Looking outside

Warm days, cold nights, falling leaves, rain showers and the occasional tornado - the transition from summer to autumn on Long Island.

Hair, Bristle and Profiles

Note to self and other interested parties: Never, ever, leave the State or even the house so the flooring guy can sand and seal the floors and stain the baseboards and trim without getting pet dander in the mix. Not unless you are prepared, upon returning from vacation, to find that he has sealed someone else's hair and a handful of grit into your kitchen floor and stained three hundred feet of baseboard that doesn't match the rest of your uniquely modern house. Be aware that the feeling of nausea and subsequent meltdown when you survey the mess will last much longer than the three weeks it takes for the smell of floor sealer to dissipate from the house.
The kitchen floor has to be redone but with two dogs and four cats this is no easy (or cheap) undertaking. We decided to wait until we were on another trip so the animals would be in kennels anyway. However I'm really unhappy about leaving the guys to correct their mistakes without supervision. My supervision!
Then there's the baseboard. Stain grade baseboard. Roughly twice the price of the pre-primed stuff, more when you add in the time to actually stain it the correct shade. Leaving aside the occasional brush bristle in the finish - after all we don't have to use those pieces (eye roll) - there's the fact that it's 1/4" too narrow and the profile is rounded. It's not as if I wasn't explicit about it matching the rest of the trim in the house. This carpenter had installed the square edge in the master bedroom a few years back, when I also made him replace a piece in the closet that he thought "would do". He knows I am that obsessive.
And he really shouldn't have said that was all that was available in his catalog. Because he know I am going to check. It took an hour on Saturday morning to find two lumber yards - both in this town- that have stain grade baseboard the right size, and both were cheaper than what he told me he paid. I think he should suck it up and reorder the molding. He offered to have the rounded edge routered off - at my cost. Changing the edge isn't going to make it grow an extra quarter inch wider, is it? And the molding can't go on until the floor is redone so we are at an impasse. I guess I'm lucky he didn't get around to the trim.
The great baseboard/molding/flooring debacle is holding up the completion of the renovation and I'm frustrated that something that should have been done by the end of July has dragged on another month with the very real possibility of going through until Fall.

The lights went out

Well, half the undercabinet lights. I haven't even got paint on the walls, let alone a backsplash behind the small appliance counter but now three of the six strip Xenon lights from WAC stubbornly refuse to light up. Ylighting think it's a transformer issue and are sending me a new unit. Until then the lighting will be a little sombre, which suits my mood.

Picking Paint

Various people have been asking what color we have chosen for the kitchen and while I'm tempted to leave up the mix of spackle, old paint and backing paper that's currently adorning the walls, I think it may be more aesthetically pleasing to have coherence in that space. The oppressive heat and humidity that was summer 2010 has abated so we're up to the challenge of picking a paint color. Obviously we aren't undertaking this lightly. Remember this marathon paint ponderation from 2007? That wasn't resolved until 2008 - and after all the drama we went with the color on the dining room walls. I had already used some sample pots left over from the master bedroom to try out four shades of green/gray, Iced Cube Silver, Gray Cashmere, Moonshine and Crystalline but none was really speaking to us. So I got out the paint chips and with some trepidation began the process anew. It turned out to be a really simple process. We had already decided on a gray to pick up on the tones in the Caesarstone Misty Carrera countertop. Most of the chips were too dark, a couple too light and then we had the perfect Goldilocks moment.


We loved Silver Satin, the color I painted the door and trim in the green bathroom many years ago. It works in both the sunny and full shadow areas of the kitchen. Because there is no logical place to stop in this house we'll continue this color through the mud room, up the back stairs, along the balcony, down the front stair, finally finishing by covering the walls in the foyer. Eventually we'll also give the great room a coat of two of this lovely pale grey.


We could use Silver Satin in the den as well but ultimately we decided that Bronzed Beige give this room more definition. Bronzed Beige is the color we used in this room and The Guy's office.


The ceilings and room openings with be freshened up with Simply White.
All colors by Benjamin Moore.

Filling the hole

Also a little marvel: 15" wine refrigerator by Marvel. That completes the appliance selection for the new kitchen, And yes, we had it filled 24 hours after it was installed and no we haven't emptied it again...yet.

Orient the (micro) Wave

The kitchen isn't even finished yet I'm almost certain there will be a minor remodel to the renovation in the future. The microwave is sitting on the counter like the ugly big box it is, reminding me daily that my first wish for the kitchen was a dedicated small appliance area and my second was to stop the breaker tripping every time we used the toaster, coffee maker and microwave simultaneously.
I looked at built-in microwaves and microwaves in a drawer but they were so expensive that when it came time to do the budget I nixed the idea. We decided we could live with the microwave on the counter and had the electrician run four outlets on the wall behind the small appliance area. It transpires that he didn't run a separate 20 amp breaker for the microwave though, so we still can't heat oatmeal, make toast and warm coffee at the same time - a fact we discovered when we had a bunch of people staying all trying to get breakfast together.
So something has to be done. When I ordered the other appliances I talked to the sales guy who told me that built-in microwaves were not worth the money and it would be much cheaper (and fairly easy) to convert a 24" or 30" cabinet to hold the microwave and buy a trim kit that allows steam to vent out the front. It's certainly an option and I do have a few placement possibilities.


I could build an appliance garage on the small appliance wall under the staircase but this would cut into valuable counterspace - and make that wall look cramped - it would also be a pain to run a dedicated line to the microwave here. I could also modify one of the 30" cabinet drawers underneath but it would ruin the look of that cabinet run.


Or I could place it in the island - there is a dedicated 20 amp line here that will only be used occasionally and it would be handy for heating plates etc. but the induction cooktop is so super fast that I wouldn't use the microwave for heating stock or any other cooking process and it's far from the site of primary use - heating oatmeal, boiling water and reheating coffee.


The final place probably has the fewest disadvantages. The cupboard next to the dishwasher houses appliances we use occasionally: coffee bean grinder, ice cream maker, food processor. It would be easy to relocate these to the tall pantry, which, at the moment, is completely empty. We would replace the two tall doors with two 15" doors on the bottom of the cabinet and place the microwave on the shelf up top, then trim it out with the kit. The microwave would be opposite the coffee maker and it would be a cinch to run a new 20 amp line here with no visible holes in the wall. The only problem? I really like the way that run of cabinets looks now. I don't want to mess it up with an ugly microwave. What to do?

Matching panels

A couple of things got crossed off the punch list today. I fixed the brown switchplates under the countertops and they installed the other Caesarstone island panel... at last


This side needs a switchplate cover but of course I didn't have a white one in the house. Next order of business - sanding out the grit & hair on the floor & re-sealing, followed by molding, toekicks and baseboards. Then paint. I seriously cannot wait for the paint, that's when I'll know the kitchen renovation is finally finished.

Black and White in Summer

The dining room, the space I declared finished in January 2006 and that we decided to add to the kitchen renovation, finally got its new clothes thanks to some design help from the Awesome Designer and a shopping trip to Kravet's Bethpage, NY showroom one rainy day back in April.


The drapery fabric Solarte from Kravet Soleil, is a retro-vibe indoor/outdoor fabric that should stand up better to dog affection than the Dupioni silk that hung there before.


Although it looks black & white in the stock image, there is a lot of subtlety in the shading - ebony, stone, mocha and a silvery pewter.


The rug, Cap Ferrat, is, like the Chinese Chippendale now in the den, a design by Windor Smith for Kravet. The seafoam color marries well with the grey-green Benjamin Moore Titanium walls and the dark brown ovals are almost the exact shade of the beams and the mocha shading in the drapes. (Black, seafoam and the sun seem to have been a big part of this recent renovation. I think I'll have to invest in some black and white tea towels for the kitchen!).


All we need now are those pesky baseboards...

Almost there

...apart from moldings, baseboard, toekicks, paint and the left side Caesarstone panel for the island (once again the installer wasn't happy with the fabricator's work). It's frustrating that we still aren't done but at least we have a working kitchen for the first time in more than two months.


I was extremely excited to start cooking again, then I remembered that all the pans and utensils were boxed up in the garage and we had nothing in the pantry.



So I settled for shopping for supplies, opening those boxes and washing every pot in the giant Blanco sink. Very therapeutic it was, too!

The only three words that matter

spoken by the Guy as he sat in the renovated (except for the baseboards!)


and temporarily* redecorated den watching the Tour de France...

"you were right"

*once we were happy with the rug in its new position we took it up again. It will be another 4 weeks before we can put rugs on the newly sealed floor - this is why people buy pre-finished flooring!

Inspiration in the Den

The new hardwood floor is in and will soon be sanded and sealed. The electric cables that came up through the platform a foot from the wall have been relocated to a less obtrusive position and although the room will need new paint soon it's a blank canvas I can't wait to colour. It will need a rug, something to soften all that wood, a credenza for the TV (we'll swap the big TV from the master for the smaller one that used to be in the media center) and a couple of sconces. I have plans to use pieces I have in the house for the first two but the sconces will require some real live shopping. It'll take some courage to start looking at lamps again - it's really hard to judge from a product image in a catalogue or web page how it will actually look in a furnished space. But I've made a start and found a few contenders:



jefdesigns Legna wall sconce via Design Public. It comes in teak, walnut or zebrawood veneer - I like the walnut.


The Oggetti Dune Flushmount Wall Sconce via Lumens. Available in Black/Sand, Mocha/White and Sand.


Parker Half Round Sconce by Jonathan Adler via ylighting in Deep Patina Bronze. Aso available in Polished Nickel and Antique Brass.

Six years and counting

June 29 2009

The official date we bought The Cool House passed a little while ago but today marks the sixth moving-in anniversary. I can't believe that it's the second longest The Guy and I have lived anywhere together - and the most complete renovation we have undertaken. Most of the work, roof, windows, bathrooms, exterior maintenance, was completed 2004-2007 but the last six months have almost matched that in terms of the scope of the projects finished and money spent. Of course, it's almost time to redo some of the work we did when we first moved in, such as re-staining the siding and painting the exterior trim and the great room will need a refreshing coat of paint soon but for the moment let's not be daunted by the to-do list but rather celebrate what has been accomplished this past year:

January-June 2010
We finished the laundry - new floor, new cabinets, new countertops and a new paint color - Iced Cube Silver - on the smoothly sanded walls. From start to finish this took us four years but 90% was done in one month-long period in tandem with the Master Suite.
The domino effect of making our bedroom beautiful caused us me to take a long look at the guest bedroom - and it was found wanting. We made it more comfortable with new roman shades that enhance the geometric shapes of the windows.
The great room sectional got its pretty pillows and because the dining room was feeling left out I went ahead and ordered new drapes for it. We also decided the rug we'd originally chosen for Verity's room would be better suited to the dining room - if we removed the old stained carpet and laid hardwood floors - so that's what we did. What? Crazy? Well, we had already decided to put down hardwood in the kitchen so it seemed sensible to just go ahead and run it into the dining room, too. I know, that's not much justification for undertaking another project!


Which brings us to the major update, the renovation we'd been looking forward to since 2004, the ultimate undertaking: the Kitchen. It isn't completely finished yet, although the countertops will be installed in less than two weeks, but so far I love everything about it, including the new energy saving windows (a big bouquet to the new carpenter who spent two days on these fixing the previous guy's mistakes) and mud-room door.
And while we are in the kitchen, let's not forget the final touches we made to the powder room. It got its third makeover in as many years: new wallpaper - just two rolls (that's a double roll if you speak US design) - and a pint of black paint.

June-December 2009
Three outdoor projects were started... and finished:


the re-landscaped side yard


new fencing on the east and south sides


Belgian stone pavers laid in front of the garages


and one interior undertaking: the Great Room makeover including re-upholstering the twelve-piece sectional.


It's been a fun rwelve months but I'm impatient to get the last pieces in place and the furniture back in the first floor rooms so I can finally sit back and enjoy the house.

Gutters

Less than four years after we replaced the almost new gutters with bigger, newer gutters we found the leaders had failed again. This time we only noticed it when the electrician was updating a switch box and found it rusted out. Then he found a wet patch on the wall - not damp, wet. Outside the siding behind the downspout was saturated. We don't know how long this had been going on but it's good to catch it before it got serious. The good news was that the downspout was split from top to bottom so they replaced it, plus one other that also had a problem, for free.

Andrew Geller News

Renovating the kitchen (and the den) has brought it home to us once again what a great and underrated architect Andrew Geller is. The built-ins in the den that were not part of the original blueprints boxed in the room, making it feel darker and smaller, and the platform cut the flow on the ground (first) floor. Removing them not only makes the space feel much lighter but now we can truly appreciate the architecture. You see immediately that the kitchen is the same shape and size as the great room - a trapezoid - and the den is a rectangle. It all feels much simpler now... and right.


It's a fortuitous coincidence that just as we are finishing updating this uniquely modern Andrew Geller designed house, we hear that the iconic Pearlroth House has been approved for the National Register of Historic Homes. This is great news for all lovers of mid-century architecture - I can't wait to see the restored beach house.


Then we got word that Jake Gorst, grandson of the architect, has embarked on an enormous project: founding the Andrew Geller Architectural Archive Preservation Project to identify, catalogue and preserve Geller's documents, drawings, photographs and memos - and he will film the whole process, including site visits to the architect's commercial and residential buildings, releasing a documentary in the coming year. To support this project visit the Project: Preservation of the Andrew Geller Architectural Archive - it's tax-deductible!

By the way, for those in the Long Island area, Jake Gorst's 2005 documentary, Leisurama the story of Montauk's "swanky" mid-century modular home community, will be played on PBS WLIW21 at 2 AM and 9 PM Saturday June 26. This is not to be missed!

It's all over now sixties blue

In anticipation of the arrival of new shades for two bedrooms I stained and sealed the triangular window frame, touched up one bedroom wall and got two coats of Navajo white over the blue wall in the den. I really should have primed the latter first... I'll be painting a third - and hopefully final- coat tomorrow. And when I say final I mean final until we've chosen a paint colour we like for that room because enough with the Navajo White, it's been almost six years of blah and I need something that says I chose this not I was afraid of paint. Maybe something inspired by the sunset last week...

Peaceful

After all the drama around here recently I'm looking forward to a little peace and quiet. Just a little, mind you. I don't want to settle for a half-finished kitchen and I certainly don't want to be microwaving store-bought soup for the next few months while we wait for the countertops to arrive and den flooring.
But I am enjoying the thought that on Monday morning I won't have to get up early to be ready for the contractors or wonder what new problem will be discovered before lunch. On Friday, for example, I discovered 8 soft-close drawer glides and 6 door bumpers were missing. Did someone count order wrong or were they thrown away by mistake? I don't know but I have to fetch replacements. Then, after lunch, we discovered a hole in the framing of another window that had to be filled and painted before the end of the day. The guys wanted to get it done because we don't know how quickly the fabricator will be installing the counters and exactly when the new wood flooring will arrive. They won't come back until one or other happens so they wanted to make sure the external problems were taken care of and The Cool House was watertight.
It was a bittersweet moment when they packed up all their tools and trash, got into their trucks and headed out of the Village, There may be no noise and no fuss in my immediate future but the house is going to feel empty for a while.

Handled

Still no hardwood flooring in sight so work continues on the plumbing in the kitchen and the electrics in the den. The Sub Zero is churning out blocks of ice for the Gin & Tonics, the rough plumbing for the sink and dishwasher is done - and the tap outside the kitchen has been reconnected.
Yesterday I flew to Ikea to pick up the deco strip for the light rail and the drawer fronts to replace the doors on the cooktop cabinet. Unfortunately somewhere between the phone call telling me my order was in and me arriving there they had been misplaced. Five guys, two gals and a person on the end of a telephone tried for 90 minutes to make them reappear. One gal suggested I reorder and they offered to UPS them to me in "t'weeks"! I had an itsy-bitsy snarky Brit hissy fit whereupon a certain Kevin waded in and located them in four minutes flat. YAY DUDE! And in less than one hour after that the pieces were installed in the kitchen and the last handles (nos 50 & 51*) were screwed into place. Now we just waiting on the Caesarstone and we can start to cook again.
*I needed 49 handles but ordered 51 "just in case". This proved fortuitous when I decide I needed double handles on the 36" cooktop cabinet drawers. I also over-ordered cover panels and we ended up using all of them, including the ones I was going to make into a backsplash. Good thing I fell in love with those tiles...

Tracks of my tears...

This is the point we got to yesterday when the new team said "you're not going to want to watch this" and suggested I leave while they made the refrigerator fit into that gap


And this is what it looked like when I got back. Sub Zero in place, end cab cut down, two high cabs re-secured straight and true. Four hours to move one appliance 20'.


And this is why we finish a hardwood floor on site rather than installing prefinished flooring in the kitchen.
Double G&Ts and Advil all round!

Tidying Up

A few items on the punch list were taken care of late yesterday:
The inferior hardwood flooring was hauled away
The mud room door was painted to match the Marvin medium bronze windows
The offensive thick trim around the kitchen slider was removed and replaced with square edge trim that matches the rest of the moldings in the house
The kitchen walls and ceiling were smoothed with spackle, mud, joint compound.
The template guy came, discussed the changes I want to make to the island, nixed all backsplashes, measured and templated and told me he'd see if his boss could actually do what I wanted.


Just because I am nuts the carpenter, flooring guy and I examined the old water damage to the triangular window in the bamboo room, decided the window could stay but the trim had to go. So that is being reframed and will be stained to match the other windows.
There will be uniformity in this uniquely modern house even if it costs me my sanity and my retirement fund!

I celebrated the end of the workday with 2 Advil and a very strong G&T

Getting a grip

on the kitchen renovation... and my sanity.


Yesterday was not a great day on the house renovation front. Not as bad as the previous week when the contractor ordered the wrong size window, tried to install it anyway and then phoned in drunk the next morning, nor the following two days when he was a no-show, and the subsequent hiring of a new contractor who basically re-did everything the first one had touched.


No, it really wasn't so bad: the hardwood for the den floor turned out to be not so much "select and better" as knotty and mismatched and had to be re-ordered; the window supplier didn't have Marvin aluminum for drip caps (because that's a siding/roofing thing); I discovered the deep shelf I wanted for the kitchen has been discontinued; I found out that the only way to make the kitchen window both watertight and aesthetically pleasing was to trim 2" of redwood siding along its length and we know how obsessed I am about the siding... Still, I avoided a repeat of last Monday evening's total meltdown, rolled with the punches and looked on the bright side:


A roll of flashing the right shade was procured for the drip cap and the window was framed out. It looks better than I could have dreamed - I just hope it's waterproof!


The new full-light fir door was installed in the mud room. There's so much light in there now I keep thinking I've left the door open.


The cabinets now have skinny Linea rail pulls from Atlas homewares. I can open and close the drawers now - and I've tried out every single one just to make sure they work.