or my dog.
Great room ceiling (shaved)
In contrast, you can see the great room with the foam "shaved" so that it's flush with the ceiling joists. The rooms are now so acoustically "dead" that it's weird to be in them. Of course once the dry wall is up it will be reverberant all over again. Maybe we just leave the drywall off? With 3 kids and a dog, I could use as much acoustical deadening as I can get.
Unshaved foam insulation
This is the foam insulation in the foyer. It's "unshaved" so you can see how the foam expanded.
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