649 6th

triple threat

Here's the line-up for bathroom fixtures -- ours will all be white. Tub is a short soaker, only 4' long and almost 2' deep. Sink has a drop-in installation option, which we'll be using in conjunction with a slatted cedar vanity. I was keen to have a dual-flush toilet, but the online sales-point we used didn't carry any. Shame to see my green leanings so easily flushed down the toilet of convenience.

The terrazzo we liked at tile store were for full counters only so we switched to a 4" translucent, gray glass tile. One of the nice features of these tiles is that they don't need to be bullnosed for edge treatments. Other nice thing is that we got them at cost because they'd been special ordered and then not collected so store is eager to unload them.

mod lamp

We spent the weekend in PA visiting Michael's family. We had rented a van so that we could pick up a chifferobe he had in storage for WAY to many years.

Much to my surprise Carole had something special for us. Seems she had inherited a Danish modern lamp from her mother. They passed it along to us as a gift.

As I know they are our most loyal blog readers just a quick note to say thanks. You were right, it found the right home.

make that one thing

The plumber finally came, and went, and if you keep your fingers crossed, he may come again. Seriously, plumbers have a REALLY bad reputation much to my delight ours broke that mold. I was all set to do battle but there was none to be had, reasonable, punctual, a really nice guy.  Plumbing was one of two things that's on the list of things we don't do ourselves.

He roughed in the new kitchen feeds and drain where it needed to go. The only down side to it was he had to take away the old plumbing. Meaning the 2x4-hillbilly-beer-bong that I had rigged up in the kitchen as a sink is now sadly gone <cough>.  Meaning, we have no kitchen sink... again. The good news is the only thing that we are waiting for is ourselves. The plumber was the only hurdle to get over and then the rest was us.

Of course that hadn't always been the case. After the plumber came we were then going to bring in the drywall finish guy we've used a couple of times immediately ther after. Thus bringing us to the other item on the list of things we don't do ourselves. Turns out we couldn't get in touch with him and we needed to get this done to stay on schedule.

I say "on schedule" like there's some sort of client deadline I have to meet. The truth of the matter is Michael's family is coming to visit the second weekend in February and we know where we'd like the kitchen to be (not that it would be a hassle for them either way). We've used the little deadlines in the past to get a big flurry of stuff done why should this time be any different.

<non sequitur>Lately I've begun to pretend that I am a project manager on a design/build job when I talk to anbody about supplies or fixtures. Somehow if I pretend there's some vague "other" out there I'm trying to please they give me a lot less hassle and a lot better advice. Or, it allows me yet another fantasy diversion to play around in for a moment. </non sequitur>

To stay on schedule we needed the work to get done this week so we can tile next weekend. Mark another one off the list of things we don't do. We're taping and sealing the walls. The photo you see is after the base "tape" coat. There will be two more, fill and feather, after that it will be primed. I'm always amazed at how shockingly bad it looks after the first coat. So far I think our work is on par with the the guy we normally use. We'll see when we get a little later in the week if I'm singing the same tune.

Both of us have done finish drywall work before but, as it is one of those things that is a touch skill thing, something neither of us particularly wanted to whet back into shape. After a few hours of installing and filling corner bead, I gotta say, it's not that bad. I kinda like it. Micahel on the other hand is the master of the seam, has technique is so strong that he earn's the right to do the two remaining coats as a solo performance... ok that was blatantly Tom Sawyer'y of me.

The plan is to do a step a night this week so that by the weekend we can begin to paint and tile. I have a little time lapse sequence I'm planning in my head. Here's hoping it will make it to the animated gif I want it to be.

kitchen cabinets

Here are the final sketches for the kitchen cabinets. As always, click to enlarge (there are 9 in all).

go green

form and function

When we first bought the house, like many aspirng do it your selfers, we went out and bought a bunch o' books. One of the first on that list was by Sarah Susanka. We got the original "Not So Big House" which had some very practical advice about defining spaces within spaces. She's gone on to write many titles on the theme, ironically way beyond a mere cottage industry.

One of the features we played up in our open space plan was the use of soffits. Big rooms without designated "spaces" within them are awkward and a tend to use space really poorly. By defining the spaces with soffits we create "rooms" without having to throw up any walls.

In the kitchen, what we are trying to do is designate "hall" space from "kitchen"  space, even though it just one big square room. The thinking is it will improve traffic flow in the house in general but mostly it allows people to hang out in the kitchen without really being "in" the kitchen. We're even thinking about a little flip out bench/pearch in the hallway area to reinforce that notion.

At some point along the line we began to realize that the soffits weren't all about form. You can hide stuff in 'um too! The bathroom is the only interior room in the house. Before now it hasn't had adequate ventilation. Now it does. We mentioned the Panasonic fan in a previous post. It's an in-line fan that lives half way between the bathroom and the great outdoors. You can read the specs on the site but suffice it to say we can rapidly move some steam outta the house now.

The previous hood for the stove was connected to nothing and the kitchen was constantly filling with smoke (some dishes even when prepared properly have smoke!).We will use the soffits on the flip side of the view you are looking at to install ventilation for the new stove.  All neatly tucked up in our space defining soffits. FedEx guy called me today at work, the new hood had arrived. Luckily it was small enough that my neighbor signed for it and brought it in until we could get home from work.

Speaking of the oven and delivery, they tried to deliver it last week. Elmira has a policy that they bring the stove in and set it up. That seems to be a bit of a disconnect between them and their authorized dealer-- or was that between the authorized dealer and the shipping company? Anyway, the guys that delivered it were to leave it in our driveway or yard. Neither an option here in Brooklyn. We finally had to refuse delivery and take it up with Elmira. It's sitting in a warehouse somewhere in Brooklyn. They will redeliver and carry in but we need to reschedule so they can bring the gang of guys it's gonna take to bring it up the steps. On the up side, we're not really ready for it just yet and it may as well be stored there as in our dining room.

Finally you will note from the pictures that we installed the last of the halogen fixtures to match other soffits throughout the house. I have to say, after the designs were done and I counted the number of fixtures it seemed like A LOT. I've been counting fixtures in other remodeled spaces recently and by comparison we're not over lit. Halogen beats incandescent for energy but we could still do better. I think everything from here out is LED.

kitchen map

rainy weekend

We had a bit of wet weather head our way this weekend. Can't say I'm especially upset about it either. The work to finish up restoring the kitchen roof had to wait at least another week. We've done so much in the past few weeks it was also good just to slow down a bit for a day.

As to not call the entire weekend R&R we decided to finish up one of the half done items. We ended up landing on finshing up the installation of the pebbled glass door we found on the street. You'll remember many months back we got the paint off of it. Since then it's been leaning around waiting to be installed.

We finished framed with poplar and then set the door in the new framing. Using brushed nickle door hinges we hung it and it looks pretty darn good. The photos don't really do it justice. I''ve already gone ahead and removed the remaining traces of paint you see on the glass.

clear signals

It seems on this blog we spend the bulk of time discussing elements of traditional construction; electrical, plumbing, carpentry, demolition, etc., etc.

In a break from that routine (and to finally have something to post about) I wanted to talk a little bit about home entertainment and the convergence of devices.

As many of you know we got rid of our TV when we moved into the the house. We thought it would keep us focused on the task at hand.

The thinking had always been when we got the house to a clean enough place we would begin to create a custom system that suited our needs. First, we weren't getting a new TV. We've pretty much become a netflix and iTunes household. We watch movies and we watch TV. It's just a different model.

To do this we wanted as few components as possible. We ended up with the new dual core Mac mini and a 24" flat panel dell monitor (cause just about any device will plug into it). I have to say quite the killer combo. So much so I think my friend Jeff now has exactly the same set-up.

Now, you might have noticed that I've only mentioned two of the five things pictured at left. The other three are the tag alongs that were needed to make it all work. First up the RCA cable modem provided by Time Warner, next a Linksys wireless router. We had been sucking connectivity off of our neighbor since we moved in. We couldn't keep stability with the apple airport we had, but for some reason Tracy's network was always rock solid.

We had never stopped paying Time Warner. I had read one of the Ethicist articles in the Times that completely legitimized bandwidth theft as long as you were paying in somewhere.

With the new system I was bound and determined to get my own network running. We got rid of the old cable router with a service call from TW. I hooked up the linksys and with the help of Jeff it was up and running perfectly....for about a day. Then it went dead. The tech guys at work claimed it was because i was not running the mac IP spoofing necessary to make it not drop my IP. Thing was, I couldn't use it with my PC either.

I was getting frustrated. We had gone out and essentially got all new hardware to be back in the same place we had been-- Paying for a service we got for free from our neighbor. When Jeff returned from Europe he came over determined to help us out once and for all. He got it all set up and running in moments. Rejoicing was had. We went out to dinner and came back a short bit later, the line was dead. Doh!

That's when we come to our friend in the last panel. The power conditioner. We had been noticing since we installed the ceiling fan on the third floor that whenever you change the speed an audible pop would come out of the speakers attached to the computer. This couldn't be a good thing. Somewhere we have a ground problem. We went down to Office Max and got two APC power supplies, one for downstairs where the router and modem are and one for upstairs for the computer and stereo. We ran the cable through the conditioner as well as the electrical for all the devices.

Results: it works. Signal remains stable to the computer and the popping no longer happens when you change speeds on the fan. With regard to the grounding problem I realize this is some what like taking a pain killer rather than addressing the cause of the pain BUT, it worked. All of the frustration and all of the seemingly in-congruent advice I got for setting up my network came down to this; a cleaner signal.

For one second I want to go back and readdress one thing I thought about when writing this post. We got the new computer and monitor just after returning from vacation in May. Originally we had got rid of the TV to stay focused on the house...just an observation that you may have noticed too, progress is coming at a much slower rate these days. Just a coincidence?

it's like work

I don't know if anyone noticed but the last few weeks have been a little less tool wielding than the run up to the birthday party. A couple of reasons:

1)We had to decide on and buy all of the lighting fixtures for the first floor tip: Home Depot while good for some things wasn't doing it here. It's SO worth it to go to a specialist. AND never underestimate how long this process can take

2) We needed to think and sketch a bit-- akin to measure twice and cut once. In this case " refine design, avoid the behemoth".

3) We just needed some rest. Nothing like a nap on a cold snowy day.

Expect to see a flurry of physical work this weekend. After all we're only at 18% complete on our "get to April" plan and most of that work came from the electrician!