Kitchen Remodel

 I haven't talked about it here at all, but here's the current state of our complete kitchen remodel that we began way back in May. The new quartz counters were installed last week and I'm thrilled with how they look with the cabinets. In different light they look greenish or sometimes purplish, so it's all good.

 It was a hard 48 hours that we had to wait to get to touch them.

We celebrated by having take out pizza on the counter!
Today my fabulous husband re-installed the stove, and hooked up the faucet, disposal and dishwasher. He is amazing. Only involved two trips to the hardware store which is a new record I think.
Now it's time for me to finally figure out the last few things, the flooring, tile, light fixtures and a new door.

Saturday Cornucopia

Can't. Stop. Making. Tumbler. Quilt. Send Help. Seriously I do believe I am almost done now, and just need to stop cutting more until I sew together the rows and rows and rows I've got so far. And I found a nice spirally black fabric to use for the ends of each row to make a nice border/frame.

Ahh. So nice to have Mr.Super Husband back home again from an extended trip to China and Japan.

This isn't a picture of us, just a couple of sleeping peccaries at the zoo I recently snapped.
It kind of sums up how we feel when we're back together, everyone say awwww.

This picture reminds me of the one above in texture and lighting but not so much in content.

Oh and here's what our new floors look like. Bamboo flooring from Costco, looks great, feels great. Slowly moving our stuff back in and re-evaluating what we actually want in the nice, new-looking living room. Poor Zelda The Wonder Dog is having trouble slipping on the floor though, I think I need to get her some grippy booties or something.

Construction Finale

The last couple weeks have been consumed with getting our house remodel completed in time for inspection before the permit expires.

I haven't been quilting or making anything at all. Instead I've been doing what I can to help the process get completed. And taking some pictures as I go along. And then collapsing from all the running around to stores and answering contractors' questions and climbing up and down ladders.

This picture is of a giant bolt is holding up our new deck (along with a whole lot of other impressive hardware).

This deck is so solid, I swear we could host an elephant party up there. But oh what a lot of work. A couple of times we've asked each other, whose bright idea was it to have a deck up here? I know we will really come to enjoy using it, but we are bitching about it a whole lot as it is getting finished.

I also have been up and down stepladders installing fireblock caulking in the ceiling of our garage. This is a special requirement since there are living spaces above the garage. In case our car decides to explode or something I suppose. I took this and several other pictures because the fireblock is two different colors, and I didn't want the inspector to give me a hard time. My contractor tells me it is usually red to distinguish it...Oh well, not the stuff we found to buy!
I thought this was a cool picture with the dirty/clean magnet on my diswasher in the background. All those circles.

Anyways, it was a big disappointment on Friday, I waited around half the day for the inspector, but no phone call, nothing. Finally after poking around on the county website and through the voice mail system I figured out that it was the one day a month that they are having a furlough day. Thus no inspections. sigh. Guess that makes it an Inspection Monday! Cross your fingers for us that we pass!

Bathroom Before and After

The master bathroom that we added as part of our remodel, ahem, two years ago has finally been transformed into a for-real, useable bathroom. It is no longer a book storage facility and the world's biggest cat litter box room.

Way back when the plumbing was roughed in, the tub was installed, as was the sink cabinet and sink top. I painted the walls a nice cheery butter yellow. Then it sat there for two years taunting me as we tried to find and hire a competent tile installer. So finally, we found one that *gasp* returned phone calls, and *gasp again* actually showed up to do the work. Hurrah!

Take a good look, because this is as clean as it will ever ever ever be again.

Now I'm shopping for some good new herb plants to put in the garden window above the tub so that it will be easy to take herb-scented soaks. Ahhhh, such a wonderful option.

The shower is in a corner and we're debating on whether to install a shower door or not. Not much water gets out, and where it gets out is all tiled anyways, so maybe we'll skip it.The tile we chose is a kind of barely peachy mostly tan/brownish color with a fossil leaf or ammonite imprint on the decorative tiles. I love how calm the color of the tile makes me feel. It feels really great on my bare feet too. I was really impressed with the tile dude, he did a great job and I'm so glad we didn't try to do it ourselves. If anyone reading this is local to Santa Cruz I'd definitely refer you.

The race to finish the whole remodel before the permit expires is on! There isn't much left to accomplish, but it all has to get done or we won't pass final inspection and I really really don't want to pay those permit fees again.

The Vacation That Was Deck

This post is kind of like one of those "What I did on my Christmas Vacation" reports we had to write when we came back to school in January. Remember those? One of the last things we need to finish on our several-years-long home remodel is the deck off our second story bedroom. Up until very recently there was a fabulous set of french doors opening onto....nothing. Or a verrrrry long first step.
But not after this vacation! We didn't go anywhere or do anything more exciting than seeing movies, except get the deck building project underway. The big wood pile was delivered on Christmas Eve morning, bright and early from our local lumber yard.

Any and all visitors to our house during this time were encouraged or bribed or commanded to help move this huge stack of wood from the driveway to the backyard.

Leverage calculations and estimates were bandied about. Different schemes for hoisting a 24' long beam up high enough and stably enough to get into the metal holders at the top of the 10' deck supports were debated. Finally, a method was worked out involving the car floor jack and many interim strips of support wood nailed temporarily in a ladder like fashion up the posts. Quite fascinating how they figured it out. I was absolutely no help whatsoever. My mind doesn't work that way, not 3-d capable enough somehow. My mind is however really good at finding things that are misplaced, so that was how I supported the deck building team. Locating their gloves and hammers and duct tape and receipts from the hardware store so incorrectly purchased items could be successfully exchanged.
Yes, the teenager with prior building experience was a HUGE help. He worked on a house building project with a friend of ours a couple summers ago, so he knows his way around construction stuff more than the average teen.
And our younger teenager was also helpful and enjoyed hanging out working with dad and learning more about the manly mystique surrounding the use of power tools. One of his Christmas presents was a new red tool box with his own screwdrivers, etc. as he has been in trouble frequently this year for using dad's tools and not putting them back in the correct location.

So now when I step out my french doors there is a tiny temporary plywood platform. Which is really something and really cool, because it is a great view from out there. There is enough room for exactly one deck chair.

I have found that I like having my coffee out there in the morning sun. And I'm plotting and planning how to change the garden around to best viewing advantage from the new deck.

The next step of course is the deck boards and railing. Which we are ordering by the end of the month. And it won't be Trex apparently, as that stuff is somewhat more defective than advertised and they aren't supporting their warranties unless they're sued. hmmm. The local lumber yard guy told us all about it and sure enough, we're going with another brand. But it will be a recycled plastic type of "lumber" not wood, because we know how much upkeep wood is, even if it is redwood like our other deck.

Cement Day

Cement Day came and went around here. We were racing against the weather last Thursday, the rain was slated to come in the afternoon and the concrete mixer arrived at 11am. The concrete pumper set up this long hose contraption from his truck out to the site in the backyard (hooray for no wheelbarrows filled with cement this time!). The cement mixer poured directly into the pumper truck which then shoots the cement through the hose, really cool!! This first picture shows the cement hose, the drain rock and the rebar grid all ready to get filled up with cement. When it pumped out it looked like frosting and made a really weird squicky sound. I didn't take any pics of the process as I was in full on helping mode ready to smooth and squash the cement into place. About 20 minutes later the pumper was done, the mixer was gone and we were left to level out the whole thing. Between Zach, Marc and I we did it, but it was hard going. Zach got to miss part of school (just PE class no biggie) so he was pretty stoked. No one fell in this time (pshew), and we only cut ourselves on the sharp edges of rebar a few zillion times. Just as we finished smooothing everything the rain began to dump.We were not happy because the rain drops would uncover the smoothed over concrete leaving a rough rocky surface, so we gathered up all the tarps we could find and strung them up while the rain poured steadily. It seemed to work pretty well, once it let up we got to see how the surface looks, not too bad! But the concrete took forever to cure and harden. Much longer than usual due to the cold and wet conditions. Luckily it is better for it to cure in this manner, so it all worked out okay.

It took so long to really harden that we were still able to sign our names later that evening which Alex was happy about.

What a lot of work, but now it is mostly done, and we saved several thousands doing it ourselves. The deck above it will be a whole 'nother project of course, but no more mud pit in the backyard for the first time ever, this winter, hooray!

Concrete-a-Palooza

Last Saturday was Concrete Day around the Stiller Compound. The long-awaited deck/patio is getting started. First step of the day is to fill up these holes with cement. Amazing Digger Marc used a pick to dig out the clay and rock,they're about 3 feet deep, he also made the wood forms, bent steel rebar and got the right tie-downs to use. Of course it hasn't rained in months, and when does it rain? The night before the cement is due to arrive. Cement of course needs to be kept damp for a while as it dries, but lots of rain would be a big problem (like filling up the holes with water as we try to fill them up with cement). A race with nature. I awoke to large clay footprints in the kitchen, followed them out into the backyard and there is the pit, awash in wet clay that has been tracked all over. Spike is here smelling it to make sure it is authorized. Zelda the wonder dog was locked up on the deck so she couldn't "help" as we struggled around with wheelbarrows full of wet cement.
We hung around drinking coffee waiting for the cement truck to arrive. We could hear a big truck driving around down the mountain (sound travels well early in the morning), and of course the driver was lost. Marc went down to town to lead him back home. Finally we heard the sounds of a big truck coming...The cement truck is here, the cement truck is here, joy in Whoville...

The two wheelbarrows stand at the ready, along with the worker bees. It is nice to have a big strapping teenager around to help out (costs in groceries though letmetellya). Once the cement is mixed, there are about two hours before it sets, as it took the guy an hour to get to our house, we were now racing against time.
Zach couldn't believe how excited his dad was about the cement truck. "Mom he is acting like a little kid." a little embarrassed, but still appreciating that it is nice to have a father that is both fun and funny.So here is one of the holes filled in with the cement (I was on shoveling duty), pieces of rebar are put into the hole for additional strength, the wood form is placed over the hole, filled up with cement, then the bent rebar is inserted through the steel tie-down and all the way down to the bottom of the hole. The upright posts for the deck will be attached there(eventually). Some people enjoyed getting down and dirty with the cement, using fingers to get it smoothed out on top.

At one point Zach ended up with one of his feet down in one of the holes. Unfortunately the hole was also filled with cement at that point. After lots of hollering, he washed it all off quickly. Not as much fun as stepping in mud, much grittier!
Here is what Marc's shoes looked like in the morning, absolutely coated in the incredibly sticky mud from our backyard. These are one of the pairs of shoes he wears to work. Why he doesn't change into sneakers when he works outside is well, one of the mysteries of the universe. I guess they were handy when he got going in the morning. And I hadn't gotten up yet to bug him to change. sigh. Well, the mud eventually came off. I spent about an hour washing off the driveway so it wouldn't get tracked into the house.

Pretty fun huh? Next up, laying down drain rock and rebar in the space where the patio will be
poured. Guess we better get going before the rain really starts and fills in the excavation Marc has worked so hard on.

Closets and Chairs

Six closet doors being painted. They were removed when we demolished our upstairs and then stored during the remodel. We hated how they looked so dated and ugly, so I sanded the rough spots and painted them to match the room doors and trim. I propped all the doors up on the front lawn and went crazy painting them before the rain this weekend, had to do two coats. Especially since these little tiny gnat bugs decided to have a mass suicide on the wet painted doors leaving behind red wine colored streaks. Not too pretty, thank goodness for coat number two of paint, which I let dry in the garage thankyouverymuch.

Not perfect, but much better than we could find at the local Home Despot. There, it was either mirrors or very lightweight doors that would break. I know how hard the boys are on doors, and it seemed really silly to spend $1,000 on mirrored doors that would just get ruined. So hey, This price was right, *free*. I love reusing stuff. Unfortunately we had to purchase tracks and wheels for them as those got bent and tossed during the demo for $25 a set. But they glide very very smoothly and now we don't have to look at our closet contents all the time! Hooray, what a difference that makes in the room, I had no idea.
Last thing to do is install some kind of facing trim to cover up the track glider up at the top, but we have lots of unused new trim lying around that matches the closet door framing, I just have to paint it on a sunny day and get handy husband to install it.
Next up is some sewing, gasp! No really, sewing. I'm recovering or making a slipcover (haven't decided quite yet), a chair that we got off of Freecycle several years ago. You can see a tiny bit of it here, it is a very intensely ugly deep orange. Currently it is a ground chair, with no legs, and we are in negotions as to what kind of legs to add if we do. This is Alex's chair, so he chose this super cool fabric from Fabric.com.
Pretty mod huh?

The Empty Bookcase

DebR wanted to know what our bookcases look like. Hers are very organized, as well as quite full. So I took a picture of one of ours to show.

Isn't this a completely pitiful picture? Our bookcases are still very empty as we are rearranging furniture on a continual basis. Seems kinda silly to fill up the bookcases until they are in the spots they are going to remain.
We used to have completely filled bookcases in every room except the bathrooms. The house feels very empty without the books. It really does. I miss them. I guess they do take up a lot of space in my mind.
What will be a lot of fun is rearranging the books and how we store them, instead of being kinda higgedly piggedly randomized.
By the way the books on the shelf are Bulfinch's Mythology, Dead Eye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut, The Hobbit 50th anniversary edition, and a series of kid books called Deltora. These have shown up in random boxes that we've unpacked so far. Books ended up everywhere...

The Rooms They Are A Painted

I don't know where that title came from. Guess I'll have to hum "The Times They Are A'Changin'" all day today. You are quite welcome for the new earworm.


As promised, here are pics of the house remodel, now that we have painted. I really pushed myself and painted all the rooms, in the space of a week and a half. First with primer, then the ceilings with white ceiling paint, and then onto the colors. I knew I was getting sick, as my husband was during all this, but I put it off til the day we finished, and came down with bronchitis. Not surprising after having had pneumonia over the winter holidays. Anyhoo, I got to recover in living color. We really went crazy with colors, neither of us had ever had colored rooms before, "Navajo White" was the most exotic that we ever got. But what a difference it makes.



First up is Alex's room, he went with a green theme as you can see. Choosing a green carpet and two shades of green for the walls "Happy Camper" and "Asparagus".




He is the lucky kid with two windows (a big topic of discussion), so it is ok to have the intense green as there is a lot of light in the room. Alex has yet to get a door put on his room, we had trouble finding a right hung door, now that we have it, hopefully it will get installed this week.

Next door big brother Zach chose three shades of blue for his walls and a very plush soft off-white carpet. You can see your footprints in it. I love how this room turned out. He has great color sense!

Our room has these enormous walls, and although I flirted with red and/or purple as color choices I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I asked for some help from the QuiltMavs for color advice, otherwise I was going to end up with white the rest of my life. The waterbed is only getting moved once people! So thanks to some good advice we ended up with three pale colors a brown named "Baked Scone" a green named "Mountain Haze" and a yellow named "Sweet Marzipan"

The media room is an orange "Precious Jewel" and a grey "porpoise".

Then the carpeting arrived a couple days later, right after a giant rainstorm where we got 5" in one day. The sky cleared, the carpet got cut out on the driveway and installed in one day. This crew was amazingly fast. The stairs, hallway and media room are all this oatmeal color, matches Zelda the wonder dog exactly!

So now you know what colors we have. Onto window sills, baseboard, and painting the doors and door trim. It has been great to move in to the new rooms a little at a time. I still don't have a studio yet and am missing having all my fabric set up in one place. Soon though, soon!

Monday Musings

This weekend we got a wonderful gift, our brand-new furnace finally got hooked up! Wheeeee, no more keeping a fire going day and night. Just the whoosh, click, humm of a toasty efficient heater. What a difference it makes. My ears are thawing out, I don't have to wear my scarf all day long, and no socks. My feet are enjoying being out of socks! The animals are very suspicious though, I think they've forgotten all the usual noises and smells from the furnace going. Short memories! It has only been a few months.

Saturday our sheet-rockers came and almost completely finished. So now we have walls. What a difference it makes in the sound carrying from room to room. And almost some real privacy and so forth. We really take that for granted in our modern homes, don't we? The ability to go into another room and close the door, creating the illusion that you are separate and really isolated and alone. A few generations ago, when the Westward Expansion was pushing across the plains, just think of all those one room cabins that families lived in. I don't think I would have made it! How about you?

More House than you can stand!

Whee, we have a balcony now! Unplanned, spontaneous, and a creative contractor gives us this unique feature. We're excited and planning the first annual Romeo & Juliet performance for early spring.

Interesting designs in the car - pets (haha). It is actually the old footprint for the former staircase and closet.

Isn't he cute? This is Spike! When he isn't attacking our feet or other cats he is being very cute and cuddly for a teenager.

Here is Spike in the new bathroom to be, finding a patch of sun to hog.

We're having some pretty dramatic skies lately. Lots of rain, but then the sun comes up once again. Glad it is so dependable. We really notice that at this time of year!!

3 ducts have we! Isn't this a funny sight? The ducts have now taken up our last remaining closet. It is incredibly hard to live without closets, who knew?!

This is the old closet, witht the shelves removed. It is pretty boring not all stuffed full with our towels and toiletries. Now it is filled with insulated ductwork, all black plastic, very boring. Soon to be wallboarded over.

Zelda wondering if she should walk back up the stairs, Alex wondering why I'm taking yet another picture and Zach's legs running away as fast as he can. That's all for now....