Loose ends

Ever since move-in day, we've been unpacking and getting the place ready for my in-laws to visit for Christmas.  DH took almost a whole week off of work to help out.  If he hadn't, I would not have been even close to ready for any visitors.  Even my parents pitched in and took our baby away for one Sunday so we could unpack without interruptions.

The week after we moved in, the crew was back to tie up loose ends.  We also had the alarm company for a day to install alarm components to the new part of the house.  The heating/cooling guy had to come by and fix the zones - the zone in the den was controlling the zone for all the other bedrooms.  The shower door guy came back to fix the shower door situation.  A more specialized electrician came to do wiring for cable, ethernet, and TV wiring.  (This guy has yet to finish the job.)

The carpet guy came by to take a look at what to do about the huge gap between the doors and the floor - he suggested using a reducer.  Of course, since he was already paid in full, he told me that the contractor should do it, not him.  *sigh*

I ended up fixing our toilet in the master bathroom.  The buttons were not correctly aligned and the flush was really weak.  Since the workers had never dealt with Inax nor were their English great, I called the company to get help on the situation.  They sent me diagrams and instructions to fix both problems.  Thankfully, it was easy to re-align the buttons.  And that actually solved the weak flush problem too!  yay!

As you live the house, there are things that you discover that need to be tweaked or fixed.  Here's a list of what we've found:

• leak underneath the prep sink



• locking mechanism for the sliding door needed to be installed



• draft underneath the exterior door of the master bedroom



• manufacturing label still on one skylight needed to be removed



• cold/hot water in the powder room were reversed



• remove any remaining tree protection




• bring back our green ladder that they thought was theirs



• move down the door that separates front and back of the house so that the door aligns better with the floor (huge gap underneath otherwise which prevents the door from being an effective sound barrier)



• install clothing rods and shelving for master closet



• swap light switches for the master bathroom to be more intuitive to use



• fix the broken latch on one window of the dining room



• fix the crooked drain step on the left sink of the master bathroom



• fix the original light switch for the patio exterior lights



• washing machine not working properly - ask the crew to check the water connections

Our to do's:

• buy house numbers to replace those that the workers threw away



• re-key exterior doors so they all use the same key

Still pending:

• doorbell ringer - thrown away and not replaced



• put up the side gate



• have interior door locks inspected by a locksmith



• install remaining lights - not all have come in yet




• get glass mirrors for ours and kids' bathrooms

Moving Day!

Note:  If your SO is in charge of hiring the movers, make sure that they confirm the date and time with the movers before the actual day of moving.

That morning, we waited around hoping that the movers had not forgotten about us.  Thankfully, they did show up.  Big sigh of relief!

The crew of three were pretty efficient using dollies and all around good techniques for moving heavy items.  About late lunch time, they were finished moving everything into their van.  We had gone out to lunch while they were finishing up the packing because our nanny was in the house.  When the movers went to lunch, we transported our fragile items to our new home.

We had planned for the baby to take her nap in the rental home and that I would come back to pick up the nanny and the baby after the baby woke up.  The baby was a bit scared of the moving process because she saw a lot of things being taken away.  In order to quell any anxiety, I kept reassuring her that we were all moving into our new home together.  Made it a point to get to the rental home before she woke up from her nap - it wouldn't be like the she went to sleep and her parents disappeared.

We hadn't completely set up her room that night in the new house so she and I ended up sleeping on the ol' futon together.  Not great for me - she rotated 180 degrees in her sleep which involved kicking me a few times.  *sigh*  But we're moving her into a big kid bed so we'll all sleep undisturbed in the future.

Countdown to move in day

Dec 6 (Tue):  A more specialized electrician came out to take care of our ethernet, tv, and cable wiring.  Also, the day our window shades got installed.

Dec 7 (Wed):  Our dismantled sleeper sofa was delivered and re-assembled in the afternoon.  Deep cleaning of our home begins in the late afternoon and continues until early evening.  We moved some of our fragile items such as wine glasses and vases into the house.

Dec 8 (Thurs):  Lots of packing!!  Thankfully, packing wasn't too bad this time around because a lot of our items were still packed up from the initial move into our rental home.  When you haven't seen something in 6 months, it makes you wonder whether you really needed to it.  Needless to say, did a bit of purging when packing this time.  Things of slight sentimental value were tossed.

Great news:  We passed the final inspection on the first try!  :)  I didn't think we'd pass until after we moved back into our home.  Yay!!!!!

Our GC said that it was the easiest final inspection he's ever been through.  He usually puts up a few obvious "mistakes" for the inspectors to catch but this guy didn't catch them.  The city obviously wants this house project to finish up quickly.  hehehe.  After the inspection, our GC went around and fixed up all the mistakes he purposely created.  haha!

Undercabinet lighting

So my undercabinet LEDs arrived.  Brought them over for the workers to install just to find out that they couldn't do it because of the voltage difference.  *sigh*

LEDs are low voltage and they had wired the undercabinet lighting for regular or fluorescent lights.  Apparently fluorescents are also low voltage but they have their own adapters.  The LED lights I bought also had their own adapter but they would take up an outlet and wouldn't be directly connected to the wiring (thus, less pretty).

Ended up going to Home Depot with the GC to pick up fluorescent lights.  That's what I was actually trying to avoid because I don't care for fluorescent lighting.  Good thing is that you can't see them in the kitchen.  yay!

Now I have two extra LED light bars...not sure what to do with them yet, but I'll find a place to use them.  I'd rather keep them than pay a restocking fee.

Shower door fiasco

Note:  Never leave a guy to install stuff by himself!  Always stay for the installation!!!!

So the guy who installed our shower doors is a different guy from the guy who took our order for the shower doors.  There were mistakes in 2 out of 3 bathrooms!!  The powder room door had a towel bar which we did not want.  And he had installed a very nice shower door in the kids bathroom when we specifically said nothing was to go in the kids bathroom!  There was even a shower curtain rod already installed.

The owner showed up later and prevented his installer from actually caulking the kids bathroom - we probably would have had to replace the tub and even more tiling if that had happened!  But there was already some scratching on the tub and cutting of tile.  So now our GC had to clean up the mess:  re-order tile, remove the tiles with holes in them, and redo the affected tiles.

DH was super pissed.  On the other hand, I was just glad I didn't need to run around to fix the mistake.  :p

Appointments at home

Thankfully I had to be at home for two appointments that would happen around the same time.  :)

First, I had our alarm company come by to take a look at what new equipment we had to get and what old equipment could be reused.  That took a little while since so much has improved and updated since we first moved into the house.  They have nifty little iPhone/iPad apps to control your alarm and even lighting.  Of course, it all cost extra.

Second, furniture delivery for our headboard and sleeper sofa!  Although, unfortunately, they could not get it through the doorway.  And in the process, they broke a door handle trying to get the sofa through.  *sigh*  So they had to take it back to the warehouse for disassembling and reschedule another date to deliver the sofa pieces.

Cyber Monday and misc

Thankfully the undercabinet LED lights I wanted were on sale during Cyber Monday!  :)

Other great news:  our carpet came in early!  On Monday, DH got a call that the carpet installation would be scheduled for Thurdsay.



For Tuesday and Wednesday, I went around shopping for curtains, picking up Macy's merchandise that we had pre-paid for, and getting miscellaneous home items.  We were finally replacing our broken mail slot.  I bet the mailman was pretty happy about that.  (We originally had a screw the mailman had to remove and replace each time to open the mail slot.)

Note:  if you like your house numbers, make sure to safekeep them when the workers take them down to paint the exterior!  I had to buy new house numbers even though I totally liked the old ones - grr.

Black Friday!

For Thanksgiving weekend, we decided to take a nice break from work related to the house.  The only thing we did for the home was buy lots of stuff on Black Friday!  :)

Went to Macy's and stocked up on guest towels and pots/pans (need new ones for our induction cooktop).  We scored a $40 king size down alternative comforter!  It would've come with two pillows if we had got the deal earlier in the day.  (Macy's opened at midnight but there was no way we were going to do that with a kid now.)

We also bought two more place settings and silverware sets for the upcoming Christmas dinner we're hosting.  We scored an awesome discount on both pieces due to an incredibly enthusiastic saleslady who works in the bridal department.  She gave us a discount earlier than usual.  hehe.

Walking around the mall, there was a guy handing out flyers for the Sony store.  We went to check it out.  There was a 40" TV going for $600, retailed at $1300.  After lunch and a stop by the house (for the scheduled chimney cleaning and inspection), we went back to the Sony store to buy the TV.  In the late morning, there were about 8-10 TVs but by afternoon around 3:30pm there were only 2 left.  We grabbed one, and while paying for it, the last one was sold.  The guys at the store said that there were no more at their warehouse either.  So lucky we got it!!

For our chimney cleaning, it unfortunately did not happen.  Maybe it was fortunate so that we could get back to the mall early enough to buy that TV.  Anyway, our chimney was damaged by the 1989 earthquake according to the chimney guy.  We would actually have to rebuild the damaged part of the chimney.  He would not clean it because it was damaged.  He had been previously burned by customers who used their fireplace with their clean but damaged chimney even though he warned them not to.  Then they would complain to him when something went wrong.  So he went away with the expectation of sending a quote for the chimney rebuild later.

Tile grout versus no grout

Here's the progress of our kitchen backsplash so far.  Notice on the left how there's grout.  The rest of the tiling has no grout.

Toilet Dilemma and Bathroom Counters

Yesterday night, we ordered a sofa for the family room from Ikea.  Delivery scheduled for this morning between 9am and 1pm.  Thankfully, the work crew could sign for the delivery so we did not have to physically be at the house waiting.

However, I needed to visit the house in the morning due to a toilet and warming floor issue.  Turns out that our toilet needs 4 holes drilled into the tile.  Our master bathroom has a warming floor.  We were supposed to receive two warming pads, one for the main area and one for the toilet area.  Well, turns out that there was an ordering mistake and we got one large warming pad to cover both areas.  As a result, we have the warming pad extended to the rear of the toilet (which I did not want).  So to drill the holes, the workers were afraid of damaging the warming pad.  If that were to happen, the flooring of the whole master bathroom would need to be redone because we would need to replace the entire warming pad.  *sigh*  I told them to go ahead and drill.  Otherwise, the toilet will not be properly installed.

After a long planing period, they went ahead...the workers did some very careful calculations and based on touch, they determined that there were no heating coils around the area they needed to drill.   With great caution, they proceeded...and succeeded!  :)

Note:  If you wanted a skirted toilet, let the GC know beforehand so they can position the piping properly.
Note:  Let the GC know what kind of toilets you're using (Japanese versus American) because the Japanese brands need the extra 4 holes drilled in the back.

After making that drilling decision, I had just started driving home for 3 minutes when my GC called and told me that the counter installers were at the house(!).  They were scheduled for 1pm but I guess they wanted to finish before lunch so they arrived around 11am.  I had to stay for the whole install and checked their grouting work.  For the master bathroom, we had bought larger sinks.  Apparently that was a minor issue because the sinks were too big for the cabinets - too wide.  The installers had to cut away on the sides of the cabinet to get the sink to fit properly.  The only damage you can see is if you look towards the sink when the bottom cabinet is open.  Most of the damage is hidden by the sink anyway.   Thankfully!!

Note:  Always know how large of a sink your cabinetry can accommodate before purchasing the sink!

Glue below the counter

Master counter top

Installed!

Carpet fiasco

Our GC could not find the contact information for his original carpet guy because it's been 10 years since he last had a client who wanted carpet.  :p
But our GC made the mistake of assuming that he was going to use Home Depot for the carpet installation.  After going to different stores, he decided that he didn't want to deal with the Home Depot guys for carpet.  Therefore, he proceeded to call around for carpet installers to come to our site.  Out of the four he reached, only one was willing to come out.  The rest were on or going on holiday or something.

My Nghe Carpet & Flooring in San Jose on Tully Road -- Chinese guy who does not shy away from work during the holidays.

We had a meeting with the carpet guy today.  Turns out that carpet comes from Georgia so we would need to wait 7-10 business days for the carpet to come out.  As a result, we moved back our original move-in date by almost 2 weeks.  After measuring the rooms, he took our carpet sample (from Home Depot) to his warehouse to see if there was anything similar.  If he had carpet in his warehouse, then he could install immediately.

While he went to his warehouse, I picked up DH and headed down to the carpet guy's office.  Peak traffic hours = long car ride.  He found two carpet samples that were similar in color and pile to our sample but they just were not plush enough to DH's liking.  Therefore, we selected new carpeting:  Shaw Silken Dreams II in the color 100 Pearl.

100 Pearl in the center

Tile fiasco

After the grout in the master shower dried, the stones had turned a shade of brown.  There is no brown in our shower!!  So I called the tile store to see if this was a defect of some sort, and they said that it was an installation error.

Turns out that if you use epoxy grout, it'll be absorbed by porous materials such as stones (which is what we have).  You need to pre-seal the material before applying the epoxy grout otherwise the material color may change.   And once the epoxy is sucked into the material, you cannot extract it.

Needless to say, we need to redo the master shower floor.  Booooooo...

Brown pebbles versus original grey pebbles

What our master floor should look like

Kitchen backsplash

They started laying out tile for the kitchen backsplash. In the first photo, you can see our new counters with the faucets installed.

Cooktop area

Granite installation

Today, workers came over to our house to install our granite!  :)

Installing island

Island with sink cutout

Using a jigsaw to cut out sink

Tools and cooktop cutout marked

For the tools, it's very nice to see that they have this gigantic level.  :)
The round clamp on the bottom left of the picture is used to hold up the granite while they apply their glue underneath.  I missed out on getting a video of this.

Note:  Get all kitchen faucets ready before the granite installation.  I had to run over to the plumbing store while they were installing to pick up our kitchen faucets.  They don't know where to drill the holes for the faucet otherwise.  (Unless you have a faucet that only requires one hole to be drilled.)

Also, for inspection reasons, we got an extra hole drilled near the prep sink on the island near the dishwasher.  It's the air gap for the dishwasher that is required.  Since our dishwasher (newer model) does not actually need an air gap, we will be using that hole for our water purifier faucet.

Pendants and blinds

Our pendants arrived today so I went to pick them up from the lighting store.  That took only 3 weeks.  woo!

Had an appointment for window shades.  We're going with Hunger Douglas because of their cool retractable cord option - very kid-friendly.  Picked a style and color.  Going with Duette Architella honeycomb shades in daisy white.  Black-out shades in most of the bedrooms.  From the time of ordering, it'll take about 2 weeks to arrive.

Last visits to the plumbing store

Over the weekend, I realized that I had neither ordered the drawer pulls for the bathrooms nor ordered the kitchen faucets.  oops!  My sales guy did not work over the weekend so I had to wait for Monday.

Yesterday (Monday), I ordered the drawer pulls over the phone.  They are from Pacific Modern and we ordered PMH-C-02 for the master (top most pull in the left column) and PMH-M-08 for the kids (bottom most pull in the right column).  Both in a stainless steel finish.

Today, I asked my mother to help babysit the little one while I ordered kitchen faucets.  I really really like the Perrin and Rowe bridge faucet.  Notice how it stands on two feet.

traditional kitchen faucets design by https://www.lightinguniverse.com

Well, ended up getting the Grohe Bridgeford bridge faucet.  It's got three feet but it's about $600 less than the Perrin & Rowe.  Money talks!


Also got the matching pull-out faucet for the prep sink.



My little one had a great time in the store playing with all the faucets within her reach at the Grohe display.  Right now she likes to both pretend and actually wash her hands.  Perfect rainy day place for her.  :p  After I was finished ordering the faucets, she had moved onto the more expensive Rohl display.  haha!

Restoration Hardware curtains

Since it was the last day of their friends and family sale where you get 30% off everything, we took a trip to Restoration Hardware to look at curtain options.  I had my eye on their Vintage Velvet collection because it looked like it could block out light.  This would be for our family room where the TV would reside so we would want to block out most of the light from the patio doors.

We were really lucky to get a designer to work with us.  Using her iPad, she pulled up the Ikea sofa color we wanted and matched curtain colors.  We ended up with the Basketweave Linen drapes in fog.  They're definitely heavy enough to block out light and the color matched better than the velvet colors.  She also helped us pick out matching curtain rods (Antique Silver with end caps), and she drew a nifty diagram as to how we should place the curtain rod over the door.  Very cool to have someone from corporate to help us.  :)  We were very lucky to have gotten her help.


Basketweave Linen drapes in Fog

Appliances delivered

Our appliances were delivered a week ago and were installed.  This is what the kitchen looks like now.

They tarp around the island is to protect it and the new appliances from dust and grit while the crew continues working.  One of the workers pointed out that there was a small dent on the hood.  He asked me if we wanted to exchange it for a non-dented hood.  It was so small that you could not see it, you had to feel for it.  I thanked him for his attention to detail but decided the tiny dent was not worth the hassle of exchanging it.

Here's the correct tiling in the kids bathroom!

Veterans Day: shower doors and granite

Today is Veterans Day.  A holiday recognized by the city so last night we called our GC to tell him he couldn't work tomorrow unless he wanted to get fined.  [We didn't even realize this Friday was a holiday until our nanny brought it up.  :p]

At 9am, we had a scheduled appointment with the shower door guy.  He came in and discussed how high we wanted the glass, how to open the doors, and whether we wanted towel bars on the glass.  Pretty quick since we only had two bathrooms that needed shower doors.

At 11am, met at the granite fabricator's again to discuss layout of the templates on the new granite slab.  One thing the GC pointed out that I totally did not take into account was where the most beautiful parts of the granite were located.  He said we would definitely want to incorporate certain parts of the granite if possible.  We were there for about half an hour placing the templates on the slabs in different orientations.  I should've taken a picture of the final decision!  Well, we ended up by locating the gray spots in the back of the counters where people wouldn't really notice.  Also I picked out what I thought was the prettiest part of the granite to use on the main counter near the cooktop.

I ordered two towel bars from Restoration Hardware's Modern collection for the kids' bathroom.  Gotta take advantage of their sale!  :)

Granite...argh!!

Today started with meeting the granite fabricator to take a look at the layout.  He had wooden templates made with the dimensions of our kitchen counters.  Discovered that one of the slabs we bought was not wide enough.  The GC had counted for all the granite exactly so we wouldn't have to waste money buying extra granite we would not use.  We simply had the wrong size granite (101" x 58").  So GC went immediately up to IRG to exchange the slab for a bigger one (107" x 58").

Went to Saratoga Plumbing to order the rest of our shower trim and powder room items (pedestal sink, faucets).  Going with the ever-popular Kohler Memoirs pedestal sink and Grohe Seabury faucets.  These faucets had to be in chrome to match the nearby wall sconces I had ordered, otherwise they would have been in brushed nickel.


Grohe Seabury - ordered one on the bottom with levers


Kohler Memoirs pedestal sink


Visited the home and found a dilemma in the master bathroom.  We had wanted our large rectangular tiles to be laid our horizontally but the worker had laid them out vertically.  *sigh*  After much discussion, we decided to leave them as vertical.  The biggest reason was that to use the tile horizontally, every single piece of tile would have to be cut and then we would lose the extra smooth factory edge which would not look as nice.  Plus, the worker has a lot of experience laying tile and he said that the edge from his cutting of the tile would just not be as beautiful as the factory edge.  Leaving the tiles vertical would give us the cleanest lines.  Also, I gave him a diagram of the shower niche we wanted.

Drove up to IRG to pick one of the two slabs our GC had pre-approved. The larger slabs of Princess White had large gray spots on them. So I picked the one with the fewest gray spots (below).  Check out the gorgeous Polar White marble slab behind it!!

Went to Restoration Hardware to order bathroom hardware for the powder room from their Chatham collection.  Towel bar was in stock but had to get the towel ring ordered and shipped.
Normally, I would've ordered the Grohe Seabury hardware but Restoration Hardware is having their 20% off friends and family sale so the price beats the Grohe hardware price.

Countertop templating

Last week's run to Saratoga Plumbing was to prepare for today's countertop templating appointment.  You need to have all your sinks and faucets before they can do templating so they know how many holes to drill and how they'll be placed.

Rob from Accent Counters came out to measure the counters and sinks, and took a look at the faucets.  Very efficient.

Lots of errands

Another day of running from store to store...

Universal Electric Supply:  GC sent me here to pick a recessed light trim.  I had to ask the front desk lady where they were and she pointed to the ceiling.  haha!  :p

Trim for all lights

Cool LED under cabinet lights

Swively light in upper right

Towne Tile:  Came here to order kitchen backsplash tile.  Just needed to pick out a color that would work with the cabinet and countertop whites.

Inspiration photo

Home Depot:  Looked at carpeting here.  DH has very specific ideas of how plush our carpeting should be so he went around and tested all the carpets.  Found two lines from their Platinum Plus brand that would work.  Took a bunch of samples home.

House:  Because you always have to check up the progress on your house.

Bathroom faucets and sinks

Went to Saratoga Plumbing to order faucets and sinks for the master and kids bathrooms.  Need to do this so we can schedule templating for the quartz countertops.  They need those measurements to cut the stone correctly.

From the previous remodel, we learned that Kohler Caxton sinks are the best value if you're not hankering for a fancy sink.  As for the master, we went with Hansgrohe Solaris E and the Grohe Eurosmart for the kids.  Both in brushed nickel so I don't have to clean them too often - fewer or less noticeable waterspots.


Grohe Eurosmart

Hansgrohe Solaris E

Zoning

Today we met with the heating guy to discuss zoning.  We definitely wanted at least 3 zones:  front part of the house, the family room (with its tall ceilings), and the bedrooms.  For an extra $600 we could get 4 zones.  So why not?  The fourth zone is the nursery.  Now we don't have to worry about temperature regulation for any future baby.  yay!  :)

Bubbles chandelier

The Bubbles chandelier from Solaria Home cannot be found anywhere local.  Seems that they mainly sell it online?  So anyway, the saleslady that I worked with at Los Altos Lighting offered to order it for me.  She worked directly with Solaria Home and got me the lowest price I was able to find on the internet (and no sales tax!).

We did the ordering through the phone so I went to go pick up the receipt today at the store.

Unfortunately, the lights aren't coming in until end of January...

Rise of issues

Went to Saratoga Plumbing this morning to see if they would price match the Grohe Brideford faucet with the other showroom's quote.  The sales guy was perplexed as to how the other showroom could get their prices so low!!  Later on, my GC told me that the other showroom was going out of business.  Hence, everything would have to be bought in cash.  eep!

Back at the house, I discovered that the tile store had delivered the wrong color tile.  We were supposed to get white and they shipped celery.  Turns out it was a manufacturer error and that the new tile would be shipped up in a day since the company was in LA (thankfully!).  But thank goodness I was luckily enough to swing by the house just as the worker had laid out the bottom half of the shower which is in celery.  He showed me the tiles for the top part which were the ones with the wrong color.  I'm so glad he did not waste any effort laying out the wrong colored tiles.

Bottom half laid out (no grout yet)

 
Also, while sorting this out with the tile guy, I decided that I'd rather have white quarter rounds to match the white tiles rather than the celery we had previously decided on.  (Actually, I don't remember deciding that but he did.  Oops, my bad.)  So now we'll have some extra celery quarter rounds because those are custom order and can't be returned.

The GC asked me to give the city a call regarding our gas line situation,  Our gas is padlocked shut so we can't turn it on.  The utility guy who came out to open the gas lines said that we needed an inspection sticker before the padlock could be removed.  Now we have to figure out who to talk to find out what to do next.  yay, fun with the city again!

Went by Restoration Hardware to buy a couple of 4" handles to test in our kitchen.  Do we use 4" or 6"??

Shower tiles

Yesterday, finished ordering the rest of the lighting.
Note to self, order lighting earlier (if there's a next time) because some of the lights will not arrive until December or January - 2/3 months away.

They started laying out the tiles in the bathrooms!  Here's the progress:

Master bathroom

Powder room

Master Bathroom: Turino Grey Pebbles by Venetian Floor
Powder Room:  Polished Black Pebbles by Stratastone

Faucet showroom

Visited a kitchen/bath showroom today where my mother had bought all of her faucets for her remodel 10 years ago.  They had a lot of products on display.  Took a good luck at the faucets that are not on display at Saratoga Plumbing.

Hansgrohe Solaris E

Grohe Bridgeford

Really really like the look of the Bridgeford and asked for a quote.  I want to compare their prices with Saratoga Plumbing.

We had a week of not being able to go to the house because they were staining the floors.  Checked up today.  Our baseboard is now in!

(some) Lighting ordered!

For the past few days, I've been emailing companies to find a local store that sells their products.  Solaria Home is difficult!  They have one store that is "local" to me - it's in Tahoe City about 4 hours away.  *sigh*

So anyway, for the Robert Abbey Bling Chandelier, I got a sales rep to tell me of a store located in Redwood City!  yay, it's close to me!  Called up Coast Lighting and asked them to price out the chandelier for me.  Their price was even better than what I found online!  :)

Went there in the afternoon to pay for it.  Easy sale for the sales guy that picked up the phone when I called.

Then went to Los Altos Lighting to order the kitchen pendants.  Probably should've done that days ago when I couldn't find anything else that I liked pendant-wise.


Going around the differnt lighting stores, I realize that I'm definitely attracted to the square lights ror our master bathroom. The saleslady at Los Altos Lighting showed me an awesome one from a German lighting company, Holtkotter. It also had an "awesome" price tag of $664. (Would need 2 of these so it's a bit over our budget.)

Notice how the lights are pointing downwards.  Well, while looking for a cheaper version, we could only find square lights pointing upwards.  Strange, huh?  But at less than $200 a pop, we would go with square upward-facing lights for our master bath.

Even more lighting

Another possible chandelier for the family room is something quite different from the Bubbles chandelier.


Oly Studio Serena Chandelier

This morning, my little one started to cry (so sad!) when I was leaving. Since she's been teething and suffering from a low-grade fever, I decided to spare her and brought her and the nanny along for my morning errands. First stop was Accent Counters again to return the sample of Caesarstone Organic White - which totally works with our cabinets! Funny thing was that our nanny is familiar with the area and told me not to venture far into the neighborhoods there because it's a small gangland. Plus, our Prius would stick out like a sore thumb and most certainly would be broken into. Good things to know! As we were leaving, we passed a pimped out car; she knew the driver. haha!

Since my little tyke was with us, I decided to push up my Safeway run so that she could get the chance to ride in a shopping cart (versus going to look at lighting). Bought some fresh bagels - so yummy!!! - haven't had a fresh bagel in so long that I had forgotten how good they are. And the Safeway prices are great!

After the little one went down for her nap, I went out to run the rest of my errands. Another mom in our playgroup suggested Beacon Lighting in Sunnyvale since they had a lot of selection and were having a sale. It was a 20% off everything sale! Pretty darn cool. :) I bought two vanity lights for the kids' bathroom and hauled them home.

Floor stain

Now that the wood flooring has been installed, now is the time for staining!  The flooring guys laid out a bunch of samples from Dura Seal.

The GC and I picked out a few colors to test in a bigger swath. I believe the picture below shows Golden Brown (r) and Provincial (l). I ended up picking Provincial.

More lighting

After a few days of online research for lighting, I did find a few that seem to work (hopefully).


Arctic Pear Glass Chandelier by Ochre

This one is the one where you see a picture of it and you gasp because it stuns you with its beauty.
Of course, there's no price online for it. You have to call in for the price. But the smallest version of this is about $3800 so I'm assuming this size, which is the next up, is maybe around $5000? It's all hand-blown glass from the UK and takes like 3 months to make because it's a custom order.
[After showing this to my DH, he promptly put together a lighting budget for me. hehehe.]

Thankfully, it's not a new chandelier. Other people who had previously fallen in love with it had found more affordable similar-looking chandeliers...and posted them online! Yay for me! Someone was kind enough to post their research. So now we're going with...


Robert Abbey Bling Crystal Drop Chandelier

Emailed the company for a local dealer. So much more peace of mind to work with an actual store and salesperson versus online. Especially if you're dropping $$.


After much browsing, I found another "gasp, this is what I want!" chandelier that would work for the family room.


Bubbles Chandelier by Solaria Home Lighting

For the family room, we need 2 chandeliers so price is definitely a factor (not that it wasn't before). It took forever to find out that the manufacturer of this Bubbles chandelier was Solaria Home. They have an exclusive website that you cannot access unless you're a lighting dealer/wholesaler. I took the picture of this one to different lighting stores to see if they could find something similar. Nothing!

Today's errands took me back to Accent Counters to return the samples. This time I brought a cabinet door to compare the colors with. The only sample that I had brought home that seemed to work was Caesarstone Nougat which I am not particularly fond of. But thankfully the lady thought that Caesarstone Organic White would work just fine. That was the color that I really wanted to work too! So she had me take a large sample back to test against the bathroom cabinets.

Also, two more lighting stores today. Lots of catalog browsing. And again, every other light that I liked was discontinued. :p

Granite selection

Today, I went up to IRG at noon to meet with my GC to select the slabs of granite for the kitchen. Once I got there, I verified that the Princess White was definitely the one that I wanted. Once it's in, it's final!
 

Matching cabinetry to granite

First we had the owner measure out the slabs. Then, using a lot of scrap paper, the GC and I calculated and diagrammed how to fit all the kitchen counters on to 2 slabs. Based on the price, he didn't want us to have to buy too much extra.

Then, with the GC's help, I was able to look at the entire pile of Princess White slabs available. It was a good thing too because the first 4 or so slabs had grey splotches. He thought that those splotches were unacceptable. The last 3 slabs were perfect - no big splashes of grey. So we reserved all 3! While the workers were moving the slabs, another couple were also looking at the slabs and commenting. I was silently hoping they weren't going to try to jump in and take the slabs I wanted. Thankfully they decided to go with the original blue granite at which they were previously looking before the slab moving.

As for price, IRG will not price match because they believe they have priced everything fairly for the quality.

So before we bought our slabs outright, I wanted to check up with Da Vinci Marble...the price different was almost $10/sq ft. To be continued...

Lighting!

During this whole house remodel process, I suddenly remembered that we needed to order lighting. eep!

Went over to Los Altos Lighting. We had dropped by this store a couple of years ago and liked their pendant display. Plus, their prices seemed reasonable. So this was the store I had in mind for lighting despite their abysmal yelp reviews. When the lady there found out when the remodel was projected to finish (mid-November), she looked kind of horrified at how late it was. :p My bad!

If I had known how long it would take to order lighting, it would've been one of the first things to do in the early stages. *sigh*

So anyway, I picked out a pendant light for the kitchen just to find out that it had been discontinued. We then looked through lighting books to find something similar. That was really tough. Towards the end, she suggested a pendant in the store that I had missed...and it was perfect!



Van Buren Pendant by Wilmette Lighting


On the house front, they've installed the cabinets!

Kitchen

Master Bathroom

Bathroom Countertops and Hardware

Day of running around and getting quotes for our bathroom countertops. We had decided to go with quartz in the bathrooms for easy maintenance. Plus, there's enough granite in the kitchen to make granite in the bathroom a bit of granite overkill.

First stop was Accent Counters. The lady there was very helpful in helping me select some possible colors from different quartz manufacturers. They also have a yard of remnants which are discounted. She sent me home with 5 different samples. They will send me a quote via email.

Next stop was the counter store that I went to last time we did this remodel thing. They had a lot of the major quartz manufacturers on display. It was pretty much a "let me know when you find something you like" place. The guy there pretty much said that all the quartz manufacturers use the same machine for manufacturing since there's a patent on it, and that all the manufacturers copy each other so their colors are similar. I got quotes for two different grades of Caesarstone.

Drove over to Da Vinci Marble since someone had bought their Princess White granite from them (all research from online). They have an absolutely beautiful showroom with many unique mosaics. Definitely looked like an upscale place. Found my slab of Princess White granite and took a picture of the price for price comparison with IRG.

Shuffled over to Restoration Hardware in downtown Palo Alto to look at hardware for our kitchen cabinets. They have a really nice display by collection. It's great how they have different sizes of drawer pulls and matching knobs for each collection. Now I understand why it seems that a lot of people online purchase their kitchen hardware from Restoration Hardware.

For price comparison, I had to stop by Home Depot just to look at their pulls and knobs. Definitely a lot more affordable than Restoration Hardware but not so great on the selection. The handles were a bit shorter than I would like. At least now I won't feel guilty about shelling out for RH hardware. :p

Here's a photo of baseboard ready to be installed:

Wednesday: GC called us - cabinets are finished and delivered. In my mind, "WHAT?!?! It's only been 2 weeks!!"

Actually, it was a week and a half. But I hadn't called him about the cabinet colors yet! I thought it would take him about 4-6 weeks to finish the cabinetry!!!

Thursday: We met and figured out what had happened. Turns out that there was a misunderstanding about the cabinet color. When he said that he usually uses Kelly Moore Swiss Coffee (which contractor doesn't???), I told him that I would be picking out a Benjamin Moore color. Well, he thought that I said I wanted the Swiss Coffee from Benjamin Moore. cripes.

So anyhoo, our GC talked to him and the cabinet maker was willing to take the cabinets back and paint them with the color of our choice for no extra charge. I told them to give me the weekend to figure it out. So in the evening, I decided which colors to test.

Friday: Rushed to the paint store to pick out 3 samples of white - Chantilly Lace, White Diamond, and Swiss Coffee. Painted the samples at home.

Saturday: We went to the granite place to test the white paint samples against our chosen granite. While there, we met a friendly woman who had also picked out the same granite as us for her kitchen and was also going to do quartz in her bathrooms. She helped me decide which white worked best. Luckily for the cabinet maker, Swiss Coffee proved to be best against the granite. The other two whites were too stark - would've made the cabinets look like hospital cabinetry. I called our GC right away to let him know that it was OK to install the cabinets as is.

Since the lady had already installed her granite, she gave me her samples of granite!! yay!

Btw, our little one had an awesome time at the granite place because it was easy to play hide-n-seek with daddy. Plus, the truck that moves the granite beeps and was fun to watch. heehee.

Plumbing store

Visited the plumbing store twice today with a dental appointment in between.

The Grohe faucet we had originally picked out years ago for the kids bathroom is now discontinued. It's either a California lead issue or Grohe totally discontinued it. Apparently, for the bill regarding lead in children's toys, they tacked on a regulation regarding lead content in faucets. So now, certain faucets are not allowed to be shipped to California. Be wary, internet shoppers!

I was planning to be one of those internet shoppers for faucets but the plumbing store prices are the same as the internet prices. Therefore, no point in ordering through the web when I can interact with a real person in a real store. If there any issues, it'll be easier to deal with an actual person and store.

Outside of faucets, also took a look at toilets. Yes, so very exciting and very necessary. Below are pictures of Inax toilets. Inax and Toto are the top 2 toilet makers in Japan. Now Inax has a distribution center and customer service center in the Bay Area so need to worry about not being able to get replacement parts, etc. They only make dual flush but they're supposed to perform better than the Toto dual flush toilets. Also, the skirting around the bottom of the toilet seems to be way easier to clean than the Toto skirting.