Ollie Eichler Redux

A little tax return spending...

2011-08-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

The updates seems to about once a year now, as most of the major house changes are done. There a few projects still lurking, but we've been down to doing one major project a year as money allows.

This year is no different. After unsuccessfully trying to make the original Shoji doors look good, we gave up. We tried staining and texturing with grass-type of wall paper but they just never looked right - especially with the bottoms cut off to accommodate the leveled floor.

So we made the decision to replace all the closet doors with panel doors that match the rest of our interior doors.

Here is the stack of unaltered Shoji doors. It's a damn shame we couldn't get them to look nice again, but oh well...

And here are the new ones. We used Premier Doors in Los Altos again. Surprisingly, they were the same cost as ordering special order from Lowes or Home Depot (these are some taaaaall doors), but also included installation - SCORE!

Here are the hallway doors. I will miss the old ones clanging back and forth every time I walk down the hall - NOT!! :)

Here are the office doors.

The guest bedroom doors, with the same entrance door for reference.

And finally Keira's bedroom doors with the required model.

That's all for now. I know there will be at least one more update for 2011, so stay tuned...

Uhh...2010 update

2010-09-28T20:52:00.000-07:00

Wow, I can't believe its been almost a year since my last house update! Okay, maybe not that surprised, as I haven't done too much this spring summer except enjoy the fruits of our labor :-) Let's just say we decided to take a break on upgrades.

But there have been some updates since last year. Shortly after my last post I finished the firepit and got some nice (cheap) Adirondak chairs. Here is the fire pit in my favorite setting, a cool night with a glass of scotch!

We also scored a bit of deal on Craiglist on an expanding teak table and a small round teak table for the master bedroom patio. Ultimately, we'd like to score a bench for the back of the table against the glass and light the outdoor dining area with some sort of outdoor chandelier.

The BIG expenditure for the year was that we put in Air Conditioning!! Now I know we've had about as temperate a summer as anyone south of Seattle could ask for, but I just "knew" that meant we'd have a HOT indian summer. With President Obama's 30%tax credit for energy efficient appliance installation, we knew we'd have to install a system in 2010.

Since Eichlers do not have ductwork, nor crawl/attic spaces to install a traditional A/C system, we decided to go with a mini-split system, where the compressor is outside like a traditional central air system and the blower was attached through a wall. These systems are very popular in Australia and Europe and have much better efficiency than a window-mount room air conditioner.

Since 75% of the house virtually open, we knew if we sized the mini-split big enough, it would cool most of the house. We measured the square footage and concluded that the main space was still well over 1,000 sq feet, necessitating a 2-ton 24,000 BTU system. Off we went to research the systems.

Unfortunately, the larger the mini-split, the harder it was to achieve the desired efficiency needed to obtain the tax credit. But there was one system that fit the bill - the Fujitsu Halcyon 24XLS. Bonus that it doubled as a heat pump, allowing quick heat for when the radiant floor is off or coming back up to equillibrum temp (like when returning from vacation).

Here is the inside blower unit. It only serves to blow the cool air into the house. It has auto-variable speed and adjusts automatically for the ambient room temerature. It also has up/dowen/side/side sweeps to make sure the air keeps moving throughout the space. Combined with the ceiling fan, it really doesn't take much to cool the room and we can even feel it reaching the bedrooms on low speeds.

This is the outside unit. It is slightly taller than a central air conditioning compressor but about half as wide.

This system is quiet like I have never heard before. Even with the sytem maxed out, the system is STILL quieter than any wall/window mount system I've heard. And check out the sound level!! This is on a steady-state with the indoor temp set at 74 degrees and the outside temperature at 95degrees. You can BARELY hear it!!

Overall cost was comparable to just replacing a decent sized central air compressor, about $3850 including installation, but after the PGE and Federal tax credits will be reduced to about $2500.

Controlled Air Systems handled the installation and I cannot say enough about Josh and the the quality of their work, professionalism and resaonable costs. I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone with HVAC heating and cooling needs. Installation took a day and a half, and CAS handled it all, including the electrical hookup. All that is left for me to do is paint the conduits and hose covers.

A/C was installed just in the nick of time, as predicted we are HOT and HEAVY into an Indian Summer with daytime temps well into the 90's. But we are calm, cool and collected with our new A/C! Ahhhhhhh.....

I still have quite a bit on my list of "honey do's" including: Lighting fixes, a shed, fireplace, chimney facing (slate) and miscellaneous interior furniture - all of which take time and $$$ . So hopefully it won't be another year before the next update, but heck you never know....I have been eyeballing a Tahoe project lately ;-)

Outside home stretch

2009-09-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy couple of months over the summer and projects have slowed. My bro/sis-in-law have been living with us since before the last post in June while they shopped for a house. With the winter rainy season coming I decided in mid-September to make a push to finish the exterior projects before the storms came.

These little LED outdoor lights were on sale at Home Depot so I thought I'd give them a try to dip into the landscape lighting. They're solar powered and not particularly bright, but do a good enough job in lighting the landscape during the evening-to-sleeping hours. I have one lighting the address number and two accenting the weeping Birch tree in the front. I think with a few more sets, the front and backyards will look stellar in the evenings. But that is for next spring.

The big project has been to create gutters for the downspouts on the sides of the house. In the winter, the heavy rains would splash everywhere and create a racket as well. The splashing definitely contributed to some of the damaged siding I've replaced since moving in and the gutters will alleviate that.

Although all the pieces are slip-fit, its a lot harder than it looks in piecing those suckers together. Thankfully, my neighbor Kevin to the rescue again had a chop saw specifically for metal and made quick work of assembling. Ok not that quick, more like 10 hours for seven gutters, but still quick enough. The next day I primed and painted them and the look great!

For some reason, there were two downspouts that were flush to the house. Every time it rained, they would go drip, drip, drip...right outside our master bedroom and one of the spare bedrooms. It was incessant and sleep depriving. The solution? Four sideways elbows to create an "S" curve to break up the droplets. I'm happy to say that after the first rains this week, the design worked PERFECTLY!

The last downspout was a difficult proposition because of the fencing. When we bought the house, there was simply a PVC "L" hanging over the fence. Everytime the wind blew, it would swing and bang against the house, scaring the bejeezus out of anyone near the guest bedroom. I reoreinted it to fall straight down, but because there was not outlet there we'd get some minor puddling there. When I designed the gutter, I couldn't attach to the house because it would cover up the guest window. So I turned the design 90 degrees and floated the downangle to meet the fenceline. It couldn't have worked better and did not obscure the guest bedroom window at all!

What didn't work perfectly was my sealing job on four of the gutters. I was hoping the side mounted to the house wouldn't need sealing. I pretty much knew better, but decided to let it try first. So the following weekend I took them down to reseal them. Guess what...still seeping in a few places, so they need one more coat of sealer next weekend.

While painting, I finally got around to painting the filter box. Looks fantastic. Now all I have to do on that system is wrap the piping in case of overnight freezes. Rare in Norcal, but happens more than a few times a winter. I like it so much I'm going to scale up the design to build a shed next spring to house our gardening tools, a mower and weed eater. I'll make a few changes to make it appear more Eichler-ish, with a broad beam running along the exterior length of the shed parallel to the roofline.

One of the projects left to complete is the firepit. The delay was caused by an inaccurate gas line installation/sizing.

The contractor simply dragged the gas line from the kitchen to the backyard areas (BBQ, fireplace and firepit) using the same 1/2" line. Unfortunately he never bothered to check and see if that was the right size. After the patio was poured and I had the BBQ running, I noticed the searer burner wouldn't get hot enough to sear and the fourth burner wouldn't light if the other three were on full blast. I consulted with PGE and they agreed that with the number of appliances I had or was planning, a bigger meter was in order.

The BBQ works much better with the bigger meter, but the fourth burner is still a little difficult to operate. A quick check to the internet yeilded the result that with my run distance, the pressure in the line would have dropped by over 60% to the end terminals the furthest away from the meter, URGH!!! PGE recommended an 1.25" gas line replace the 0.5" line down the side of the house. That way, where the .5" line goes underground (and under the patio) the run will only be ~40 feet, which calculates to approximately a 15% pressure drop. This should negate any problems with the gas line in the back yard - at a cost of $900 :( Looks like a few more months till the big screen can make it to the living room.

in the meantime, Lorinda and I picked out some flagstone pieces to set in the fire pit hole. Next weekend I'll mix up some concrete, color it and set the flagstone. Within a few days, we should be able to sit by the fire in the evening.

2009-06-29T10:53:00.000-07:00

Last weekend the temperatures were back over 100 degrees, which obviously means I need to work outside and kill myself trying to get some more projects completed.

First things first though..Thanks to Linda Tsoi and Bank of America - We have refi success!! and in a BIG way, buying down our rate with 2.5 pts, we were able to knock our mortgage down from 6.6375% to........4.25% on a 30 yr fixed loan!! This reduced our payment by a whopping $1,100/month!! Our breakeven for the refi is 19.5 months. Happy Happy Dances all around!

Although most of the nice weather projects have shifted the focus outside, inside projects are also getting shorter too. The skylight is the best thing since sliced bread on 95% of the days, allowing plentiful light, warming the house in the winter, allowing adequate venting in the summer and showcasing the atruim area in general. It is the other 5% of the days that the heat transfer is a killer, especially in a house without A/C. The roof and windows intalled last year have increased the comfort coeffiecient significantly and we have acheived an ~20 degree delta from inside to outside on the hot days, buttoning eveything up and attempting to seal out the heat. But on 100+ degree days like this weekend, this still makes for a pretty hot 85+ degree house. We had investigated some sort of shading system which would allow us to block the skylight on these days and keep the heat gain from the skylight reasonable. The two suggested solutions were a panel of honeycomb shades and a larger motorized covering. Both choices were in the $5,000 range for something that literally would be used 10 days a year. Instead, Lorinda has come up with an ingenious method to shield the skylight heat transfer on the 5% days like this weekend that it is unbearably hot outside. Using the longest curtain rods we could find that match our interior, Lorinda was able to create grommeted curtain panels in plain white to hang a horizontal sail shade. She and Jane (sis-in-law) pulled the curtain as tight as possible to minimize the center sag. The result is a sail shade that still allows a lot of light into the house, but reflects a significant amount of sunlight as well, working to keep the house cooler. In addition, the grommets make it a 1 minute affair to extend the shades to the closed position, while the design keeps them unobtrusive when in the open position. All this for 1.5 days work and $200 in supplies!! That's a $4,800 delta that perhaps we'll use next winter to get a mini-split A/C installed using the Federal tax credits for energy-efficient utilities (note: buy seasonal goods in unseasonal time for best pricing) Kudos to Lorinda!!

First on the list was a filter box to shield the water filter from the sun, which denegrates the filter housing. I had previously purchased the 2x4s for framing and set off to building. Of course my neighbor Kevin came over midway and helped with his astounding number of specialized tools which made the job easier. I also had help from my brother-in-law Hendrick. We also made use of some of the eichler siding leftovers and kept the sides looking like the house. The scraps also came in handy in creating a new enclosure for the siding where there was a defunct main shutoff valve, now has two main exits headed to/from the filter. All that is left is to caulk and paint the enclosure and to get some mounting hardware for the front facade. It was waaaay to hot to caulk - let alone primer and paint the enclosure, so the project remains unfinished.

Last week, Lorinda and I also mounted a number of hose reels to make watering a bit easier since we have not set up the drip lines in the garden area yet and there is no irrigation to the front tree, nor the older tree. It is getting to be too late in the year to plant now and will most likely wait till September to finish planting the front landscape. We did however spend a fair bit of time at Yamigami's in Saratoga planning the landscape choices. So we know approximately what we will plant and thankfully it is a little bit of a wait on the expense.

That said, we also spent time at Peninusla Bulding Supply to get the remainder of the hardscape materials. This includes .5 ton of rocks to border the birch tree, 1.5ton of rocks to fill the walkway and sitting area behind the address sign, 5 gallons of concrete sealer for the walkway, back patio and retaining wall walkway and some firebrick and mortar for the firepit construction. Our neighbor Joseph works there and also has some flagstone extras in his yard that are the right color, so we will construct the firepit out of the extras, yipee.

Finally, I beat the sun and stained the front lattice fence before it was ruined by the lawn watering.

Next weekend is Fourth of July, so no projects are planned, but I hope to get the rocks in and the pathway/patio powerwashed and sealed the following weekend. I must say, the list of projects is getting noticeably shorter and the firepit/gutters will be the outside projects for the rest of the summer with the front planting happening in the fall. *Edit* I got the rocks in that weekend too as July 4th plans fell though.

Green thumb, sore body

2009-06-15T11:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Jungle - Continuing our landscaping efforts this weekend, we wanted to plant the majority of the trees this weekend. I say majority because we are undecided whether we want another tree in the front of the house and we have room for some more along the fence lines in the back, but are undecided as what to plant. At this point in the season, its getting too late to plant and expect things to survive the summer heat. A cool trend over the area recently pushed us to get it done this weekend. Plus there is room for one more tree in the retaining wall, but that area is completely overtaken by the squash/zucchini already planted. Literally, it is Jurassic Park back there with leaves as big as your head!! We will certainly need to spread it out more next year.

Check it out - the leaves are almost as tall as the 3.5 foot peach tree planted in the middle!!

The tomato plants aren't much better, growing like gangbusters. I can't wait for bruscetta this summer - slurp!

But those were planted much earlier in the season, let's get to Saturday's plantings (which correspondingly made for Sunday's pain/misery). All the trees we got from Central Wholesale Nursery, which has incredible prices and definitely a good find for plants/trees.

First up is a purple grassy little thing which I can't remember the name of. We had this small little triangle at the front of the walkway that wouldn't really match with a front border plant, so this goes there. Depending on how big it gets I might repeat the plant up the walkway.

Next is a Prunus cerasifera (Krauter Vesuvius Cherry Plum). There was an empty whole cut in the concrete next to our house, so we decided to fill it with a decorative tree with beautiful foliage. This tree is upright and rounded and will get to 20-25 feet tall. In the springtime, light pink flowers appear before the leaves, which are deep purple. Quite heat tolerant and it does not bear fruit. It was a royal pain to dig this hole deep enough because of the concrete and took the shovel pick ax, post hole digger and digging pole to work down deep enough.

Moving to the backyard, two of the easier trees were the Lemon and Lime trees, as the soil in the retaining wall is only compacted for 6 months and they were 5 gallon trees as opposed to the rest which were 15 gallon trees.

Lemon

Key Lime (Mexican Lime)

Next up in the retaining wall is a Bacon Avocado tree. I don't know why its called that but we've been told the fruit has hints of bacon flavor and is one of the best tasting avocado trees available for our area. We have one little tiny fruit on the tree so hopefully we'll have a sample at harvest time. The avocado is next to the fuji apple we planted early this spring and will help cover the shed in our neighbor's backyard.

Last up in the retaining wall is two 10-foot Italian cypresses (the spires behind the tomato farm). These will maintain the same overall shape, but grow 3 feet wide and 30 feet tall. Our hope is that they will eventually obscure the utility pole and junction wires, as they grow a couple of feet per year. I really wish I had put these in before the tomatoes, as they were 15 gallons each and there was a very very limited space to dig and plant these two.

Getting tired yet, I know I am...

Last of the fruit bearing trees is the fuyu persimmon tree. This one had to be replanted twice because I mistakenly planted it too close to the fenceline. This one will sit next to the orange tree. we might have to move it once more in the future depending on how big it gets. I don't want to block the sunlight to the tomato area. The fuyu is smaller though and we can control the height so we'll see.

Now for the decorative trees - We chose two different types of Japanese maples. The first is an emperor maple, which grows to about 15 feet and has distinctive red foliage. This one occupies half of the planter area right outside the living room window and is a showcase tree for the living room and serves to bifurcate the two patios.

The second japanese maple is of the green variety, but with a twist. It is called a coral bark maple, which has bright red bark as a contrast to its green leaves. This one is planted on the other side of the master bedroom patio and is stunning to look at.

Thats it for the planting. We left the house at 9:30 am and by 8:00 pm all those trees were planted - whew... Sunday was a ball of pain from all the digging and lifting, but the results are great. I leave this post with pictures of the Q that we purchased from Costco about a month ago. We opted not to make an outdoor island for two reasons. 1)BBQ's fail - its a fact of life that things aren't made the way they used to be made and if a bbq ever failed and it was a built in, there would be no guarantee that a same size would be available, costing lots more to replace. 2) The winter ranis would accelerate the againg and with a portable one I can roll it under the eaves for the winter and just cover the gass.electric connections. We piped natural gas/electric to it so no running out of propane mid cooking. It has a separate searing burner which is really cool as you can sear your meats and then cook on low heat - delish!! Also has a mini frig for parties. Don't know how useful that is but whatever, it will be turned off 90% of the time.

Its about sodding time!!

2009-06-12T12:36:00.000-07:00

Well my last post I really haven't had time to stain the privacy screen in the front, which has to be done before we can plant anything there. But I have a really really good excuse. First, May and the first half of June have been insame with work and travel and I have woken up in as many different cities in a 3 week timeframe as I ever have. Part of the new job reality, fun for part of it, tiresome near then end and missing family throughout it all. On the positive side is the travel allows me to catch up with family/friends/colleagues spread out accross the country. Second, other projects have taken much higher priority as spring sprung.

Exhibit A

What the *?(!#)* is that you ask? Well in planning the landscape I knew I wanted to have an irrigation system put in so we wouldn't be constantly chasing a watering schedule to keep the grass green and the fruits/veggies/trees watered. We're just way too busy with work and life for that :)

To accomplish this though we had to tap into the water supply at the main to get enough pressure to feed the various sprinklers. I also knew that despite fairly good water quality in Cupertino, it could be improved by an order of magnitude and in hardness so I decided to put in a whole house filter system at the same time, copying my handy neighbor and incorporating a bypass for the irragation to be unfiltered ;). The structure involves tapping the main and creating a bypass system to put three filters (25 micron + 5 micron + radial carbon) in line to feed the main house. It also had to have shutoff routing in order to change the filters and flush-in new filters. Of course My neighbor Kevin and I chose the hottest day of the year for the project and was sweating copper in 100 degree heat. I still have to build a cover for it, as the filter housings are not sunlight resistant and can crack with age.

This is the left side, which shows the routing from the main water line (we had to cut an opening). It also shows the second part of the project, which involved cutting the other side of the wall to bring a power outlet outside (black box) and to power the sprinkler timer (grey box). Although easier, we found that the power was reversed on the inside outlet. Subsequent tests showed that the contracter installed about half of the new outlets backward and I have to go through the rest of the house now to fix..grrr.

The white pvc is the irrigation tubing with a one-way valve at the main junction and a shutoff for the system downline in case something ever goes bad. The black pvs in the foreground is a downspout (temporary). I will tackle a gutter system project later this summer before the winter rains come.

This two weekend project (still unfinished in repairing the walls) allowed the gardeners to install the irrigation tree and prepare the soil front and back for sod and planting.

And finally...let's say it all together...IT'S ABOUT SODDING TIME!!!

The first two picture are the front yard. We still have to choose plants for in front and behind the tree, and we are planting another tree on the other side of the driveway. We do know that we are putting a rosemary bush in front of the sprinkler valves.

And now the backyard.

To the left in the first picture is where the orange tree is. We'll plant a few more things there along the fenceline and put landscape back around the whole area.

On the right side we already have a fig and a lowquat planted and we're going to put a coral bark japanese maple where the pvc/shovel is in the picture. We'll leave the back corner open for Kiera and some sort of playset. On the left side which the living room looks out upon we're going to put a red-leaf bloodgood japanese maple.

That's it for now - the trees will go in this weekend and I hope to finish patching walls and build a cover for the water filtration system.

Kinda looking like a house we live at now, which brings a smile to us all :)

2009-05-03T13:10:00.000-07:00

Well its raining off and on this weekend so there's not much we can do as far as working on the house. Even the inside projects require being outside, so its a bit of a break for us this weekend. Here is the privacy lattice I built last weekend. Can't stain it though, maybe next week when the weather improves.

What I could do is hang the rain chains we've procured during a break in the showers. In case you're wondering, Japanese rain chains enable water to fall off the downspouts and cascade down a series of buckets. In addition to the show it puts on, it also softens the splashing from heavy downpours. They come in copper and are supposed to patina over time.

We have three of the five chains we'll need, but the other two will have to be done as we complete the irrigation because I still have to dig and put two more drain lines in.

Here is the rain chain for the front of the house. This is a bucket style and is a bit masculine, fitting with the address fence nicely I think.

The two rain chains in the back fit between the sloped portion of the roof and the flat portion of the roof. Because they are so close together, we thought it best to use the same style. Plus these are visible from the living room and serve to help separate the space between the main patio and the smaller patio outside our master bedroom. They are a petal flower style.

De-rednecking the landscape

2009-04-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

Well its been a little while since I had cause to updates the blog - and for good reason. In November, right after we completed (and paid for) the major inside construction, I was laid off from my job at FTI Consulting as a part of a larger RIF. So immediately all projects that required any outlay of capital were tabled until further notice. Being down on to one salary in Silicon Valley is almost the equivalent to the financial kiss of death with the high property values and correspondingly high mortgages. Luckily, by pulling Keira out of daycare, cutting of all non-necessary expenses and general belt tightening - we were able to get by unscathed until I found a new position with Intersil, an analog semiconductor company in Milpitas.

During the winter, we tore out the remainder of the old landscape and I had put in a drain for the front of the house downspout. The nice thing about my time off and doing my best Michael Keating impression as Mr. Mom was the ability to spend a lot of time with Keira and that was really great, feeding the baby chili and all.

Now that we're back to two salaries and spring has arrived, we really wanted to get cracking on the landscaping so we have a nice place outside to enjoy the nice summer weather, especially with Keira on the verge of walking.

The first step was in building a space for the address. I had seen a post on Lotta Livin a mid-century modern website I look to for ideas. I wanted to do something with a floating Richard Neutra typeset for the numbers, but didn't want them on the garage post (too squished) or by the mailbox, as there are two supporting posts that would partially obscure them. The solution was this address board, which I made out of redwood and sealed. The horizontal lines break up the vertial siding grooves nicely and provide a little area behind which we can have a sitting area to read in the late afternoon sun (there's a beam to hang a floating chair from). I think it turned out quite well. From the picture below you can also see the two posts that a privacy lattice is being put in create this little oasis and we're thinking of growing fragrant jasmine there. I plan to light the address from the side, which will also cast a nice shaddow from the numbers.

The bendy board will separate the walkway/sitting area from the rest of the yard and will have some sort of pebble/river rock filling to create an island effect for the walkway path seen in the next picture. So YES, this weekend we jumped into the hardscape stage with both feet and had the patio poured. We chose concrete over pavers due to the cost savings (50% cheaper!) and the low maintenance aspects.

The next pictures show the back patio being poured with colored concrete. Here the main patio is in process of pouring

Here is the side patio off our master bedroom and walkway poured and troweled smooth with just the base color. We chose a mocha color, which is a brownish-grey as a base color, which is a brownish-grey as a base color.

The second top color, a sunbaked clay orangeish color is being worked into the top of the cement to try to achieve a mottled slate look. The result is quite orange, but as it dries the orange has faded quite a bit (good).

And here is the almost finished product! The concrete guys laid out thses big rubber stamps in the pattern we chose - a slate ashlar stamp - and pounded out our pattern. There were six different stamps that fit together in varying orientations so the pattern wasn't a uniform repeating sequence and it came out quite well.

In case you're wondering, the post sticking up is a natural gas line we had installed for a future bbq area and electricity. We also plumbed the gas close to the fireplace in case we want to convert in the future - and the open circle? It's the beginning of an area for a firepit, also plumbed for natural gas - decadent -no?

We have to wait about 5 days to even walk on the pavement. You can see the orange has already faded a good bit and I'm told that after it completely dries in about 2-3 weeks, we will powerwash and seal the concrete, which will bring more of the grey base color up top.

Lastly, Keira had to jump in with two feet - and hands too, as her 'lil paw and footprints are now immortalized in the backyard patio.

DIY jobs

2008-11-17T13:11:00.000-08:00

With the inside completed (and paid for), I've turned my attention to the smaller, do-it-yourself projects. First up of course was thoroughly cleaning the entire house from top to bottom to rid the construction dust/crap. A job such as this took an entire two days - WHEW!! I hope that helps.

The contractors installed a new water heater (50 gallons - yay) so we have more than 5 minutes of hot water and better water pressure.

Deep breath, here's what I've completed in the last few weeks. I had to replace a faucet that got broken by the contractor, paint a gutter that was missed, touch up exterior, electrical tape the garage wire that the contractor used masking tape (smacks head), reconfigured the pendant light in the kitchen so the side wires go straight to circle plate, installed peep hole in the front door, installed a floating shelf and wire hider in bedroom for the DVD and DVR, programmed garage door and hung the remote. I've also painted the front door, but we don't like the color - red and its a "bit" much, so we're going to repaint the original burnt orange choice. I also installed the stereo but will eventually have to redo whene we upgrade the tv/speakers to a true home theater system...Financially its low on the wish list right now.

The big project that I am working on is the garage. The first stage was to remove everything from the garage, including the washer/dryer to prep for epoxying. In our last house, we had used garage paint on the floor, but found that hot car/motorcycle tires tended to pick up the paint. This time we opted for an epoxy finish which was not water based and theoretically would not pick up from the tires and still provide the oil droppage protection. We first cleaned the garage with water, then etched it with a chemical etcher and let dry. Once dry we mixed the 2-part epoxy together and quickly went to work. I do mean quickly, becaure the working time was only 40 minutes to get the floor covered before it starts to cure. Applying the epoxy is a two step process and really works best with two people. You have to pour a large area of the floor with what is now a putty-like constinecy, then trowel it evenly accross the surface, then roll it flat with a roller. Easier done in theory than practice and upon review of the finished product, we missed a smattering of small rolled areas where the epoxy is trowled and one small area where the epoxy is a little thin. But for our first time I think it came out pretty damn good. We had to wait 24 hours to walk on it and a full 48 hours before we could bring the items back in. After a few days, a trip to San Francisco to get our storage shelves, reinstalling the washer/dryer and slop sink, repurposing the old kitchen cabinets as a work bench and cabinet - here is the finished product. We still have shelving to install throughout the garage, but we are 95% there. Plenty of room for a second car when we get one and all the moto's for now. Whats better is that all the boxes are out of the inside and we have some closet space back!

I am certain the next few entries will be DIY stuff, but I still will post to keep you all updated on the progress. The landscaping is still a major undertaking and we are going to try to do a lot of it ourselves throughout the winter and spring due to budget contraints, hopefully culiminating in some hardscape concrete work for patios in the springtime. I'm sure the neighbors will love our dirt patches, but they will get over it, hah! Stay tuned...

Atriumus completus

2008-10-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

Atrium - In modern architecture, an atrium is a large open space having a glazed roof and/or large windows. I think this qualifies :)

We spent the better part of the last two evenings painting the trim, support posts and garage entry door in preparation for our appraisal (to refinance not sell). We did not get to the front door, but it looks ok in bare wood and we'll get to painting it this weekend.

Lots of space in here! We "staged" what little furniture we hace for the space, but we'll need to recover a bit before furnishing, especially if we want the outside hardscape in before the winter rains.

After the glass came down, we were able to install a fan - which of course means it will stay cool for the rest of the year. It is reversible though, so it will help push the warm air down in the winter.

Painted lady

2008-09-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

Just a couple of quick pics to show our painting progress. The exterior is finished with the exception of a few hours of touchup - which I'll get this weekend.

The atrium walls are ready for inspection, which triggers the tiling. A few more weeks and the house will be done - sans landscaping.

Yes, the garage door is dirty

2008-09-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

...but look above, the new glass is in from Palo Alto Glass. We got a smoked color so its not as easy to look in, but still allows light into the space.

The garage fire door is in too! Along with the final kitchen cabinet door and shelf repair. Slowly, but surely we're getting there.

The front door will be picked up and installed today as well as the period teardrop light. Then all thats left is to paint the atrium for inspection, afterwards we can tile for the appraisal. In the meantime, I'll have to finish painting the house next weekend - Oh joy!

Full frontal attack

2008-09-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

Ahh the serenity of a new house color....but let us start at the beginning

This week, and the past two weeks have been absolute turmoil in the financial markets. The government has facilitated the aquisition of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, taken over Fannie and Freddie Mac and is currently allowing Lehman Brothers to sway in the breeze as we digest the greedy real estate decisions over the past 5 years (thanks Greenspan, not!). Whatever volatility these actions have brought into the markets, a side benefit is the appearance of liquidity in the mortgage market, causing rates to finally fall in line with the 10-yr T-bill. Over the past couple of weeks, the conforming 30-yr fix rate has fallen under 6% and now was out time to pounce and refinance. This week the market cooperated and we locked into a 5.875% 30-yr fixed conforming loan, a significant improvement fron the 7/1 fixed ARM at 6.6375% YAY!!!!

The only downside is that we need to be reappraised for all the work we've done, and thus, the house needs to be DONE, FINITE, COMPLETED - - BEFORE the close of the refinancing. Oy vey!!!

The concrete foundation has been poured and we are now waiting for the front door, which should be here next week. The garage fire door is delivered and will go in tommorow, as will the glass above the garage from Palo Alto Glass. After the front door goes in and the inside is painted, we can be inspected again. That will trigger the tiling of the floor and removal of the last single-pane glass. So two weeks or so of work for the contractor and one major task for us to complete.

This giant hurtle is the fact that the house needs to be painted. So I took friday off and made an attack on the painting of the exterior of the house. Lorinda and my mom had picked out colors a month ago and the securing of the mortgage triggered a very long weekend of work. I started Wednesday afternoon by powerwashing the most sun drenched side of the house (aka the peeling side) and scraping the lose paint when dry on Thursday.

Friday morning I primed the stripped areas and the window sills which will change color to the white Swiss Coffee. In the afternoon I tackled the main portion of the wall with the new color. By the end of the day I had this to show for my efforts.

Saturday morning I ran errands and finished the main portion of the glass wall side. Lorinda helped and primed the bare wood that went in with the new windows. We'll paint the posts when we trim the house next weekend.

Steven's crew dug a trench and prepped the gas line extension, while the landscaper prepped the irrigation system. This was a priority so they could pour the remaining concrete squares on the side of the house to replace the ones that were draining towards the house.

They also finally got the right size redwood to rip and install on the inside sill of the windows. Needs a little more stain and a little more cleanup, but we're very happy it finally looks right. The last remaining cabinet door also arrived and is finally the right color.

I finished out Saturday by painting the two front sides of the garage, as we had an early dinner party to attend.

Sunday, I was feeling very weary, but made a concerted effort to push through and finish the front of the house. The entry tunnel was especially brutal, as the siding is twice as high in those three sides. By the end of the day, here is the result...

Lastly, the retaining wall is complete, the cap just needs to be glued on and the open wedges filled in. Next is the rest of the irrigation and completed and the dirt will backfill the wall.

After this weekend - man am I poopered and work will seem like a vacation, hah!

Spanish pause

2008-09-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

Well... we're heading into the final stretch with the second phase and you know what that means - time for a break, this one courtesy again of the city of Cupertino. The atrium and garage is all prepped are ready for the foundation concrete, but the inspector wants to come back and inspect the rebar before allowing the pouring to commence. Another couple days wait while we have to practice for the NFL to get to the front door.

In the meantime, the landscaper has started the retaining wall and it is starting to take shape. We're now in a race against time, as the interest rates have dropped dramitically since the government took over Fannie and Freddie and we would like to refinance before the rates go back up again. The only problem is that the project (excluding the landscaping) has to be finished before the appraisal. So we have approximately 3 weeks to finish up!

Man cave continued + landscaping

2008-09-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

Garage work continues, the old tinderbox of to the garage door has been walled up, as the new garage door is relocated to the atrium area. We'll wait to paint, as there is sure to be more mess made when the old single pane windows and sliders are removed.

Drywall and insulation in the garage is just about done, one wall remaining - but of course this means lets move on to something else and not finish (insert sracasm). Apparently its more important to prep for the garage concrete and the atrium foundation than to finish minor details. I shouldn't be surprised though, the inside is still has minor things being done and redone when done wrong.

Subcontractors ROCK!!! The garage people showed up on time (7am!!) and had the garage door assembled and working in 2 hours, wow!!

Thank god for little things. After three tries, we passed the city inspection, which means they can work on some of the little finishing details inside. The dishwasher vent (unneeded) is replaced with a soap pump.

...and the pendant lights are in - sorta.. We chose a line-voltage pendant to avoid the low-voltage magnetic transformer issue. Only problem is that the two side pendant wires have to run along the ceiling and the contractor didn't think to buy the wire hiding conduit. More finishing work for B&L we suppose.

Lastly, the other subcontractors - the landscapers are ready to start the retaining wall in the back yard and the wall blocks were delivered on Friday.

Man Cave

2008-08-27T20:25:00.000-07:00

Well its been three weeks since our last post and the garage construction is well underway. The garage has been framed and the single garage door has been taken down, necessitating a plywood facade for the front, but at least you can see the large increase in size. The windows above the garage have been ordered from Palo Alto Glass and will probably be here in about a month.

Here is the new entrance to the atrium. The front door was moved forward about five feet, which shortens the tunnel to the front door on both sides while maintaining a distinctive Eichler feel. There will be a sconce to the left on the outside and on the inside there will be another sconce and the original Eichler teardrop globe.

As you can see however, the redneck backyard has migrated to the front yard...

But the backyard is cleaned up - no vegetation (except the orange tree we're keeping) and no more concrete! We've decided to rebuild a proper retaining wall in the back, as the old one is rotted and not holding much of anything up. The new wall be serpentine and hold some more fruit trees, a couple of Japanese maples and a veggie garden. Hopefully the construction of the reatining wall will begin in the next few weeks. I will also be digging a trench so the gas line can be extended both into the fireplace and into the backyard to supply a future BBQ and maybe a firepit.

The inside of the atrium looses some space where the plants were previously at the expense of the larger garage. Here you can see it is drywalled and ready for tape and mud. The opening is for the new door to the garage, which will be a fire door instead of the tinderbox door currently in the dining room.

Now the garage from the other side. The old door will be walled up. The insulation is in on most walls, as is the new electrical work. Next up is the drywall.

You can see here that the carport cement is still jackhammered, the reason being is that we uncovered the original return pipe from the hot water heater was crushed under the concrete, leading us to believe that it is the source for semi-poor hot water pressure. So we're trying to see how far it goes. We may have to jackhammer further out to the hot water heater to replace the pipe before concreting over the garage and epoxying the floor. They need to get a move on and at least concrete the front of the garage, as the new garage door is due to be installed next Wednesday.

Dirtpatch 2008

2008-08-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I gave an update, mainly because not much has been done since the last post. The inside is still 99% done, as we had our inspection and promptly failed for some minor errors. Which of course holds up the lighting, which is really one of the few items left to do. We also are having the cabinet maker come onsite to look at a few cabinets, as the stain variation is just off enough on 5 cabinet doors to make it look a bit off - kind of patchwork-like.

What also held us up was the City of Cupertino, which took its sweet time reviewing and finally approving the plans for the outside garage. Work started again today and the crew set off breaking up the carport concrete. The jackhammer was in use at another site, so they started by hand with the hopes that the jackhammer would be free tommorow.

During the downtime, we interviewed gardeners and decided to start some of the work removing the vegatation. Remeber the giant overgrown junipers? Well gosh darnit, there's a house behind them. Say hello to our new and improved...dirt patch.

The back yard got the same treatment. The only plants that were saved was one bird of paradise which is getting potted and our mature orange tree. The concrete will be coming out next in the back yard as well, then we'll have another GIANT dirtptach. I can't wait for the rainy season, mudwrestling anywone?

Don't throw stones..

2008-06-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

That's what they say about people in glass houses. As of today we are proud owners of new double paned, low-e glass for the back of the house, the master bathroom and the office. We can already tell the temperature difference in the house. Of course all this serves so we can more clearly see our redneck construction backyard.

The living room has a Blomberg aluminum window like our master and uses Palo Alto Glass' system for the fixed windows that have virtually no frame, preserving the authenticity of the Eichler design. Of course we still have the single pane up between the living room and the atrium and the slider to the dining room, but they will serve to keep the construction dust out when the garage and atrium projects start in two weeks. After completion, then they will come down and give us an really open floorplan.

Office window

Hallway opaque window

Standard vinyl master bathroom window

Knock Knock...

2008-06-17T18:08:00.000-07:00

Who's there? New interior doors that is, Yay!! Still have to paint them, but they are installed and make BIG difference.

Keira's room is cleaned up and furnished, just have to install the blinds, paint the door and closet door and do some minor touch up. But it is liveable and we're hopeful Keira will start sleeping in there soon.

Second bathroom on hold

2008-06-17T18:02:00.001-07:00

Well that second bathroom is still on hold, as the vanity we ordered showed up broken into many many pieces. Home Depot at least cut us an extra 10% off the replacement, but its put it on hold for another week. We did get a shower curtain up and sealed the bathroom. The vanity and baseboard, followed by some paint touchup and the bathroom will be finished. Here it is in almost finished state.

cheesaw die been aka bathroom #2

2008-06-02T20:39:00.001-07:00

Well bathroom number two is 95% done and we're stalled again. Part of it is our fault, as somehow we managed to order the wrong size vanity. It "fits" - but you'd have to lean waaaay left whilst on the can. Not exactly comfortable. So we're getting another vanity, due on Friday and the second bathroom will be complete.

We're stalled now because we are STILL waiting for PGE. Our upgrade was approved and now we're waiting for the crew to show up, whenever that is. I guarantee that if I withheld my bill for a month that the power would be off, where's the recourse? It is the suck, I tell you. PGE holds up kitchen inspection, which holds up kitchen lighting installation.

After a few plan revisions, our garage plans are awaiting approval with Cupertino. Which means we'll be entering the second stage of our project (garage and atrium) in a few weeks. Once approved, I'll share the plans.

Lastly, the window's for the back half of the house are finally ready and will be installed on June 16/17 - Yay!!!

Ding-Ding - Demo Round 2

2008-05-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

Ding ding ding...Round two starting right now. The second bathroom was demoed today and the quickset was poured and leveled. Good start I'd say. Tommorow I'm guessing they will just waterproof and work on the new bathtub drain.

Crawling along

2008-05-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

Well not much has taken place since our last post, I guess that's both good and bad. There's just not a lot of picture-progress worthiness going on, but things are moving again, albiet slowly.

The kitchen is 90% done, waiting for some cosmetic finishes that will get us to 95%, then we are stuck again waiting for PGE. We've been waiting for 2 months now to get the meter and power hooked up...It's frustrating, because without the extra juice, a lot of our place does not work, like the oven for instance. Additionally, we cannot get the inspection signed off until PGE finishes, which delays us finishing the lighting in the kitchen. Hence the old Ikea lights we have temporarily installed. At least the dishwasher/microwave and cooktop work.

The skylight is in over the atrium now, but finishing work will wait till after the carport is incorporated into the garage, as its still open to the air via the front enclosure. Te two corners on the right are operable, and when the house gets hot in the summer, we'll be able to vent the hottest air out. Keeping it clean will be a challenge, but I think a healthy dose of Rain X will help once the construction is finished. We've reviewed the plans for the garage and got preliminary feedback from the city planners regarding setback. Good news is we won't have to file for a special permit, but we'll still have to wait till late June to get started on the carport once the permit is obtained. Which pushes the atrium back till August probably and a September interior finish. Oh vey!

One part of the project that is pretty close to being done is the dining room. We got this fabulous chandelier that goes with the Eichler style. All thats left in the short term is to reseal the floors. We finally found out that we needed a non-penetrating sealer to get the grout lines looking proper, so we need to reseal the whole house one room at a time. But we wont do that till the interior jobs are completed due to the constant cleaning necessary anyway.

I wanna ROCK!!

2008-04-22T18:53:00.000-07:00

Part of the problem with nearing the end of one stage of construction is that items become linear, and it no longer is essential for the contractors to come every day, since there's not a full day's work. Today was the first of those days, as the granite people, CR Marble and Granite, had most of our granite ready to be installed. So early this morning we trekked out to San Jose to check the work and later in the morning the island and galley slab were installed. Everything went fine with the exception that the cooktop doesnt clear the drawer below where the gas line comes in. Not a huge proplem, but the drawer will need to be modified to allow the connection to fit. Tommorow the full backsplash will be installed. Normally we wouldn't like a full backsplash, but the granite is so interesting its like looking at art and we love it (plus we had a ton of it left and it saves us the extra expense of finding and buying a separate backsplash.

So I'm expecting the contractors to be back on the job tommorow, as there are a slew of minor things that need to be completed as we near the inspection, which mush take place before May 2nd so we can move to the next stage of construction.

Living space and a cold beer

2008-04-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

So this weekend saw a tremendous amount of progress, and if all goes to plan, next week will see the kitchen, master bathroom and master bedroom done. Friday afternoon I picked up the granite for the master bathroom. I got a leftover slab and the backsplash for $135 with some bartering at Union Stone. Here it is ready for install.

A close up of the backsplash. The sink will sit on top of the granite.

Speaking of granite, we went back to Sun Marble with my Mom for a second opinion on the granite and decided on the Wild Sea It has all the colors and undertones of our kitchen and dining room. Plus the movement is so incredible. Since we need two slabs for our kitchen, we'll have a lot leftover and we'll use it on the backslplash as well since it flows so nice its almost like art.

AT&T came out and worked all day to install our Uverse cable and Internet. Little did I know they wired the house with Cat 5 wiring - sweet! Here is the bedroom wall all patched up and ready for sanding then painting. Once that's done and the granite is in the bathroom, we just need to have the glass installed, handles installed and the electricity hooked up for the steam unit.

Progress in the kitchen. The cabinets are almost all in and the refrigerator is in the house, along with the double oven, warming drawer and the dishwasher. Not hooked up completely, but a big step up from the garage. The refrigerator just needs to be hooked into the water line. With an equal push next week, the kitchen will be done. Well almost - the end panel on the island is the wrong size, so we'll be waiting a few weeks for the final piece.

The office is unpacked, but its Keira's temporary room for now. Most of the boxes are out of her real room, but they're all kitchen stuff. So next week we'll start unpacking them. Finally, we unpacked, cleaned and sealed most of the living room floor - then painted the living room wall the same chocolate color as the peninsula wall in the kitchen.

Catching up

2008-04-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

Well its been a few weeks since I posted last, but I have very good excuses. First - NO SLEEP!!! The first few weeks were exhausting with Keira and the house, which we were not living in. Luckily, I was not back to work yet and our good friends Nathan and Betsy put up with the screaming baby for a few weeks. Second - We moved into the house, but still have no cable or Internet connection, let alone more than two bedrooms available to the three of us (Grandma Lahiff is out helping for a few weeks), no kitchen and one unremodeled, but functional bathroom. Thus I could snap some pictures, but the only way I could upload them was at work, where I was so tired I could barely get my regular job done. Thus here we are today and I'll give the full update.

Since I last wrote a lot has taken place, but has been mainly bunched in one week increments. Towards the end of March, the washer/dryer and the slop sink were finished and installed, which allowed us to move in on the very day Grandma Lahiff arrived. A few days prior, Durafoam installed the first stage of the roof. The second stage, the finishing coat will go on once the weather gets a little warmer on a consistent basis. We are currently living in the office, along with some dressers, the desk and chair, the pack-n-play bassinett for Keira and boxes. Tight fit is an understatement.

Then we were at a standstill for basically two weeks as we awaited the electrical inspection. For the most part it went well, but we had three issues that needed to be taken care of, then another inspection. A few tiles had to be chipped out in order for the inspector to check the new drain stack pipe, there needed to be a second copper ground installed running around the base of the house to the other side and a grounded outlet had to be added in the garage for the washer/dryer. It took a few days to get all that completed, but we passed the inspection the second time. He will have to come back after the kitchen is installed to inspect, so we will have another delay at the end of April before continuing on with the project.

Following the inspection, the contractors set to work on finishing up the plumbing work for the master bathroom and drywalling the kitchen and dining room. After about a week, they are mostly done and we spent a Sunday painting the kitchen, dining room and master bath. Here is the result of the dining room. The walls are a mochachino color which has a green hue to it at night, but really has a lot of brown in it as well. We'll use this color on the one wall of the atrium later as well.

The kitchen area - the white short wall is the support for the island and the water/drain line.

This is the dividing wall between the kitchen and the dining room. We are using a rich chocolate color to contrast and will use it on the opposing living room and atrium wall as well.

The bathroom vanity with the George Kovacs sconces from Lamps Plus installed and the walls painted.

Here is the vanity installed with the sink and faucet resting on top. Hopefully this week our granite piece will be ready so we can complete the bathroom (minus the shower glass and the mirror, which is due to be arrive and be installed on April 18th. The vanity is mostly cosmetic and only has 1.5 drawers available for use. The remainder of the underneath serves to hide the steam generator and associated plumbing work into the shower.

This is the tall cabinet which will serve our linen and medicinal needs. Because we enlarged the shower, the vanity area is only 3 feet wide, so we needed an alternative for bathroom storage. This closet meets our needs, with three drawers available for sundries and a number of shelves on top for linens.

Here is the master closet completed. It should have been a simple project, but it turned out to be 2 steps forward 1.5 step backwards. The original closet had the wood boards around what is pictured as the middle, but the rods ran left to right. When we changed the configuration to run longways, we added the lower wood on the right to accomodate two closet rods on the right for Lorinda. Only problem was that the space between the lower and original wood was not enough to a) put cloths on without dragging and b) put my low dresser on the left without dragging cloths as well. So we had the third rail of wood installed, which looks pretty good. That should have been it...clean up, install the rods and put some cloths away, FINALLY! Nope...when one section was nailed up, the wrong nails were used and penetrated the pocket door opening and gouging the door when it was closed. REDO, yet again!! The door was sanded, putty and painted and the last section reinstalled with the proper nails and painted. Of course that takes away from manpower to install the kitchen, URGH!!!

With the master bath largely behind us, work begins on installing the cabinets. This is the kitchen view with the hanging cabinets in place with the oven cabinet to the left and most of the island cabiniets in place. The process should only take a few days, then the appliances can come in, but we'll see.

Here is the view from the dining room. The cabinets on the left are the rest of the base kitchen cabinets and the same oven cabinet. The two tall cabinets against the wall will serve as our pantries. Can anyone say STORAGE??? I knew you could.

As a final note to this post, we still do not have cable or Internet, I just happen to be at a friends house today ahead of an afternoon meeting, so I took advantage of the bandwidth. Cable and internet had a setback, as it needed another grounded outlet for installation. That is completed, now they just need to come back out. Next post won't be as far into the future, I promise.

Guest room

2008-03-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

Today was spent doing the touch up in the guest room, both on the walls and the ceiling. The walls were easy and done in an hour. The ceiling on the other hand was painstakingly slow, touching up a double mark that the contractor's machine made when texturing the walls. That took about another hour and a half. Afterwards, it was time to get on my hands and knees and scrub and scrub and scrub and...you guessed it...scrub some more. After about four hours total, here is the result.

I then dragged the guest bed frame in, cleaned it up and put it together. Next was the box spring and matress, followed by the end tables. All that is left to move in is the chest of drawers. Of course the closet doors will all need to be done, but that is a weekend project for far after we move in.

The slop sink was assembled today.

The master bedroom doors were FINALLY picked up and installed today.

The drain work for the washer/dryer and the slop sink were started today. We are utilizing the old kitchen sink drain rather than digging up all the concrete to find the sewage line. This was a feasible option and we will primer/paint the piping the same color as the house when we paint later this summer. After the master bathroom and washer/dryer are in, we'll finally be able to move in - just in time for Grandma Lahiff to come for a visit.

Washer/Dryer

2008-03-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

So our original plans for the washer dryer were to use the ones that came with the house until they broke, as they were almost exact replicas of the ones I grew up with in New Jersey in the 70s/80s. That plan quickly came to a halt when we found out the dryer was an electric model rather than gas. Since we were going to place the washer dryer in the garage, we ran into a problem, as there is no 220v electric in the garage and it would cost us $500 to drag it into the gagage. Add to the fact that gas dryers are less expensive to operate and we went searching for some new units.

The ones we originally liked were the Samsung Silvercare washer/dryer. But then we found out that Santa Clara stopped the $200 rebates on them and also that the Silvercare may not be good for infants. Thus the search continued...

Thanks to the lowlife scum of the earth that broke into our car at the hospital before we brought Keira home, I had to go to Best Buy to get a new GPS. While there I thought I'd actually try to get a salesperson to explain the differences between the popular washer/dryer combos. After being totally distinterested, the salesperson happened to point out a higher steam model, the LG TrueSteam Washer/Dryer that had a tiny ding and a small scratch on the front. It was on sale from $1599 to $1199, but the dryer was also electric. I asked what the best she could do on the gas combo was. Quickly she blurted out an additional 30% off the washer and 10% off the normal price of the gas dryer. I quickly agreed before she could calculate what she offered and ended up getting the washer at 50% off the normal price. Basically a much better washer/dryer at the same price as the Samsung.

Oh and we get $200 more off from Santa Clara for buying energy efficient appliances. SCORE!!!

Take a close look at these two scratch pictures. They don't affect the operation of the washer and were the equivalent of $800 discount. Pretty good deal is you ask me!

Thomas Crapper Part Deux

2008-03-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

Well I know we said we had decided on the Toto Aquios, but the more and more I read about it, the more I thought the water spot was going to be an issue. Most of the European design dual flush toilets use the water to push the waste, whereas the American toilets use a siphoning method to pull the waste. The difference is that the American water spot being higher reduces the amount of "streaking" when compared to the European types.

I was all about to give up, but then I found the Mansfield EcoFlush toilet. It's a dual flush that uses pressure assist in a siphoning method. All the reviews I found were positive and the company advertises as the best in dual flush independent testing. All the benefits of dual flush without the streaking - SOLD

Bathroom Progress

2008-03-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

The master bathroom is coming along and all the tilework is done. It will be sealed this week and the fixtures installed. I hope by the week the vanity will be in and then the steam unit will be put in. I'll probably pick out the paint this week. The only thing we'll have to wait for is the glass door to finish the bathroom.

Here's a view of the slate foor. We're thinking a light grey color will tie the room together nicely.

The pebble floor came out well. We used the same color grout as the slate floor to help tie the floor to the walls with the light color pebbles.

Marching onward

2008-03-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

Work continues, even though we are still at the hospital. The old holes in the roof where the old kitchen and dryer vent were. This will allow durafoam to come put the roof on very soon. Of course this is after they cut the hole they forgot for the new kitchen hood - ai carumba, you always have to keep an eye on the contractors.

The master shower is almost done. It's all tiled and the slate is on the floor. They were working on the pebble aggregate floor, adjusting the slope to get the shower to drain properly without a big hole in the floor. All that's left is to attach the shower heads and handles and grout the shower and floor. The we're jsut waiting for the vanity and the shower glass to come in to finish the bathroom.

We also had the exhaust fans installed in the two bathrooms. The main hall just gets a standard Nutone fan, but since we needed a light to go in the master bathroom as well, we found this designer one at Lowes for the same price as a standard Nutone with a light. It even fits the design of the bathroom to boot.

Ollie's early

2008-03-12T21:58:00.000-07:00

Well - as hard as we tried, we couldn't beat Ollie to get the house done in time.

Welcome Keira Yuen Har Lahiff aka "Ollie," who was born on March 10th, 2008 - weighing in at 6lbs, 6oz. and 18.5" long. So now you know who Ollie is.

Almost liveable

2008-03-09T20:56:00.001-07:00

Remember the full guest room picture from yesterday? Well here it is today - ready for paint touch up and cleaning to setup the room.

What happened to the rest? Well... the closets are now full of kitchen boxes, the office has boxes of books, the hanging clothes are hanging and the bay's room is ready - well two outta three ain't bad. She'll be with us for a little while anyways.

Here's the office, doubling as a temporary master bedroom.

Here's the real master bedroom and how I spent the other part of the day - priming and painting the master bedroom. The main color is called victorian mauve and the red is the same venetian red we used our San Francisco house. Of course that means I ran out of the red and still need about a pint to touch up and do the trim work. The victorian mauve was a lot more purple going on than we expected, but thankfully it dried the more grey we wanted. I'm still not certain I like it, but we'll see, its only paint. It's been a looong weekend.

T-minus two weeks

2008-03-08T19:53:00.000-08:00

Friday was Lorinda's last day at work, as baby Ollie can come at any time, but will most likely be a C-section either next week or the week after. Although we are pretty close to having the house liveable, we are staying with Nathan and Besty for probably the first two weeks.

Weekend is here and you know what that means...time to work on the house! Actually we had a bunch of errands to run this morning to get the 1850's crib fixed that UPS broke, and up to San Francisco for more errands and to load up the truck with a load of the stuff still in the garage. So we didn't actually get to the house till 3pm. On the schedule is to unpack the car and paint another coat of paint on four of the five closets. As you can see below, we really need the space to start unpacking the rooms - and this is only one of the three bedrooms (guest bedroom) that are housing our belongings.

I know I posted about it a while ago, but here is the new Blomber slider in our master bedroom, tastefully garnished with a side of Chipper-bird.

Since we are STILL waiting for the electrical subcontractor to finish the panel upgrade and wiring the kitchen, bathrooms, etc., the rest of the crew has only limited things to work on. Two of the three walls in the dining room are re-insulated and drywalled, but waiting for mud and texture. The main thrust has been in the master bathroom and getting our "spa" together. The shower is framed and plumbed and they were working on the tiling now. We were lucky we got there when we did today, as the original bench seat was only 11" wide and was supposed to be 13" wide. It doesn't sound like much, but when taking a steam, we want to be relaaaaaxed and not sitting bolt upright. As I walked in today they were tiling the bench unaltered...Urgh... Anyway's its starting to look like a shower now. The drain has to be reangled a bit since its a bit steep right now to the drain and its exactly where you would stand under the rain shower. But here it is - by the time I get Palo Alto Glass out here to do the final measurements for the windows, we'll be ready to order the shower door as well.

Tommorow's project is to start painting the master bedroom. I can only paint three of the four walls, even if I can get enough access to them. Plus one of the walls has to be primered first, so I expect this will take most of the day, especially when I have to quit for MotoGP Round One tommorow!

Master bathroom tiles

2008-03-04T14:51:00.000-08:00

The tiles for the master bathroom are in from Home Depo Expo Design Center. Here is the slate. It looks grey in this picture, but its really a mix of black mostly with iron ore types of orange and browns.

This is the ceramic tile we are using for the shower. Its similiar looking to slate but is a solid surface capable of dealing with everything the steam can throw at it.

Not pictured is the pebble style floor which is supposed to be delivered on Friday.

Moved but not in

2008-03-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

I know I promised pictures, but gosh darnit, I am just too pooped.

Yesterday was a looooong day. So long that even though we had to go over to the house to get some cloths and drop off the lumber to repair the fence, we had no motivation to finish painting the closets or fix the fence.

We had an early start, picking up the Penske truck by 8:30 am. lorinda had rented the biggest truck they had, a 26-footer much like the picture below.

It is defintely the biggest thing on four wheels I have driven, basically a small semi trailer. Empty, it was a handful. The alimgnment was about 90 degrees off and it bounced all over the road. To make matters worse, it had a squeeky air seat that would just about bounce my head off the ceiling with every bump.

The SF contigent consisted of myself, Nathan, Betsy, Simon and Hendrick. Lorinda was pretty much beside herself that she couldn't help and it was hard to glue her ass to a seat. Finally we parked her on a chair by the lift gate and she had a job to do...up...down...up...down, our own personal bellhop :) She also got the team lunch. It took four hours, but everything in the house is packed. We have a few miscellaneous items and the garage stuff, but that will wait for later when we have more room. Maybe two Murano-loads full, plus the motos and the wine, but that's for later.

On the Cupertino side, we added Jane, Eric, Jay and two of our contractors to the team. It only took an hour to unpack the truck. Its amazing what extra hands will do. Off to drop off the truck and feed the hungry crew.

Only problem with the whole move was that the electrician did not finish the panel upgrade and we have no power in half the house. Worse yet, the boiler is an electric ignition, so that means no heat in the house. Thus, we are staying with Nathan and Besty for at least a week.

So we trade one stress for another, but at least it will be a lot less time comuting for Lorinda, which is whats important with only three weeks left in the pregnancy.

Also the roof section was finished, so we're getting closer to the foam application.

Next week I hope the electrical will be finished. In the meantime I will get to fixing the fence, painting the closets and starting to paint the master bedroom.

"The Cabinets are Coming!! The Cabinets are Coming!!"

2008-02-27T15:53:00.000-08:00

Like Paul Revere says - the kitchen cabinets are here. Ok maybe he didn't say that, but there's a LOT of boxes and it takes up the entire dining room area!

Lorinda stopped by the house today and snapped a few pictures for the blog, I'll take more this weekend.

Baseboards are being installed. Here is an example of the office (bit of hallway too) and the baby's room.

Old panel versus new panel - Welcome to the 21st century!It's not done, but at least its in progress.

Here's the new section of roof in progress, with the curbing added for the skylight-to-be. The old flashing still has to come off and we'll prep the beam for paint just before the skylight arrives.

'Nother no picture post

2008-02-27T11:02:00.000-08:00

I find myself apologizing again, but we again don't have pictures this week.

Last weekend was another whirlwind, trying to get ready for the imminent move on Saturday. We finished painting the three spare bedrooms and the main hallway. There will be some touchup work to do, but its close enough to pile the boxes into these three rooms and finish over a couple of days. We'll also have a section of the living room sectioned off from the construction to place the bigger furniture while the kitchen is put in. If I'm not too sore by Sunday, I plan to paint the master bedroom as much as possible so when the bathroom and closet doors come in we can set up a proper bedroom within a week, while keeping the construction in the master bathroom separate.

Over the weekend, we met with Steven (contractor) and made some final design decisions about the master bathroom, including shower head placements and vanity design since we had purchased the sink and faucet this week. We also picked up a kitchen hood from Bel Enterprises, where we have had previous good fortune with our SF place. We also discussed electrical, as we needed to decide on outlet placement for the atrium for the future as well.

One problem we ran into was that the kitchen electrical code required us to have outlets within 48" of the water source and our design didn't call for it. We were watching HGTV's Best Kitchen show and saw this little gem from Mockett that allows an outlet to pop out from the countertop. Problem solved!!!

We also met our roofing subcontractor, who is working this week to roof over part of the atrium that will not be covered by the skylight and prepare the curbing for the Royalite skylight. I'll be ordering that in the next two weeks, along with the next section of glass from Palo Alto Glass.

That's all for now, moving day is Saturday and I'm hoping we'll only be two-three weeks without a kitchen. I promise to take more pictures of the progress once we are living in the mess, LOL.

Has anyone seen our heads?

2008-02-19T12:53:00.001-08:00

This weekend Lorinda and I felt a bit like chickens with our heads cut off. Although it was a three day weekend, we only really had two days to work on the house. Both Saturday afternoon and evening, as well as Sunday afternoon were booked with a dinner party and baby classes respectively. That left Saturday and Monday to work on the house. We were so busy we forgot to take pictures of the progress.

Saturday was basically spent in the car.

1) First stop was the paint store to get the office color.

2) Next it was down to San Mateo to go to PC Kitchen to design our bathroom vanity. After about 90 minutes we were done - sorta. We still needed to discuss the steam generator placement to correctly position the drawers and measure the sink height so the vanity has the proper height.

3) On to Expo Design Center to pick out the materials for the master shower and bathroom. After much deliberation, we picked out a slate flooring (dark) with a light tan slate-like porcelan tile for the shower walls. It was important to use porcealin or ceramic because of the steam, as slate is just too porous and would eventually fail. We also picked out a river rock shower pan flooring like we had seen on another Eichler blog website.

4) Finally it was onto the house to unload and have a meeting with the contractor. The flooring is completely in but some areas still need to be grouted. Additionally, I have to get on my hands and knees to mark out the area where the grout is to low so it can be redone. The slider is installed and looks great and the plumbing in the kitchen is in process. The bedroom drywall and texture was also done, so we can now paint those rooms

We went over some bathroom decisions and yet again had to go over the need to upgrade the electrical to 200 amp. They have not gotten the permit for this, so I know were are going to fall behind schedule, as the kitchen cabinets (which are in) cannot be installed until after the electrical is inspected. B is not a happy camper. After the meeting, we had to high tail it over to friends house for a dinner party where we all drunk way too much wine and grappas. All except the designated driver (Lorinda) who had the patience of a saint to deal with three drunks.

Sunday came and we had to get back to SF for baby classes, but we did end up buying a kitchen sink online. We went to bed early, as Lorinda is fighting a cold and I am feeling it too. Monday is a big day.

Painting day!! We had already had most of the baby's room done, so we were mainly redoing sections and completing what had not been painted before. Lorinda tackled this while I made some repairs to the fence outside where someone had backed into it and broken a section! I still need a few replacement boards, but the missing section is two feet instead of six now. Back to painting, I got the final primer coat on the spare bedroom wall and primered the new wall in the office. Lastly we got the office painted and had to retire due to sheer exhaustion. Oh the baseboards were also delivered.

Next weekend, we'll paint the baseboards, the spare office and the hallway. If we're lucky the drywall on the master bedroom will be finished and we can paint in there as well. If all goes to plan, the contractor can install the baseboards the following week and we can move in on schedule. Granted, we will have no kitchen or master bath, but we can move in...

Shaping the Vision

2008-02-15T09:44:00.000-08:00

We've had a busy week with the house. Liam finished touching up, had a meeting with the contractor and another with the electrician. Deliveries are stacking up and it looks like we'll be able to start installing them to make room in the garage for the items left to purchase. I ordered the replacement siding to finish the new holes we made and a door for the master bathroom from Premier Door in Los Altos. This week the Thermasol steam unit arrived and we are expecting the shower valves and heads to arrive today with the kitchen faucet. Today the sliding door will be picked up from Palo Alto Glass and installed in the master bedroom, which will facilitate the tile to be finished there too.

Monday the kitchen cabinets arrive and the new wall and pony wall is framed for the center island. The plumbing work is now being done in parallel with the electrical panel upgrade and the kitchen wiring. Here you can see the pony wall which will support the new plumbing for the kitchen sink and the wiring for the dishwasher and electrical outlets.

This is the new "narrower" wall that will hide the drain vent (temporarily removed while the sink is plumbed). From this view from the dining room side (now tiled, yay!)there will be two large pantries against the wall.

We had to plan for the upcoming reroofing and take care of a few items. This includes anything that will penetrate the roof prior to the new roof going on: electrical conduits, Kitchen hood, closing up old kitchen exhaust and old dryer vent and installing bathroom exahust fans. Although the main bathroom is the last interior space to get remodeled, we decided to avoid the water penetration problem caused by the inappropriately large and misplaced window by installing a skylight. When we catch up to the bathroom, we can tile the whole side now. Oh...and I took great pleasure in tearing off some of the 1960 wallpaper, yick...

In the meantime, the flooring is being grouted and the three back bedrooms are getting finishing work before painting. I am hopeful that I will be able to paint these rooms this long holiday weekend so we can stick to a March 1 move in date. I am doubtful this will happen, but we'll see. If we get pushed one week its not problem, but anything longer and we'll have to move in after the baby comes (groans), which means more double mortgage payments too....(double groans)

Off the brakes

2008-02-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

After this weekend's disappointment and the contractor's inability to be available due to sickness, the responsibility to have the meeting with the contractor today fell to Lorinda and I was on the phone. I had made up a laundry list of the items not completed and the vast number of items to be completed and Lorinda created a task calendar. Nothing like two type-A personalities rising to the top to try to gain control of a situation that could quickly spiral away from us. In the end, the contractor knew his guys were slacking and pledged to keep to the timeline. We'll see I suppose, I'm still ticked about the 3rd bedroom, especially after he told me on Friday it was ready for priming and yesterday said they weren't done and I had basically wasted my time with the first primer coat...Urrrghhh!

Anyway, progress obviously has started again, as the hole for the slider in the master bedroom is framed. According to Palo Alto Glass, it will be ready on Thursday 2/14 or Friday 2/15 for pickup and installation. It definitely brightens the room significantly, yay!

Tiling is almost done in the living room now and the opening for the relocated window is framed.

First Speedbump

2008-02-11T10:17:00.000-08:00

Well since I was gone for a week on business, I was eagerly anticipating coming home to see a lot of progress, considering what had been laid out beforehand with the contractor. The remainder of the tiling was to be completed, along with the moving of the window into the office with new drywall and the finishing work on the 3rd bedroom, where I had sanded down the mastic that was used to hold the god-awful particle board paneling to the drywall.

Since Lorinda was having her baby shower on Saturday, I had planned to prime the 3rd bedroom and the office and touch up the baby room (the electrical work was also supposed to be done).

As you can see here, the living room is just about done, but the dining room and kitchen area weren't really touched. In addition, the master closet wasn't finished, as was the remainder of the master bedroom. The latter I can understand, as the window was removed and the opening for the new slider has yet to be framed, but I'm still unenthused with the amount that got done while I was away.

The office window was framed, but no drywall put in place. When I spoke with Lorinda earlier this week, this hadn't been done on Thursday, so its obvious they were trying to play catch up before I came down on Saturday.

Lastly, here's a photo of the master bedroom with the window removed. The open area will be enlarged and a slider will be going in. The workers could have still tiled up to the opening though...

Not pictured is the lack of work on the baby's room and on the third bedroom. There was minimal drywall work to be done to the baby's room and the electrical outlet was supposed to be fixed. Since these were not done, I couldn't really complete the room. The room was supposedly grouted as well, but it was poorly done and not anywhere near the proper grout depth.

I moved to the third bedroom, where the mastic was messily patched over in areas, not done in others and generally appeared to be a rush job. Not wanting to waste the day, I finished the sanding on the closet door jamb, knocked off the most egregious of the spackle edges which were supposed to count as matching texture (not!) and applied a coat of primer to the room since the dark blue was going to have to get two coats anyways.

I met with Liam on Sunday morning to pay an installment and schedule him to come back for touchup work next week. He also had a good solution to the mastic problem, which a knockdown spray texture rather than using spackle haphazardly.

All and all I was pretty disappointed with both the quantity of the work done, as well as the quality of the work done. I'll be talking with the contractor this week about these issues. He's supposed to have the electrician on site upgrading the panel and completing other electrical work, while he works on the kitchen area prep for the new drain location. The tiling is also supposed to be complete this week. I am expecting some progress so I can work on finishing some of the bedrooms next weekend for the three day weekend. March is coming fast and I need to have some of the rooms ready for storage so we can move in hopefully before the baby arrives.

I'm too sexy for this paint...

2008-02-03T08:30:00.000-08:00

Well despite there needing to do some patchwork and maintenance to an electrical outlet, we decided to move forward an paint the baby's room. We'll have to touch up here and paint the closet, but the heavy lifting is done on this with this room. It's a nice shade of lavender, which will go nicely with white baby furniture. All I gotta say is it better be the girl we're expecting or else I'll be repainting again, hah!

The tiling is moving quickly now, this week we will pick up the grout so they can finish the bedrooms and office. This is the tiled office. This week the new window will be framed where the broken slider is and the master bedroon will be framed for the new sliding door where the window was. The plan is to paint the office next weekend while Lorinda has her baby shower.

Dirty hallway view

Master bedroom is almost tiled, just a little more then start on the main living area, which should go quick since it is wide open.

Here it is all waterproofed. I am in Belgium on business till Thursday night, so I'll be anxious to see what gets done while I'm gone.

2.5 Rooms Tiled

2008-01-31T20:41:00.000-08:00

Truckin...got my chips cashed in...

Moving right along now, the two back bedrooms are tiled and the office and master bedroom are about a quarter each done. We'll have half the house tiled by the weekend, yay!

1 Room down - 5 to go

2008-01-29T10:11:00.000-08:00

Tiles are down in the first room, should have one more room done by this evening. The grout (dark matching) still has to go in between, but progress is progress...

Pocket door is framed for the new opening into the master closet. The stud to close up the old opening is also framed.

Chipping out the old master bathroom drain to prep for the new basin footprint

Floor prep

2008-01-25T12:24:00.000-08:00

We're finally starting to see some progress today. The floor has been leveled and is in the process of being waterproofed. Some of the tile was also moved inside to be readied for installation. Good thing I stopped by today though, as they stacked the tile incorrectly, which would have made them prone to breakage. They are now restacked correctly.

Also the demo for the shower wall is done and ready to be moved over ~8"

The new opening for the master walk in closet is also opened and in the process of being framed for the door.

Kitchen Plans

2008-01-23T23:29:00.000-08:00

We had already ordered our kitchen cabinents prior to Christmas, but we never shared the plans.

This is the overhead view. We have since found out that one of the vertical posts on the island side dont support the load of the beam and are safe to remove. So we won't have a beam directly behind the stools of the island, yay!

This is the landscape of the outer wall, as seen without the center island.

Here is the view from the living room, with the island. You can see the wall that remains to cover up the load bearing support and the drain vent. To the left of the wall will be two, side-by-side full height pantries.

View from behind the island, facing into the living room.

View from the side of the island, looking towards the new dining room.

Last view is from the dining room facng in towards the kitchen.

Latest word is that the cabinents will be arriving in just a few weeks. I guess there is some benefit to ordering during a typical slow period for remodeling...

It's a Whirlpool Weekend

2008-01-22T19:31:00.000-08:00

Not much physical progress this weekend, although it certainly seemed like we were active on the planning front. Friday our general contractor started in earnest and measured the floor to see where we need leveling in placing the tiles. We also had an electrical discussion that ended with the agreement that our panel and service would need to be upgraded from 100 amps to 200 amps in order to run the kitchen, master bath and the rest of the house with multiple computers and other various devices.

Saturday we made a quick stop at the house to drop off the Whirlpool warming drawer.

I have always wanted one of these as it makes cooking so much easier in keeping sides warm while the rest of a meal is prepared. I also think it will prove invaluable with the little one and actually being able to eat warm food. While there we also took care of the minor mold issue we had by killing it with a solution of bleach water.

The rest of Saturday we spent shopping for master bathroom items and we think we have found a few items and got explanations on what we need to purchase for the valving in the shower. The shower will be mostly Kohler, with a rainshower for me, a normal faucet for Lorinda and body tiles for both of us. We also will be installing a steam unit and have chosen Thermosol on our neighbor's recommendation and our research into the brand and its quality. The first time we are sick and use it will be worth it. Never mind just relaxing after a long day....ahhhhhh....

Sunday I was stuck working, but at least it was on the couch watching the NY Giants kill it to get into the Superbowl. Too bad I'll be traveling for work when it aires. DVR for me...

Monday we both had off from work, but had to be at the house for more deliveries. This time it was our Whirlpool 36" cooktop and double oven/microwave combo.

Appliances are almost done now, still need a hood and a frig for all our wine. The latter can wait though as we can keep our wine in SF for a while.

We also made it to Palo Alto Glass to discuss our windows and see the Eichler examples. Wow, they know their stuff. The fixed panes are set in wood and look totally frameless, just like the originals, except in double paned, low-e, tempered glass. With the fixed windows so clean, it really draws attention to the need to do the two sliding doors we'll need in the low profile aluminum frames. Yes, we'll loose some efficiency, but these doors keep the Eichler asthetic intact and keep the value of the house higher.

Last stop for the weekend was at Royalite Manufacturing, where we got the grand tour from Dez and figured out what we would need to enclose our atrium with a skylight panel. We got a lot of good info and will be ready when that project gets queued up.

Things should start to speed up now, and hopefully with the contractor working full time now we should start to see some results of all our planning in some measureable progress.

Midweek multitasking

2008-01-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

Since I had to travel down to the South Bay to visit a client this morning, I took the opportunity to schedule Dura-foam roofers for an estimate. They were very professional and answered every question I had. We have Abril Roofing come next week and are still evaluating other options like a modified bitumen roof, which our contractor neighbor has on his roof. The Dura-foam contractor also had an interesting recommendation for covering the atrium with skylights. He told us to check out Royalite Manufacturing, in San Carlos. They have prebuilt skylight structures that are built at their facility. When finished the enclosure is trucked in and a crane lifts it into place in one day. Seems like a promising option, one more visit to add to the list for this weekend.

Also lookie what showed up today...the GE Cafe refigerator

Lastly, out neighbor recommended one more glass vendor Argonaut Window & Door to price, so I also had them come out this afternoon. They, like A-plus Windows are Milgard vendors, which means non-distinct vinyl windows. We already have a quote for those, so when Argonaut started hemming and hawing about the size of the Eichler windows, the installation, etc. etc., I knew they were out. We'll most likely be using Palo Alto Glass, as we were impressed with the level of knowledge and experience with Eichlers, competitive pricing and the higher quality product they explained to us. A visit to thier showroom this weekend should check off one more item that needs to be ordered many weeks in advance.

Got Tile?

2008-01-13T07:59:00.000-08:00

It's been a semi productive week/weekend. Liam is almost finished with the ceiling, he just needs to come back after his vacation to Hawaii to paint the hallway ceiling. The caulking job came out great, so I think I’m going to have him caulk and paint the outside portion of the roof that overhangs the house.

Life hasn’t been all peaches and roses though, as Liam managed to walk through one of the single-paned sliding doors. Point proved on why these need to be replaced. Luckily he was not hurt, his paint can hit the glass before he did and he just got a few scrapes. Still…I am not too pleased with the door being destroyed. The slider was the door to the office though, and we were going to move the big window in the master bedroom to the office anyway; it just means that we have to order the slider for the master bedroom next week instead of later so the window can be moved earlier. Also, I was disappointed that the old vertical blinds also ended up being destroyed in the painting process. Liam had called me on Thursday, asking if he could take them down, which I agreed, but only if they were taken down with care. We were going to use them in the short-term until we decided on window coverings. Needless to say, Liam and I will have to have a bit more negotiating on final price and payment.

Ok, onto Saturday. The Porceleanosa tile has arrived and it was time to pick it up. I enlisted Nathan’s help, as two SUV’s are better than one. Even with two trucks, the order was four pallets. Nathan is looking a little incredulous here…

At 2200 lbs. each pallet, we needed to make two trips not because of space, but weight. Check out the rear suspension!! While not bottomed out, we were damn close, and every little bump in the road had us bouncing for about 100 yards, SCARY!!! We traveled pretty slow and were ok , as it was only seven miles to the house.

While we were gone, Lorinda had taken delivery from Lowes of the GE Café dishwasher. It’s a super quiet model, only 59db’s and can take a Costco sized bottle of detergent in one gulp and distribute it as needed over many washes….sweeet. Unfortunately, the refrigerator that was supposed to come with it never made it on the truck. Tuesday they tell me. (rolls eyes)

Once at the house, we now had to unload and stack the tile. We definitely got our workout for the day. We estimated each box at a little over 45 lbs. Check it out, 9,000 lbs of tile, ready for installation. Oh my aching back, LOL.

Lastly, we decided to pull the old insulation out of the dining room and kitchen. As I wrote before, we noticed a bit of mold on the wall and in the old insulation. There are a couple of cement blocks that are pushed up in the wrong direction, allowing water to drain towards the house, rather than away from the house. For the meantime, we purchased downspout extenders to channel the water away.

Once the insulation was out, we could see the areas that need to be treated and sealed. Obviously the corner of the house with the electrical panel has some issues, as there was a plant, yes a PLANT, growing in the wall…

Ohhh Crap...Thomas Crapper that is!

2008-01-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

Last night I was thinking about what else needed to be purchased that I could do research on. Oh yeah - toilets! Toilets always seem to be one of those items that most people don't give any thought to before purchasing and typically buyers go with a name brand that just "looks" nice. We've been guilty of it too in the past, and got lucky with our current master bath and, emm, so-so with the other two baths, even though they are the same brand.

This time I thought better, and set out to find something not only aesthetically pleasing, but also rated for good, cough, performance. Over the past few years through Lorinda and my travels, we always noticed the dual flush toilets, especially in Australia and sometimes in Europe as well. They seem to make sense, one button for #1 that uses less water and one button for #2 giving a full flush. But we never see them in the states...hmmm

A bit of research and we found the Toto Aquia™ Dual Flush Toilet, 1.6 GPF / 0.9 GPF, Model CST414M. It got very good reviews on the web (who knew there were toilet forums??? Kinda scary too!!!) and features a modern style that will go with the house, elongated skirted design, Dual-Max™ Flushing System, Oval SoftClose seat (No slamming the seat down, good for the kid later on).

Even better was that because it uses up to 35% less water than a normal toilet, I thought it might qualify as a "green" product and looked for rebates in my area. Sure enough there was a program through the county which this toilet qualifies, netting a $125 rebate per toilet (Santa Clara Rebate Program) that gets us two toilets we need for the price of one after rebates.

Sir Thomas Crapper would be proud...

Contractor management

2008-01-05T18:09:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy few days. Not much has actually been physically done to the house, yet there has been a lot of progress.

First up was the supply chain. A few weeks ago we had decided on flooring for the house. With radiant heating, it's really important to have as little insulation between the radiant heat in the foundation and the actual flooring to maximize the efficiency of the heating system. Many Eichler owners choose tile for this very reason, while other may choose cork and other stone materials. Hardwoods look very nice, and can be done with some effort. But with the constant expansion and contraction from the heat, it seemed to be more worry than it was worth. So in the end, we chose tile for the flooring. In addition, should something actually go wrong with the radiant heat, the flooring in the leak area needs to be pulled up and redone once the heating is fixed. With tile, it's as easy as breaking the one or two tiles, fixing the heat and replacing the tiles. The tiles we chose however, really "look" like wood. Check them out from Porcelanosa. So over the last two weekends, we've tested out a few styles and colors and we chose the Roble Cognac style, which we think will go nicely with the dark bamboo kitchen cabinets. Plus it sounds like a fine liqour...hah hah! The tiles will hopefully be in by next Saturday, when we will make a few trips to pick up in the Murano. Then the contractor can begin the tiling process.

On Saturday, we brought Liam Reidy, from Liam Reidy Painting (415-860-1854) down to give an estimate to caulk the ceiling groves and paint the ceiling. He will also primer the walls that are already ready for paint and prep the ceiling beams. Liam painted the exterior of our house in San Francisco two years ago and did an excellent job, with on time service and true craftsmanship. We definitely had to call him in to help in Cupertino. Our neighbor, Kevin, who is also a contractor, advised us to caulk the ceiling before we put the new foam roof on, as 48 years of crap would be falling into our newly remodeled space. Liam also pointed out that the manpower needed to strip the beams in the house would really time consuming and expensive, so we are exploring the option of repainting them in a darker hue to achieve close to the same affect without the overbearing cost.

We were also meeting Steven Chu, one of the two finalists for the general contractor bid. He had a few final questions to tweak his original estimate. We really like him a lot, his references are great, but a few areas of his original estimate were far too expensive when compared to the other final choice for contractor. We're waiting for his final quote as well, but we think we're leaning towards Steven for everything except for the tiling. But we'll find out and make a final decision over the next few days.

Liam starts next week, the tiles will arrive and start to be laid the week after, with the general contractor to be starting on the master bathroom simulataneously.

Next up we need to pick out the shower hardware.

Radiant Heat Repair

2008-01-02T13:19:00.001-08:00

2008 starts out with a visit from the local radiant heat repair. When we bought the place, Kathy recommended that Lipp Hydronics, Inc. (650-327-1943) come out to test the radiant heating system, since there wasn't much disclosures on it in the package and its an integral part of owning an Eichler. Lipp Hydronics, Inc. has been servicing the peninsula and the Eichlers since 1961, the year our house was built, and come highly recommended.

During the initial inspection, they found a small leak that they said wasn't worth fixing unless we were doing remodeling. Additionally, the boiler needed a modification to make it more efficient. Since we most definitely are remodeling, we asked for some money in escrow from the sellers to fix the leak and upgrade the boiler and they agreed. So with the completion of the floors being up, we have Lipp out at the house today taking care of the leak and upgrading the boiler.

Best news of the day is that now that the flooring is up, Lipp was able to get much more accurate with the testing and the leak was even smaller than expected, so much they could not find one specific area needing repair, thus not warranting tearing up the concrete foundation.

The boiler upgrade is finished, the new thermostat installed and one small but important step is completed, Yay!

DEMO!!!!

2007-12-31T09:19:00.001-08:00

One more before picture....WTF is going on here??? This is the kitchen, which extends in some sort of a "Z" pattern, and dominating essentially two rooms with unusable space. Plus the washer dryer is directly next to the refrigerator, oven and cooktop... Weird, to say the least.

Christmas was a fun holiday. We closed on the house on December 20th and began demo on the 21st. During the time the offer was accepted and the time we closed, we spent the time lining up contractors, picking vendors and generally getting the process started. Cabinets were picked and most of the appliances were ordered. We also started the process of picking out the fixtures for the master bathroom and brought down a piece of leftover granite from our master bath in 21st Ave we will reuse in one of the two bathrooms.

December 21st we had the guy who redid our hardwood floors in 21st Ave pull up the carpet, imitation laminate and mix of odd tile throughout the house. He actually got it done in two days, but then discovered the original laminate, along with the mastic. In my mind I thought, Ohhhh craaaaap, since I have read other accounts of this being a lengthy process to remove. Surprisingly, he only took another two days. We also removed the master bathroom to make way for reconfiguration and enlarging.

Brendan's folks were out for the holidays and offered to help out. Brendan and his Dad (Dennis) removed the wall in the old dining room and the coverings around the pipe on the wall that will remain/be reduced. The paneling came out in the dining room/kitchen as well to expose the old insulation. Mom (Rosemarie) did a great job on the 3BR, removing all the old wood paneling.

Brendan and Ayla (niece) came back the next day to sweep the construction site to ready it for reconstruction.

Not bad for a holiday week if I do say so myself...

View from the dining room to the main living area. Flooring is up and the separating wall is out. We're not sure if one of these beams can come out, it doesn't seem to be really supporting the beam above, as its loose (bottom and top) and not really connected other than a metal joint. A question for our contracter (who is also a structural engineer).

View back to the dining room. We left the framing from the vents mostly up, as there was a lot of electrical that needs to be removed from here as well. This is the wall that will border the kitchen island on one end.

One more view of the open living area. The paneling was removed and we found that there was a tiny bit mold that needs to be taken care of and the insulation is of an older "R" value and will be replaced with the most efficient insulation available.

Here's the old kitchen now. The window on the left will be moved closer to the camera and the new kitchen will end where the window is currently. The rest of the room will be used as the dining room now.

One of the other bedrooms. There was wood panelling on all the walls, which made a dark room darker. There is mastic on the walls, which I hope will be able to be sanded to save more drywalling. This will be a spare bedroom.

The other bedroom, which only needs a little electrical work, the beam of course and a covering a radient heat return pipe. This will be our baby's room.

The 4th bedroom, which will be used as our office. There is a sliding door in here that needs to be replaced and the window above needs to be replaced with a more efficient pane.

Hallway down the bedroom side of the house. The future office is at the end of the hallway and the two other bedrooms are to the left with the bathroom between them.

Master bathroom demo.

Original listing pictures

2007-12-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

It's got tons of potential, but three months????

Left half of the back yard. We have an orange tree on the left.

This is the second bathroom, complete with 1960 wallpaper on everything. The window is too big and allows standing water, that will have to be fixed.

The vanity view from the master bathroom. We are going to put a smaller vanity in to steal some space to enlarge the shower. The opening to the walk-in closet is off to the right here. We are going to close this up and reopen on the bedroom side to a) seal off from bathroom moisture and b) enhance the usuable closet space.

This is the view into the master bedroom. We are going to put another sliding door in where the window is to increase light and allow access to the back yard as well.

This is the living room with the old furniture. Not much changes here. You can see the separating wall into the old dining room. This will be removed to make room for the island and kitchen which will be behind it. The white beams throughout the house will be stripped and restored to the natural wood beauty. THAT, will be Brendan's project for the next few weekends.

Other side of the living room. The original Eichler paneling looks great here (just needs new paint) and we think this will be the TV area by reversing the sofa layout and having the TV on the Eichler paneled wall.

Old dining room. Cute, but dated. Its also a very small. The left wall will be reduced to half to just cover up the supporting beams and hide the drain vent.

Welcome to the insane asylum

2007-12-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,

We've created this blog to chronicle the adventures of our newest house, Ollie Eichler. See, as two busy professionals in the Bay Area, we didn't have enough challenge running our busy professions, balancing friends, family, hobbies (motorcycle racing, snowboarding, climbing, etc.), manage a house in San Francisco with one rental unit.

So....we decided to start a family, yay!!!! In March, we'll be joined by a little bundle of joy.

WAIT, WTF does this have to do with a house! Well lets back up. We've been casually watching the housing market finally retreat from the nosebleed section of Candlestick here in the Bay Area. Since it was taking longer than we expected to get the baby started, we were looking up in Tahoe for a ski house, but sellers weren't really coming off their prices. So we started looking in the Bay Area too. Even got a great realtor to help us out.

Note: If you EVER need realty help in Silicon Valley, you owe it to yourself to get in touch with Kathleen Pasin She goes above and beyond what any realtor can be expected to do and we are happy to call her our friend now as well.

After a few months searching, we were ready to give up until 2008, as Lorinda was now four months pregnant. As Murphy's Law would have it, we came across an architechural gem, a beautiful Eichler home in good, but original condition...in Cupertino...on a cul de sac...in our price range.

In a declining market, we bid the ask and suprisingly got it!! The price was low for the area, house, etc., but we anticipate spending about $120,000 to make it our dream home.

So here we are, owners of an original Eichler home, in December, with three months until the baby is born, with a COMPLETE remodel to undergo. Ready....Steady...GO!!!

The next entry will be the original pictures of the home as it was listed. The dining room and the kitched have to be reversed, we're putting all new flooring in, fixing the radiant heat, enclosing the atrium to add 350 sq. feet, new roof, new windows, paint, furnish....the list is endless. Mobius strip, part deux!