We met on Monday of this week to go over details of the floor plans because our designer is getting them ready for city approval. eek! We had to make minor adjustments to the second story because of something called the Daylight Plane. It's to prevent our second story from being too massive and possibly encroaching on our neighbors. Also, the land surveyor came out too. He was scheduled for last Friday but it rained that day, therefore postponing the appointment.
Today, we went over plumbing fixtures with Jim from Classic Plumbing. He came to our home with a cart of large catalogs. Lots to choose from but here are some that we picked out (but might not necessarily stick with, depending on cost/design change).
Powder Room
* Kohler Memoirs pedestal sink, Stately design
* Kohler Memoirs matching toilet, Stately design
* Grohe Seabury faucet and lever handles in brushed nickel
Kitchen
* Franke Beach Sink in the island
* Undermount double basin for the kitchen sink, possible like this
* Faucet with detachable spray
Upstairs bathroom
* Kohler Caxton undermount sink
* acrylic bathtub
* Grohe Eurodisc II faucet in chrome
* Matching Grohe Eurodisc II shower fixtures in chrome
* Toto dual-flush toilet
Master bathroom
* Kohler Caxton undermount sink
* Grohe Chiara Neu facuet in chrome
* Grohe Rainshower shower head on a ceiling arm
* handspray in the shower
* Kohler Tea-for-Two bathtub
* wall-mounted faucet for the tub
* Toto dual-flush toilet
Notes:
- Acrylic tubs have smooth finishes and cast iron tubs have grooved finishes to prevent slipping.
- Whirlpool tub costs $6000 and a soaking tub costs $2400.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Friday, February 8, 2008
Meeting VI: tiles
The soils and structural engineers came by this morning with our GC. They stood outside in the yard discussing. No discussions with us. Hopefully our plans will not be thwarted by some fluke, like an underground stream running under our property. (Apparently, our northern neighbors might have this problem.)
Our designer brought over catalogs for kitchen cabinets and magazines related to kitchens. This will make life a lot easier than me going to the library to look for these types of books or magazines.
We asked our designer to go to the local tile store with us since we had stepped in earlier in the week and were boggled by the choices. The guy inside the shop really helped us out, pretty much giving a complete tour of their store. He definitely leans towards porcelain tile as opposed to real stone. The technology for making tiles have advanced such that they can make very realistic looking "stone" tiles. Plus, they're cheaper and non-porous. According to him, match the backsplash to the floors and the countertop to the cabinets. I'm hoping we can do an interesting yet low maintenance backsplash for the kitchen.
The only thing we know is that for the kids' bathroom, we'll lay out white subway tile with some sort of design around the shower area.
Our designer brought over catalogs for kitchen cabinets and magazines related to kitchens. This will make life a lot easier than me going to the library to look for these types of books or magazines.
We asked our designer to go to the local tile store with us since we had stepped in earlier in the week and were boggled by the choices. The guy inside the shop really helped us out, pretty much giving a complete tour of their store. He definitely leans towards porcelain tile as opposed to real stone. The technology for making tiles have advanced such that they can make very realistic looking "stone" tiles. Plus, they're cheaper and non-porous. According to him, match the backsplash to the floors and the countertop to the cabinets. I'm hoping we can do an interesting yet low maintenance backsplash for the kitchen.
The only thing we know is that for the kids' bathroom, we'll lay out white subway tile with some sort of design around the shower area.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Soils engineer
The soils engineer came out to our home today. Since we're building a basement, we need to get the soil tested. Unfortunately he found water collecting beneath our home from the recent rains. boooo. This means that our French drains aren't doing their jobs. Well, hopefully with this remodel, we can correct the problem.
We also got to meet the supervisor of our project. He's the owner's son. A nice family business. :)
We also got to meet the supervisor of our project. He's the owner's son. A nice family business. :)
Friday, February 1, 2008
Meeting V
Today we went to visit the windows and door lady, Betty. We had previously decided to keep our existing front door as well as the existing double hung windows. She came over to our house to measure our existing windows to make sure we could reuse them in the bedrooms. There's a new regulation now regarding egress windows in bedrooms - they have to be a minimum dimension to allow to fully-geared firefighters to enter the home through the windows.
One of our windows was in our storage shed, left by the previous owner. (It was supposed to replace our current kitchen window.) Thankfully, the manufacturing information was still on it so Betty was able to get the model number and appropriate stats.
She saw our stuck door in the living room and said that we could reuse it in the garage. And apparently the door, along with the doors, is from a good brand so we would save ~$1000 by keeping it!
We also did a minor tweak of the floor plan to accommodate a wall oven in the kitchen. Also, we moved the entry closet across the hall, using up some office space. It's still a separate closet that's accessible outside the office.
Our homework for next meeting:
- Look at different hardware and finishes for exterior doors, interior doors, and pocket doors.
- Look at different tile for the bathrooms.
One of our windows was in our storage shed, left by the previous owner. (It was supposed to replace our current kitchen window.) Thankfully, the manufacturing information was still on it so Betty was able to get the model number and appropriate stats.
She saw our stuck door in the living room and said that we could reuse it in the garage. And apparently the door, along with the doors, is from a good brand so we would save ~$1000 by keeping it!
We also did a minor tweak of the floor plan to accommodate a wall oven in the kitchen. Also, we moved the entry closet across the hall, using up some office space. It's still a separate closet that's accessible outside the office.
Our homework for next meeting:
- Look at different hardware and finishes for exterior doors, interior doors, and pocket doors.
- Look at different tile for the bathrooms.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Day of Appliances
Today we tackled two suggested appliance stores.
University Electric in Santa Clara
To be helped by a salesperson, you have to sign in. Otherwise, they'll let you browse at your own leisure. The salesperson who helped us stayed with us for almost 2 hours since we had so many questions to ask. We looked at everything: cooktops, wall ovens, refrigerators, warming drawers, ranges, dishwashers, and washer/dryers. They had someone cooking in one of the display rooms so you can grab a snack while going through all their rooms. Cool thing is they don't work on commission in this store so they're not in a hurry to sell to you.
Standards of Excellence in San Jose
Very organized and spacious showroom. They also have a cooking area where they hold monthly cooking events so you can learn more about certain brands. You can also bring in your pots and pans to try cooking with induction. Since we had exhausted the previous salesperson at University Electric, we didn't have as many questions to as the salesperson here. Still, he was very informative.
From almost 4 hours of checking out appliances, here's what we've decided:
Cooktop versus range: Cooktops tend to be more powerful than ranges so we're definitely going with a separate cooktop and wall oven. The advantage of ranges is that they're less expensive than buying separate, and some ranges come with a warming drawer. With a separate wall oven, people tend to place them at a higher elevation than the ones in the range such that you don't have to bend down to check out the oven. Since we're still young, we don't have that issue but later on it's something we'll have to take into more serious consideration.
Induction: It's really cool to watch water boil in 2 minutes. It's 90+% efficient versus gas which is only about 50% efficient (lots of wasted heat). But you can only use stainless steel or cast iron pots and pans. You can test this at home with a magnet. If the magnet sticks to the bottom of your pan, you can use it for induction cooking. The two main pans we use for stir fry didn't cut it. Even though we have some other lesser used pans that will work, I think we're still going with gas.
Nice pros and cons of induction
Wall oven: Since we don't do much cooking in the oven, we don't need to go with top-of-the-line here. :)
Warming drawer: Great idea if you entertain frequently or have a need to keep cooked food warm (e.g., spouse comes home late for dinner often). We hope to do more entertaining in the future so we're definitely getting one of these puppies. Don't know any details though.
Refrigerator: Definitely a bottom freezer. And most likely French doors for the refrigerator part. Not sure of the brand - we'll have to look at our Consumer Reports for energy efficiency and usable space stats.
Dishwasher: Fisher & Paykel has a cool dishwasher with double drawers. The two drawers combined is the same size as a regular dishwasher. This way you can use one drawer if there aren't that many dirty dishes. Only downside is that you can't put chopsticks in, like most dishwashers. KitchenAid actually has a utensil rack where you can place chopsticks that we're also considering. On the green side of things, Miele is mainly made of metal so they're the most recyclable dishwasher on top of its energy efficiency.
Washer & Dryer: We'll probably go with a front-loading washer because they're more earth-friendly - uses less water. Purchasing the extra stands so we don't have to break our backs bending over to load and unload laundry.
Color: The main colors available for appliances are black, white, and stainless steel. Viking does offer other colors for their appliances. Neither of like white and the problem with black is that a black refrigerator is very oppressive in a regular kitchen. Black refrigerators are probably ok in gigantic kitchens. So to be safe, we're going with stainless steel. I was worried that stainless steel would become a dated color for kitchens but then I read on the web that professional kitchens are stainless steel - it'll never be out of style because it was never in style. yay! :)
University Electric in Santa Clara
To be helped by a salesperson, you have to sign in. Otherwise, they'll let you browse at your own leisure. The salesperson who helped us stayed with us for almost 2 hours since we had so many questions to ask. We looked at everything: cooktops, wall ovens, refrigerators, warming drawers, ranges, dishwashers, and washer/dryers. They had someone cooking in one of the display rooms so you can grab a snack while going through all their rooms. Cool thing is they don't work on commission in this store so they're not in a hurry to sell to you.
Standards of Excellence in San Jose
Very organized and spacious showroom. They also have a cooking area where they hold monthly cooking events so you can learn more about certain brands. You can also bring in your pots and pans to try cooking with induction. Since we had exhausted the previous salesperson at University Electric, we didn't have as many questions to as the salesperson here. Still, he was very informative.
From almost 4 hours of checking out appliances, here's what we've decided:
Cooktop versus range: Cooktops tend to be more powerful than ranges so we're definitely going with a separate cooktop and wall oven. The advantage of ranges is that they're less expensive than buying separate, and some ranges come with a warming drawer. With a separate wall oven, people tend to place them at a higher elevation than the ones in the range such that you don't have to bend down to check out the oven. Since we're still young, we don't have that issue but later on it's something we'll have to take into more serious consideration.
Induction: It's really cool to watch water boil in 2 minutes. It's 90+% efficient versus gas which is only about 50% efficient (lots of wasted heat). But you can only use stainless steel or cast iron pots and pans. You can test this at home with a magnet. If the magnet sticks to the bottom of your pan, you can use it for induction cooking. The two main pans we use for stir fry didn't cut it. Even though we have some other lesser used pans that will work, I think we're still going with gas.
Nice pros and cons of induction
Wall oven: Since we don't do much cooking in the oven, we don't need to go with top-of-the-line here. :)
Warming drawer: Great idea if you entertain frequently or have a need to keep cooked food warm (e.g., spouse comes home late for dinner often). We hope to do more entertaining in the future so we're definitely getting one of these puppies. Don't know any details though.
Refrigerator: Definitely a bottom freezer. And most likely French doors for the refrigerator part. Not sure of the brand - we'll have to look at our Consumer Reports for energy efficiency and usable space stats.
Dishwasher: Fisher & Paykel has a cool dishwasher with double drawers. The two drawers combined is the same size as a regular dishwasher. This way you can use one drawer if there aren't that many dirty dishes. Only downside is that you can't put chopsticks in, like most dishwashers. KitchenAid actually has a utensil rack where you can place chopsticks that we're also considering. On the green side of things, Miele is mainly made of metal so they're the most recyclable dishwasher on top of its energy efficiency.
Washer & Dryer: We'll probably go with a front-loading washer because they're more earth-friendly - uses less water. Purchasing the extra stands so we don't have to break our backs bending over to load and unload laundry.
Color: The main colors available for appliances are black, white, and stainless steel. Viking does offer other colors for their appliances. Neither of like white and the problem with black is that a black refrigerator is very oppressive in a regular kitchen. Black refrigerators are probably ok in gigantic kitchens. So to be safe, we're going with stainless steel. I was worried that stainless steel would become a dated color for kitchens but then I read on the web that professional kitchens are stainless steel - it'll never be out of style because it was never in style. yay! :)
Monday, January 28, 2008
Day of Lighting
We visited the three lighting stores our designer had suggested. The two located in our local area were tiny and did not have much on display. One of them was distinctly modern in its tastes so while it was amusing to browse that store, the lighting fixtures did not suite our tastes.
We went to one in RWC and it was more of what I thought a lighting store would be like - large, spacious, lights everywhere. They had a this gigantic round light made of small pieces of crystal or glass and relied on light dispersion to change colors. So it was a different color depending on where you stood in relation to it. Very cool. There was a salesman (Neil) there that clearly knew lighting and was very helpful since we are completely clueless about lighting. We took note of the lights that we liked so we could show our designer. We'll probably end up bringing her to the lighting store with us.
We went to one in RWC and it was more of what I thought a lighting store would be like - large, spacious, lights everywhere. They had a this gigantic round light made of small pieces of crystal or glass and relied on light dispersion to change colors. So it was a different color depending on where you stood in relation to it. Very cool. There was a salesman (Neil) there that clearly knew lighting and was very helpful since we are completely clueless about lighting. We took note of the lights that we liked so we could show our designer. We'll probably end up bringing her to the lighting store with us.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Meeting IV: doors and windows
Had our meeting today about windows and doors. We've decided to keep our original red front door since we really like it. Since our designer also likes it, it's a definite keeper.
We'll also be keeping most of our existing windows since they're high quality double-hung windows. We like the fact that we can open up both the top and bottom of the window simultaneously for air circulation. Since we have about 10 of these in the house in working order, our contractor said that we'd save about $10K by just keeping them! (sheesh! Windows are expensive!)
For our next meeting:
* Figure out general style of lighting fixtures
* Figure out appliances and finishes
* Maybe put a window in the mudroom??
We'll also be keeping most of our existing windows since they're high quality double-hung windows. We like the fact that we can open up both the top and bottom of the window simultaneously for air circulation. Since we have about 10 of these in the house in working order, our contractor said that we'd save about $10K by just keeping them! (sheesh! Windows are expensive!)
For our next meeting:
* Figure out general style of lighting fixtures
* Figure out appliances and finishes
* Maybe put a window in the mudroom??
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