Still Dotting The i's

It's sort of a twist on the old Monty Python line: "I'm not dead yet!"

The job's not done yet, though I see I haven't posted anything in well over a month. That'll tell you something about the pace of change.

We have hit a few milestones recently:

• Thanks to brother Craig and son Geoff, we tracked down the hidden coax cable, made the connection, and now have our shiny new plasma panel hooked up to cable TV.
• The electricians have connected the juice to our range hood, so we now have lighting above the stove as well as an exhaust fan in the kitchen
• I installed the last of the new window coverings
• The family room furniture arrived last night. Wow.

There are still a zillion little things remaining to be done. A piece of trim here, pendant lights over the kitchen bar there. Those little floor gadgets that keep the closet doors in place. Labeling of all the data cables so I know what leads where.

It's not done yet, but it's inching ever-so-slightly toward the finish line.

Pareto's Principle

Most of us call it "the 80/20 rule", the notion that in any endeavor, there's an uneven split between cause and effect. More specifically, the last 20 percent of a project seems to take 80 percent of the effort.

And that's definitely where we are now with The Big Remodel. Oh, we're eating dinner at the kitchen table (even though the vent hood still isn't hooked up). We're watching DVD's on the new plasma panel (even though the cable TV outlet still isn't connected). And we're going to move the dining room furniture in this weekend (even though the dining room lighting fixture, and many others, awaits installation).

There are a zillion nagging final details. We're really enjoying what we can use of the "new" house, but a little frustrated about the parts we can't use.

The "unfinished symphony" may be in my DNA. My dad was sort of famous for doing remodeling jobs that didn't quite get to the finish line. But he always had a great rejoinder to anyone who'd challenge him to complete the job. He'd invoke the spirit of Sarah Winchester, who kept building that house in San Jose because she believed she'd die when the construction stopped.

With that in mind, I'm OK with a few things being left undone.

Whole Lotta TV

A photo does not do this thing justice.

That is one big TV set--at least, it felt that way while Tharon and I were trying to schlep it into place.

It would have been an easier job with another helper or two, but we got antsy and decided to do it as a duet.

Things went pretty smoothly, except for the part when we:

1. hoisted it into place on the wall mount and found it was 6 inches lower than expected
2. did some hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing
3. modified the mounting brackets with a hacksaw to get a few more inches of clearance
4. decided we'll have to live with it being a little closer to the media console beneath than we'd hoped

We may need to do a little camouflage work on the electrical outlet box behind the TV panel; it's barely hidden by the top edge of the panel when the set is pushed back against the wall. Swing the panel out and the outlet box looms into view

Worse, we now realize that swinging the panel out means no room on the media console for either a center-channel speaker or an iPod dock (both of which I'd been planning to place there), so more head-scratching is in order.

On the plus side, we hooked the Blue-Ray player up and watched a movie on the beast. Here's the funny part: I'd been worried that a 58" TV would be too big.

Not even close. We could have gone even bigger.

Even The Food Tastes Better

Well, we've now had dinner twice in the "new house". Went out and got new dinnerware and cookware, stashed the groceries in the new fridge, and cooked on the new stove (after having to pull out a drawer to get to the gas valve because it had been left in the "off" position).

I have to tell you: even though there are still stickers on the windows (must remain until final inspection) and many other signs of incompletion, it feels good to start settling in.

Now, if I can only figure where we stashed everything.

There are also all those "finishing touch" issues. We placed an order for new window coverings (thank goodness for free shipping and the Labor Day sale), scoured several stores for some small rugs to place near the sink, dishwasher, stove, and patio door, and continue to debate the relative merits of different drinking glasses.

Smelling the Barn

We always joke about what happen when the horse smells the barn at the end of a long day. The pace quickens, and impatience overtakes fatigue.

That's where we are now on the big project. The stove hood is going in today, and except for the carpeting of the living room, that's about the last major item. Lots of little stuff remaining: light fixtures, bits of trim here and there, removing the stickers from the windows and skylights, etc.

But more than 4 months after the day the guys arrived with the Sawzall and wrecking bars, it's almost done. We have a big sheaf of owner's manuals to digest (there's food in the fridge and I've used the microwave, but the dishwasher and stove remain untested), and we still don't know what half of the new light switches operate.

It still seems a little unreal. You get used to living in construction mode, and it's going to take some time to adapt to the fact that we can actually live in the place we envisioned so many months ago.

Milestone

Short dispatch:

I ate breakfast in the new kitchen this morning.

Fridge, sink, dishwasher, stove, lights, and my magic coffeemaker all up and running. Still waiting on the fancy new "microwave in a drawer" to get hooked up.

Of course, the ambience was a bit lacking: a card table standing on top of the paper that protects the hardwoord floor. But darn, that cereal and coffee tasted good.

Holy Cow!

We got back from ten days of travel to find an amazing change. For months, we've watched the construction team remake half of the house: living room, dining room, kitchen, family room.

While we were gone, they moved into the bedrooms, hallways, and offices. New paint, new carpets, new baseboards--it's like a whole new house. It smells new and looks really good.

And maybe best of all: they installed the new laundry machines. We're still getting used to the Euro-style front-loader machines (they sound and operate WAY different from our aged Kenmores), but we've already broken them in. No more Laundromat for us!

The kitchen is still a few days away, though the refrigerator and dishwasher are ready for use and the pantry can now be stocked.

Our immediate task is to move all the stuff we moved out of the bedrooms and offices back into those rooms. I got started last night by setting up my computer and the WiFi network, and amazingly, everything worked right away. Got Tharon's office set up and running. And we even got the TiVo and the small TV rigged so we could watch....well, more diving from the Olympics. With all due respect to my friend Ted Robinson, HOW MANY DIVING EVENTS DO THEY HAVE?!?

Good News/Bad News

The good news is huge: there's water in the kitchen sink! I have a strong urge to go do some dishes in there, but since Tharon is the one who's had to wrestle with dirty dishes in the bathroom sink for all these weeks, she's going to be the one to inaugurate the kitchen.

The bad news: we have to empty out the bedrooms and the office in the next 5 days. That will allow the paint and carpet teams to sweep in while we're on vacation. If this all works out right, we'll return to freshly-painted rooms with new carpeting.

And then we can start moving all the stuff back in that we're now moving out...

Why Samples Matter

You can buy darned near anything from a catalog these days. And trust me, we have ALL the catalogs.

Trouble is, you can't always make a final decision without seeing the thing you want to buy.

I wrote earlier about the mad scramble to match wood finish on the media console and the family room seating. This time, it's about the speakers we're buying for the family room.

I thought I'd figured it out based on the speaker manufacturer's website photos. But a little voice nagged me into calling to see if I could get a sample of two different finishes. Sure enough, they were willing to send me two dummy speakers (I had to pre-pay the UPS charges) in two diferent finishes.

Good thing we did it. The coppery finish didn't look right. The brassy one did.

Case closed.

OMG!

That's youth-speak for how I felt yesterday when I walked in to the construction zone. I knew it was busy in there by the crowded parking scene out front: carpenters, painters, stone guys.

The "oh my God!" moment came when I saw the granite counter tops, already installed. Set against the cabinets, they look even better than we'd hoped. It'll be even better when we can get the full effect of floor/cabinet/counter, but for now, the newly-installed flooring remains covered with protective paper while all the other dusty work continues.

Next step: getting those appliances out of the garage and into their rightful locations in the kitchen.

Can't wait.

Growing Excitement

I caught myself standing in the family room the other day, grinning like an idiot.

It was late afternoon. The crews had gone home for the day. And I was just loving what I saw.

The walls and ceiling are painted now. Despite the lack of flooring or countertops and the missing doors on the cabinets, it's starting to look finished.

For months now, we've been trying to translate what we saw on drawings into how it would feel. Even after the construction got underway, it was often hard to see the place as anything but a jobsite full of tools and supplies.

But now we're starting to see the finish line. Starting to think about how we'll live in the new house. Feels good.

It's Tan, Man

Made the decision on the upholstery for the new family room furniture. It's going to be tan.

The final decision didn't come until after we'd gone to the furniture store with a photo of the media console we plan to buy for the family room (on the theory that we would want the wooden legs on the sofa and chairs to match the finish on the media console). We then realized that we couldn't tell which of two finishes (mahogany or brown) made the best match.

Sigh. We grabbed the wood finish samples, piled into the car, drove to the nearest Crate and Barrel to have an up-close look at the media console. And I'll be damned if they both matched, depending on which part of the console we laid the samples against. The overhead halogen lights might have had something to do with it.

Sigh again. We finally convinced ourselves that either wood finish would work, and we'd go with whichever looked best against the tan leather.

It's going to be brown.

More Choices

Now comes the scary part.

We chose the wall colors the other day. Yesterday, we went to the granite-finishing place and decided how they should cut our big granite slabs (they'd made templates for all the countertops and we had to lay them out on the slabs).

Next, we face a decision on which color upholstery to order for the new family room furniture. The array of choices seems dizzying. Four different ranges of leather and I don't know how many colors (to say nothing of the choices of leg shape and color). We ended up squatting on the floor of the granite shop with Jim the Builder, shuffling through little leather swatches while looking at samples of our hardwood flooring, carpeting, and wall paint.

Now the hard part. We managed to narrow it down to two options: tan or forest green. I like them both. Tharon likes them both. Either looks classy and I'm sure we'd be happy with either.

But they're, well, different. One color says one thing and the other says something else. This is a big decision: you can't just slap a different coat of paint on expensive furniture if you don't like the way it looks.

Eenie, meenie, minie, mo...

Choices Made

It happened while I was at work, and I'm just fine with the decision.

Tharon and Jim the Contractor decided on paint colors today. You can see what they decided by checking out the photo gallery. Basically, the old living room will be a greenish shade, the bedrooms and office will be a tan, and the rest of the house will get a yellowish shade called "Pale Moon". Ceilings are all a just-off-white shade called "Lemon Chiffon".

Next decision: which color speakers to buy. I'm leaning toward this one rather than a glossy black.

Is That the Finish Line?

We're trying not to get antsy.

But the last few days have turned the construction zone into something that looks a lot more like the house we envisioned.

Most of the kitchen cabinets are in. The walls are Sheetrocked and textured. Most of them have a primer coat of paint on them. Baseboards are going in. And we even have a finished attic access hatch in our bedroom closet (they had to move the hatch to accommodate a big beam).

In short, the heavy lifting is just about done and now it's the fine work. Flooring arrives soon. We're supposed to be choosing paint colors.

And all too soon, I'm going to have to drag all the junk out of my office so they can get in there to replace the carpet and paint the room. It'll be a pain. But it'll also mean we're closing in on the finish line.

Rock Stars

We wound up back at the rockyard yesterday. Months ago, we'd gone over and selected granite slabs for the kitchen countertops ("Tropical Green" from Brazil), but somehow, the slabs wound up being sold to someone else.

So we got to do it all over again. We looked at a few slabs in the warehouse, then had the guys forklift a whole new batch of stone in from the yard. We instantly liked the new batch. At its best, granite has the organic feel of wood, full of swirls, flecks, and character. The stone we chose is a mild green, but there are myriad bits of red and gold, as well as broad strokes of white. You could stare at this for hours and you'd keep seeing new things.

Next stop for our two slabs (they weigh about 600 pounds each) is the stoneworking shop. We'll have to go over there pretty soon to decide exactly how the slabs should be cut. We're going to ask the stone guys to cut a few extra items for us: a trivet or two, as well as a tabletop for a telephone or vase table. We'll also ask that they put a "honed" finish on the stone (that's less-glossy than the "polished" finish you often see).

Progress!

Just back from a few days out of town and the worker bees have been busy. Damned busy.

That's the kitchen, with the first cabinetry installed (that's the sink area). The sheetrock is all in. All the joints have been taped, and there's "mud" everywhere (the texturing is coming along quickly, and it is messy work).

The crews have also removed the tile from the entryway, and just because they had nothing else to do, they've pulled the carpet out of the hallway on "our" side of the house (before this is over, all of the flooring in the house except for what's in the two bathrooms will be replaced).

Next steps: cabinets going in, granite countertops being fabricated, painting. It's really starting to look like the place we planned.

Paperwork Blizzard

Once upon a time, if you wanted to build a home, you just got after it. Maybe you cut down a few trees on your land or dug some mud to create your own adobe. You sure didn't need a permit from anyone.

It's not like that anymore. I don't even know how many permits we have for this job. I do know that even something as innocuous as replacing the old kitchen greenhouse window with one exactly like it has triggered a slowdown. The city building inspector wouldn't sign off on the kitchen framing until the planning department received assurances that our homeowners' association had approved the new window.

Well, that's a little tricky. See, the local architectural review committee only meets every so often--the next meeting is July 14th. I had visions of the whole project grinding to a halt while we waited for the paperwork.

Craig the Carpenter asked me to call the homeowners' association to see if they could issue some sort of expedited approval (after all, the window is an identical unit in the identical location as the old one). Doubtful of my chances, I placed the call.

Lo and behold, the wheels of justice were turning in our direction. The architectural administrator told me she'd already talked to the planning department and given her blessing. So we've apparently dodged a bullet.

Now, I hope nobody gets too upset when they go to review our architectural application for new skylights above the living room and realize the skylights have already been installed. We had to make a decision on the skylights while the roofing job was underway, and we filed the permit application on the fly.

Topless

That's the view from our garage this morning. No need to turn on the light--Mother Nature is providing the lighting. The roofing crew has removed all traces of the old shake roof.

We actually think it might be nice to have a transparent garage roof--after all, it's always dark in the garage and there's no real reason you wouldn't want it nice and bright. Maybe someday they'll design houses with this feature.

For now, we await Day 2 of the roofing job. They'll be covering all those slats with plywood, which provides the backing for the new composition roofing material ( GAF Grand Sequoia in "Weathered Wood" ) . Then, they'll apply the "Forest Green" aluminum gutters and downspouts.

A roof, to me, is a weird thing. Obviously, you need one. But since I almost never see it, I don't really much care what it looks like, as long as it does its job.

Still, it'll be terrific to have the roof done. It'll be the first "finished" part of our big project--a kind of moral victory.

The Roof, The Roof

As I write, the roofers should be on the job. Fully two years after we first solicited bids for a re-roofing job, it's actually going to get done.

We've been living on borrowed time with that roof for quite a while, a fact that was made clear to us when an intrepid squirrel chewed through the shingles in search of that lovely pink insulation they like to use for their nests. The resulting water stain on the living room wall was like a daily reminder that the roof needed replacing, and that the rest of the house could use some TLC, too.

We kept holding off on the roof job while we pondered and planned the remodel. The goal was to time everything so that any new holes in the roof necessitated by the remodeling work wouldn't mean we were making holes in a brand-new roof.

So now the new fans and skylights and stove vent hood will mesh with the new roof, which will in turn cover the gap where the old chimney used to be.

Stay tuned for details.

The Inpection

Came home yesterday to see Craig the Carpenter looking a little distressed.

Reason: the building inspector had just been there.

And it looks like we have a little problem. Apparently, the plans filed with City Hall show the boards running one way, but in reality, they run the other way. The inspector won't sign off on the framing until this is straightened out. Two options:

1. Tear all the kitchen ceiling framing out and re-do it
2. Re-draw the plans so they show the boards running the way they actually run

Obviously, we'll be going with (2), but that's going to mean a weeklong delay while the plans get tweaked, filed, and approved. So it goes.

Meantime, the electricians are wiring like mad, and Danny installed the tile floor in the laundry room. The floor looks nice, but we now have a roadblock between the house and the garage. Can't cross the new tile, so the only way to get to the fridge is to go through the zippered plastic wall in the hallway, across the construction zone, out the front door, and in through the roll-up garage door. A real pain when it comes time to make dinner. It's going to take a few more days for them to grout and seal that laundry room floor, and until then, we're dealing with the Dinner Detour.

Good Help

We've finished pulling all the A/V cables. Except for vastly underestimating the amount of speaker cable we'd need (I was only short by about 150 feet!), it went reasonably well.

Today, I resorted to the old remodeling trick I learned from my dad: when there's a nasty job in a tight space, send in a teenager.

I made Geoff crawl into the back corner of the attic to run the outdoor speaker cable (it had to be passed through a vent screen WAY back in the corner above the master bathroom). He did it without complaining too much.

Cable Guys

Let me say this right now: my wife is a stud.

She crawled around the attic like a pro while we pulled speaker and infrared control cables. Nasty job: you have to keep an eye out for myriad obstacles while avoiding a fall through the open ceiling joists (or a false step that might wipe out something like a lighting box), all while pulling cable and stapling it to beams and joists.

We got most of the cable pulled; still have a few bits to do but now we know what we're doing and it looks like we'll get it done this weekend.

Plus, the electrician told me today that they'll do the really nasty stuff--running in new telephone and cable TV connections from the garage. Sweet!

I'm On the Clock

The nightmare on any project is the phrase "we're waiting on a subcontractor".

MY nightmare is that the tardy subcontractor will be me.

Craig the Carpenter let me know today that they'd like to start sheetrocking in the next couple of days. Which means I need to climb up in the attic this afternoon and start pulling cable for the audio/video installation.

I need to pull the following:

• Front speakers for the family room
• Rear speakers for the family room
• Speakers for the living room
• Infrared control cable for the living room
• Speakers for the backyard
• Infrared control cable for the backyard
• Ethernet from office to TV area
• Telephone to the TV area
• Coax (TV) cable to the TV area

I'm getting nervous already...

Analysis Paralysis

I can remember a few years ago, when a young French visitor went to the supermarket with us and stood transfixed. Finally, he said, "How do you decide?"

Since then, of course, France's supermarchés and hypermarchés have easily matched America's overwhelming number of products. But our visitor's bewilderment is something I am starting to understand.

I've built a list of things we'll need for the audio-video installation; everything from the big plasma panel to the wall boxes where things will get plugged in. Took me forever. Why? Because there are so many choices.

Does Denon build a better receiver, or it it Onkyo? Or maybe Sony? How about speaker cable? The Belden 14-gauge or that other brand's 12-gauge? Panasonic, Pioneer, or Samsung? 5:1, 6:1, or 7:1? Help!

But it doesn't end there. Once I determined that whatever we wound up with would sound and look better than our old 80's-vintage rig, I ran into a new reason for paralysis. Where do I buy it? At one point the other day, I had 6 web browser windows open, toggling between different online stores to shave a few bucks off the price of a bunch of wiring components.

I think I wound up with a pretty good deal. Maybe I left a few dollars on the table. But I feel a bit like the young Frenchman, and part of me wishes for the "good old days" when you just went down to the local hi-fi store and took your lumps.

Details, details

Some people do these remodeling projects and lose sleep because they haven't scouted out every last brushed-nickel cabinet pull before deciding.

Not us.

In fact, we think our builder may think we're a little weird because we tend to ether decide within minutes on the small stuff or tell him, "You choose."

He came by the other day with a catalog showing some bar stools, and it probably took all of 3 minutes for us to decide that:

1. We'd like a couple of bar stools for the kitchen counter
2. The ones he'd selected would be just dandy

I think we may have made a similar decision about a media console he spotted in the Crate and Barrel catalog; I'd just like to go have a look at this one in person before making it final. I'm starting to feel a little stress about the whole A/V thing, because I need to get in and mark the walls to show where speaker cables need to go and so on. After so many years of "just making do", it's a little overwhelming to be told, "do it the way you want it."

PIle Of Dirt

We're no strangers to dirt in the house. After all, we raised two kids and had lots of dogs.

But THIS is something new.

That's a giant pile of soil, right in the middle of what will eventually be the new dining room.

No, the construction crew isn't planning on putting in any raised planting beds. The dirt came out of a trench (you might be able to see the plywood covering the trench).

This trench is one of the genuine surprises of this project. We knew a new wall would be appearing to define the new (and smaller ) living room/front room/library/music room (name still undecided). We've even seen the wall already: it arrived early in the project in two pre-fab parts (they will flank a new set of double glass doors).

But what we didn't realize was that this wall has to be firmly rooted in good old Bay Farm Island fill land. Our crews have cut through the foundation slab, and then spent several hours digging out that pile of dirt (and a bunch of tree roots). Next, they will sink re-bar into the soil and use it to tie the new wall down.

This ought to be one sturdy wall. I know which doorway I'm grabbing during the next earthquake.

Dry Rot...Ugh!

Two words you don't want to hear from your carpenter: "dry rot".

Craig the Carpenter says they found some in a piece of window trim while installing the new backyard windows. I saw the affected piece of wood, and he's right--it was rotten.

The good news: it doesn't look like the rot got into the house framing itself, so the fix is relatively easy--just replace the trim board. It's now looking more and more obvious that we'll need to repaint the house trim anyway, so this is a fairly minor deal.

However, this also means we need to get out the old ice pick and make a lap around the house, poking and prodding all the trim for any more signs of trouble.

I'll add it to the "to-do" list.

Everything Is Temporary

The one thing we keep saying as we make our daily tour of the jobsite is this: "Man, if people really knew how easy it is to tear a house down, they wouldn't think of it as a castle..."

If you really wanted to, you could kick your way through a wall. Put a couple of guys with a wrecking bar and a Sawzall to work for a few hours and you're looking at some serious demolition.

Even the foundation can be taken apart. Those guys with the concrete saw and the jackhammer who created the racket late yesterday weren't messing around. Their handiwork proved that even the big, bad foundation is no match for the wrecking crew.

In this case, the foundation-wreckers are making room for a new electrical line that'll serve an island in the kitchen, while also creating a slot into which the new wall dividing the dining room and "living room" will be set.

I use the quotation marks on "living room" because it seems like we need a new name for this smaller space. Library? Den? Music room? Front room? Still under discussion.

WHAT?

They're cutting concrete in there today. Good Lord, is that loud!

How They Did It

So we got an answer to the question I posed in my previous post. Turns out our construction crew managed to hoist that massive beam into place with no sleight-of-hand or mechanical aid.

The beam, which ties one side of the house to the other, is a heavy sucker (more than 400 pounds). It's made of something called LSL (laminated strand lumber). If you're really into this stuff, you can see how it's made here. One cool thing about LSL: it's very sustainable, in that it's made from wood shreds and doesn't require the harvest of old-growth trees.

Anyway, we asked Craig the Carpenter how they did it. He said the hardest part wasn't hoisting the beam into place. It was getting it through the front door and then maneuvering it around so they could store it for a couple of days. They only had two guys to do that job.

When it came time to hoist it into place, they had a third man, and they did it the low-tech way: three guys, three ladders, lots of sweat. The part I still don't get is how they managed to thread it between the ceiling joists and the plumbing, but I guess that's why they're the pros.

How did they do THAT?

We have a daily ritual. After Tharon gets home, we wander over to see what's new on the job site.

And last night, we were blown away. Check out the photo. That big beam (above the ladder; you can see it better if you click on the photo to size it up) had gone from lying on the floor to fully-installed.

Now, you have to understand. I think this beam is longer than our house is wide. One of our neighbors told me he was amazed to see it come off the lumber-delivery truck and wondered what they could possibly be doing with it.

We assumed there would be at least 10 strong men here the day they decided to move it. But as far as I can tell, they installed this thing with no more than 3 people. Somehow, they hoisted it up, threaded it through a very narrow space, and fastened it in place. It will anchor a new "shear wall" that will actually be hidden in the attic. This is what will allow us to:

1. Eliminate the old wall between the kitchen and family room, while at the same time
2. Not have to worry that the place will collapse in an earthquake

When I get a chance, I have to find out how they wrestled that thing into place. Something tells me the answer will be: "Uh, we just lifted it up and nailed it down."

Dinnertime

Bulletin: we're eating just fine.

Our little temporary kitchen is functioning perfectly (now that I've learned not to use all the appliances at once). Dinners are pretty much what they've always been: something grilled, some rice or pasta, a nice big salad.

It does take a little more thinking about the process. For example, I try to make only one run to the big fridge in the garage to round up everything I'll need (the little fridge in the temporary kitchen only holds breakfast stuff). And without a sink, I have to wash the vegetables all at once in the bathroom, then tote them back to the "kitchen" across the hall for prep. I've learned to be very careful with my work, because I don't have a handy sink into which to sweep the trimmings. It's peel, slice, toss the leftovers into the green bin for composting.

I've tried a little "microwave pasta cooker" called the Fasta Pasta. On balance, maybe a little easier than using the hotplate to boil pasta the regular way. But I think it'll get tossed when we unveil the new kitchen.

Table-time is a little tricky. Even with just two of us eating, that card table is mighty small (and low, too: a card table is a couple of inches lower than a standard dining table). When Geoff gets home from school in a couple of weeks, it ought to really get tight.

Under the long-standing "division of labor" rules chez nous, I cook and Tharon cleans. I feel for her: doing the dishes requires leaning over the bathtub to fill a plastic dishpan with hot water and soap. She then lugs that dishpan to the bathroom vanity to wash and rinse. I'm not exactly sure where she puts everything, but she swears it's not bad.

And so far, not a single paper plate!

Kitchen: Gone!

This whole project started many, many months ago when Geoff came home from a friend's house in the neighborhood (they have the same model house) and said, "Man, you should see what they did...they knocked down the wall between the kitchen and the family room."

We took a look...we liked what we saw...and that formed the starting point for what's now underway. Today, we got the first look at that original vision--the guys knocked out the wall between kitchen and family room. In fact, they pretty much knocked out the kitchen!

I'm fascinated by what they save. That stack of lumber in the foreground is a pile of 2x4's salvaged from the kitchen demolition. There's a stack of bricks out in the yard from the fireplace and hearth. Even the old carpet is apparently destined for some further use (though not as floor covering--it gets used in some sort of police training activity).

Anyway, we're now starting to see how things will look someday.

Over-amped

An unpleasant surprise this morning: our little temporary kitchen (in what used to be Geoff's bedroom) is woefully short in the electrical-supply department.

I found this out while trying to simultaneously toast some bread, make some coffee, and microwave some eggs. The lights went out halfway through all this. I stumbled out to the garage and found the 15-amp circuit had blown.

Did I mention we also have a small refrigerator on this circuit? And the room lights. And, it turns out, the wall outlets in OUR bedroom next door, which means that when I blew the circuit, I also screwed up Tharon's alarm clock.

All of this, and we haven't even hooked up the electric hot plate we'd been planning to use for cooking pasta.

My dad always referred to electricity as the devil's work. I think he was right.

Like Banshees

We are two days in, and there is no turning back. Check out what's left of our living room, fireplace, and dining room.

Craig the Carpenter and his assistant are tearing stuff apart in a hurry. They've already ripped out the fireplace, taken the brick hearth apart (and neatly stacked the bricks outside), removed the carpet and pad, and even installed a cute zippered plastic sheet to block the doorway between "our" side of the house and "their" side.

Craig tells me that tomorrow, they'll frame in the wall to replace the old double-doors into my office, and will start destroying the kitchen. The refrigerator is still in there, and before we call it a night, we need to get in and salvage what we can from the fridge to stock the new mini-fridge in our temporary kitchen/dining room (AKA "Geoff's old bedroom"). Tomorrow, the massive old refrigerator gets hauled to the garage, where it lives until its shiny new replacement goes on duty.

One bit of bad news today: I thought I had a taker for the old DiamondVision TV, but she chickened out. Something about it being too big to move up stairs. Feh. We moved that thing up a lot of stairs in the 25 years we had it.

Here We Go

I'll believe it when I see guys in coveralls swarming through the front door, but it looks like the countdown to construction is on.

Got a phone call yesterday from Jim the Builder, who says he'll be at the house this afternoon with his team to start the prep work. We've cleared everything out of the kitchen, living room, dining room, and breakfast area except for:

• The TV
• One easy chair
• One lamp
• The refrigerator

There's a place marked out on the garage floor where the fridge will go. We hope we'll still be able to get the car in the garage, too (my brother Craig wants to know if we'll have to back the car out whenever we want to get out the milk). As for the old TV--well, I think Tharon may have watched her last episode of "NCIS" on it.

That TV is a warhorse. A 27" Mitsubishi Diamond Vision, circa 1983. It came from Matthew's ("Top of The Hill, Daly City"). Remember the ads?

We didn't get the free bike. But we did get a TV that lasted for a quarter of a century. So long, old warrior.

Bye-Bye, Sofa

I've been trying not to get emotional about stuff we're tossing out as we get closer and closer to The Big Remodel. I keep saying it feels good to unload piles of material things which have accumulated over the years.

But last night was kind of tough. We hauled the old sofa and swivel rocker to the curb, and right about now, the trash company crew should be pitching them into the truck.

Both pieces of furniture were well-worn. The sofa's upholstery crapped out years ago, and even the slipcover we applied to hide that fact was wearing out. The chair? You could see the wooden frame in places where the fabric and the padding had vanished.

I grew up with this furniture: it belonged to my parents, who'd passed it along to us when we bought our first house 25 years ago. We reupholstered both pieces then, and I'm sure they could live another 25 years with another reupholstery job.

That furniture figures in many mental snapshots of the last quarter-century: Our newborn baby daughter propped up on the sofa. My mom sitting in the rocker, holding one of the kids. My wife stretched out for a snooze on the sofa.

I know it's just wood and wire and fabric. But I can't help hoping the old furniture gets another shot at life somewhere. It's earned it.

Historical Artifacts

Today's project: empty the kitchen. We've decided that the Farberware pots and pans will head off to Geoff to help stock his sophomore-year college house (although a few of those pots will have to stand duty in our temporary kitchen until then).

We plowed through goodness-knows-how-many cans of beans and soup (I have to stop buying them on sale!), placing many of them in the Food Bank donation box. We decided that the 12 boxes of Celestial Seasonings herbal tea was probably about 11 too many. And we are bidding adieu to a few of the Corningware pieces we've had since, well, probably our marriage in 1977.

And then, deep in the baking goods cupboard, we came across this beauty:
That, my friend, probably belongs in a museum. It's a bottle of Karo corn syrup (can you even buy this any more?). You probably can't read the "sell-by" date, but I'll help you: it says "Buy Before Oct. 6 '80".

That's right. We have been harboring a bottle of corn syrup that is more than 27 years past its sell-by date. It was already 6 years past its prime when our first kid was born. We've moved that thing at least 9 times since it should have been tossed out.

Forgive me for this, but for a moment, I thought about keeping it this time. Only for a moment.

Food Fight

Everything has to be cleared out of the kitchen and pantry cabinets. Everything.

Now, I will admit to a little touch of the survivalist when it comes to storing food. I mean, how many packages of pasta does a couple really need to keep on hand? Don't even ask.

I tackled the job with the intention of creating three categories:

• Stuff we'll keep (we still need to eat, even out of our temporary kitchen)
• Stuff we can donate to the Alameda Food Bank
• Stuff to toss out

Filled a box with cans and packages for the Food Bank. Set aside the things I know we'll eat (eventually). And then the tossing began.

Why did we have 4 different half-used containers of garlic salt? How old was that nasty, sticky bottle of chili oil? Who bought the sheets of nori?

Unanswerable questions. But trust me, all that stuff is gone. And so are all the bottles of spices that came with a set I'm pretty sure we got as a wedding gift.

That was 30 years ago. Does 30-year-old coriander qualify as an antique?

Outta Here!

Update: the gigantic oak entertainment center is gone.

I can't tell you how happy I am that the big old monolith found a new home (and that that home isn't the landfill). To make it better, the new owners came and hauled it off. To make it really better, the new owners are opening a "sober home" for women--a place where people recovering from addiction live together and support each other.

That's good karma.

Now, maybe we'll get lucky with the old sofa and chair--before they end up in the dump.

The Calm Before the Storm

We've driven to the edge of the cliff, and we're peering over the edge.

After a year-and-a-half of thinking, dreaming, worrying, and meeting with builders, we're about to launch a major remodeling project at home, sweet home.

We've heard all the warnings: your marriage will be sorely tested by this. Not to whistle past the graveyard, but we've been married for 30 years, raised two kids, moved 15 times, kept four dogs (three simultaneously), dealt with the illness and loss of a parent, etc. I'm pretty sure we'll make it out the other side of this, too.

Right now, before the wrecking bars start tearing out the old so the new can be built, we face a fundamental challenge: how to get rid of all this crap. We're getting to know the guy at the Goodwill drop-off place pretty well, and the people at the Friends of the Library book donation room roll their eyes when they see us coming with yet another load of books.

We're trying to send as little to the dump as possible. E-waste goes to the e-waste place, old paint and bug spray to the toxic-waste place, and so on. But some things just aren't easy to unload. Nobody wants the aging sofa and chair, stuffing oozing from their innards. I did finally find some interest in the enormous entertainment center by posting a listing on Freecycle, a cool people-to-people way of moving unwanted things along the line.

Of course, the entertainment center still hasn't been removed from the family room as I write this, and the clock is ticking louder each day.