After finishing the large wall, the plasters left for a bit. Last week they came back to finish a large part of the plaster on the house, the outside stairwell. The stairwell goes from the ground floor up to the office, and then down to the basement. The part going down to the basement gotRead more about More plaster[…]
A cautionary tale for those of you considering building a house. Lisa and I used to schedule a date night once a week. But the last 6 months have really been something, and we haven’t had a single one in all that time. It started with the Thomas Fire in December, and then the MontecitoRead more about It’s a date … finally[…]
The cabinet makers have been here for a couple of weeks now doing the finishing in the cabinets. There is surprisingly a lot to do. – Adjust and level cabinet doors – Install knobs and pulls – Install cabinet class – Install kick plates after flooring goes in Lisa spent weeks looking at knobs andRead more about Cabinet finishing[…]
Four painters spend the last week applying stain and lacquer varnish to the doors and windows in our master bedroom. What a time consuming process it is! But the results are pretty outstanding. There are two more areas that have substantial staining to do – the living / dining rooms, and the kitchen / familyRead more about Stained wood[…]
Our local Santa Barbara sandstone is great, but it is an expensive treatment to apply. For a long seat wall in the back yard, we opted for a faux sandstone cap instead, made from colored and textured concrete. Here is the 8″ block wall that is our starting point for the seat wall. They formRead more about Fake sandstone[…]
For the last few weeks the plumbers have been working to complete the plumbing. The first thing we did was to sort the fixtures by sink, and then mark the counters for the drilling of holes. Next, they worked on installing the plumbing and appliances in the mechanical room, including the water heater and softener.Read more about Plumbing update[…]
With the hardest part behind them, the flooring installers installed the last bit of regular flooring today. Here is the yoga room: And the family room: Now, all we have left is the stairs. With the the installation of the stair treads and risers, work can begin on the guard rails and hand rails, anotherRead more about More flooring[…]
I have a desk set that works really well for me now. When we went to design my built-in office furniture, I used the same dimensions. However, looking at the desk one day, I noticed that the space for my chair under the part that I was likely to be using the most, was tooRead more about Ooops[…]
We have a large fireplace in our family room, which is the closest room to the back yard. In the back yard, and what is now the centerpalce of our pool house (when we eventually put in a pool) is a large 100+ year old fireplace. It seemed natural to use some stone on theRead more about Stone fireplace mantle and hearth[…]
As we’ve been finding out, almost all tile involves some sort if imperfection. It rarely works out that either horizontally or vertically you have enough space for full time on every side of a surface that gets tile. With respect to our living room fireplace, we faced three different places that we had to accommodateRead more about The imperfection of tile[…]