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