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.

Cabinets ordered

During the previous week, met the second cabinet guy twice.  According to the GC, both cabinet makers are comparable in quality but the second guy is more timely.  That was a huge plus in my book.  Plus, the second cabinet guy (Han of Deka Custom Cabinetry) is pretty smiley.  It's more pleasant to do business with a happy person.

Yes, on my birthday, we met with Han to officially sign the contract and put the deposit down for the cabinetry.  Picked out the wood stain for the island, confirmed the door style and told him we'd call him later with the paint color from Benjamin Moore for the other cabinets (this was a small point of contention later...).

Sneak peek of colors

This is what the view from our family room currently looks like.
Yes, went a little nuts with the colors. :p

Painting: exterior and interior

They use a sprayer to paint the exterior. Look at all the protection around the doors and windows! We're also repainting the exterior on the old portion of the house because it'd look funny otherwise.

Cans of paint for our family room.

Bright blue ceiling!

Progress

Went in on Saturday morning to check on the progress. (Friday was the big door and flooring day. Plus, made a stop at the furniture store to order our headboard and sleeper sofa so didn't have any time to go see the house.)

Family room - finishing up the texture. Next, they'll apply primer everywhere.

Kitchen - a step behind the new portion of the house in terms of walls. They just finished applying mud and sanding here.

The GC makes sure that his crew cleans up before they leave for the weekend. Clean floors! :)

Flooring

Floors
Looked at a bunch of floor samples in a small room of the flooring company. As I browsed the selection, a total of 3 ladies and 1 guy came through to look at flooring too. Seems that picking flooring is mainly a woman's job! :p

Looked through some exotic woods and found this lovely tigerwood.

Realistically, we're picking between red (left) and white (right) oak with white oak being the harder of the two.

Then it's a matter of the type of cut - flat sawn(left) or quarter sawn (right).

We ended up with quartersawn white oak even though the GC and the flooring subcontractor kept saying that red oak was more beautiful. I just really don't care for the reddish tinge of the red oak.

Doors

Today's errands take me to the door guy and a flooring company our subcontractor uses.

Doors From the last remodel attempt, we decided on two panel doors with an upper arch. We still like that look so we're sticking with it this time around. Also, this time around, the doors are 1/3 the price (about $100+) of the doors last go around ($300+). Solid doors are about $50 more than hollow doors. We also needed to replace the door to the garage to bring things up to code -- I was hoping not to have to buy a new door there. oh well!

Jeld-wen Continental - interior door

Went ahead and chose the door handles and door hinges -- all in antique/brushed nickel. Again, the door handles are 1/3 the price of the door handles last time we tried remodeling. So crazy the price difference! It's really a brand difference: Copper Creek versus Baldwin.

Copper Creek Waverlie door handle in Antique Nickel

Oh, the prices we pay

Yesterday, I met the flooring subcontractor. According to my GC, he gave us a pretty amazing price for flooring. The subcontractor said that he usually charges double for our city. I asked him why. He said it was because the homes are million-dollar homes so you can charge more - what cost $2 in another city will cost $4 in our city. This is why we get such high quotes for construction!!! Our GC thought that was so wrong because it's the same material and same labor. *sigh*

Wall progress

Here are two pictures of the same room and walls to show the progress the crew is making on our walls.  
Left: After mud layers and sanding
Right: After applying texture

Close up of texture

Picking trim and baseboard

To select door trim and baseboard, I propped the samples next to my paint samples.

Narrowed it down to to A,

and B.

The door trim was easy to pick. There were only a few samples that were the width I liked. I also eliminated some baseboard options based on height. A high baseboard will make up for the fact that we're not doing crown molding. Ultimately ended up with option A, a slightly more ornate one to match the door trim. (The GC said that was the one he had installed in his home recently. yay!)

Wall texture and diligence

The GC pointed out a window that didn't have perfectly level drywall around it such that the window itself looked crooked. Good thing he caught it!! I did not even *think* to look at that!

Also, another awesome thing about our GC: he's going to put wooden casing around our family room patio door and transom window...no extra charge!!! In his mind, it's a necessary detail because it'll make the home more beautiful.

Today, his crew is applying the second layer of mud on the drywall as well as sanding the mud on the drywall. After they do that, they can start applying texture to the walls and then sand the walls again. He showed me the different wall textures although he said that it might be more obvious after he applies primer to the samples (the textures will show through more). So we'll have to go in this weekend and take a look.

We also passed the kitchen insulation inspection as well as the powder room waterproofing/plumbing inspection.


Three samples of wall texture


Close up of the left sample


Close up of the middle sample (combo of the other two - more labor intensive)


Close up of the right sample (orange peel texture) September 12 Decided on the orange peel texture. The pretty one cost an extra $1000 so we decided to skip on that option (and spend it on furniture instead).

Baseboard and door trim

They're in the process of applying mud to the drywall, insulating the kitchen, and installing the heating unit.

While they do this, the GC hands me a bag of baseboard and door trim samples. yay - homework!


Our existing door trim

Walls

They installed drywall everywhere!

Our GC asked whether we wanted casing or drywall around our windows and closet doors. Our original home had wood casing all around the windows. To continue that, we would have to fork over $120-240 per window. eep!

Yeah, we're going with drywall.


Window casing
We're keeping the original windows intact in the front of the home so those will keep their casing.


Drywall around the window


Special drywall/gypsum board in bathrooms


Drywall in bedroom (and around window)


Cool ladder they use to do the family room

Furniture shopping

Ever since our GC told us that we needed to pick paint colors in two weeks, I've been on a net-surfing blog-reading binge as well as lots of furniture store hopping. It's been a crazy few weeks.

Sometimes being ignorant is easier. From my design blog-reading, I learned that paint colors are supposed to be the last thing to pick, not the first. You should pick your furniture, bedding, and tile before you pick paint color. (Pulling my hair when I read this!)

Sofabed for guest room:
We sent our in-laws to try out American Leather sofabeds since they were the recommended brand in our local parents club. Good thing was that they really liked it. Not so good thing was that they wanted the queen plus size versus a regular queen since it's wider. Retail cost: $3099 *sigh*

Out of the fabric choices, I picked a microfiber (read: durable and kid-friendly) that didn't change colors when you brushed it like all the other microfibers. Yay, one piece of furniture down!

SuedeLife Heathered Flannel

Master bedroom;
We decided to stick with our current duvet cover, the very popular Calvin Klein Bamboo Flowers. I want a new padded headboard so I can read before bed. Our current metal headboard is not pleasant to lean against. Really liked this headboard. It took a couple of trips to the furniture store to try out different fabrics.

Living room:
Completely fell in love with a Pottery Barn loveseat for the living room. Fortunately, I was able to find one on craigslist. Now it's just a matter of deciding which fabric with which upholsterer.

We'll wait on the other chairs for the living room since it'll be easier to shop for that after we move back in and can really measure the space. Plus, DH wants a piano for the living room so we'll see how much space is left over for my chairs. Would love a wingback but don't know if it'll fit. :p

Btw, Pottery Barn offers free design service! This is how I found the loveseat I want. A very nice designer takes you around the store and points out different aspects of their furniture. She also cautioned me against the couches with one big cushion - they wrinkle really easily when someone sits on it and it just looks bad. She also pointed out that if we have a small space (which we do), then seeing the legs of a couch and the space underneath will make the room appear larger.

Family room:
Getting a sectional from somewhere somehow. Maybe IKEA? The only problem is the limited selection of colors and sofas. May have to look elsewhere. We've decided on the layout we want so now it's just a matter of finding which brands can do it.

Office:
Probably do an IKEA adjustable-height desk since I'm short and regular office furniture is not designed to be ergonimcally correct for petite people.