All week we’ve been trying to get people to come over to get some work done on the yard, and then all three teams showed up at the same time today. The plaster crew showed up to plaster a retaining wall that goes all down our driveway and then across our property. The block wallRead more about A busy morning[…]
Our house, being a craftsman, is very angular. Pretty much everything is a right angle and there are almost no curves. Almost, because, at the bottom of our stairs, we decided to make the last two treads curved where they extend past the wall. Here is a normal section of stairs. On top goes theRead more about Dealing with curves[…]
The electricians have been here for a month now, doing the finish. This includes installing the outlets, light fixtures, switches, and the Lutron system that will control it all. There is lots of lighting, including LED cans, sconces, and surface mount fixtures on the inside. There are quite a few really cool craftsman fixtures onRead more about Electrical update[…]
One of the two basement showers is now done. We had to bring in a separate tile contractor to do these bathrooms as our original tile contractor isn’t providing enough manpower to get everythign done on time. It is a simple subway tile bathroom with a patterned floor. The second one should be done thisRead more about Basement shower[…]
We have a lot of sanstone from the basement excavation, but to fashion it into specific shapes, like the stone cap for our seat wall, would be prohibitively expensive. The alternative is a process popularized by a local contractor named Mike Schlagel, and aptly called Schlagel-stone by the local contractor types. It is concrete thatRead more about Faux sandstone[…]
The back of our house on the first floor is the kitchen and family room. The family room has a large 6-panel sliding door that opens most of the room to the back patio. In the kitchen, we had a vision of having a pass-through counter and outdoor bar seating, to make it easy toRead more about Pass through counter[…]
We chose this beautiful blue stone for our outside patios and decks. We also wanted to carry the stone to the interior of the house in a few places – the sun porch (to make it feel almost like an outdoor space), the mud room (to be able to withstand the high traffic and inevitableRead more about Stone does not equal tile[…]
I’ve gotten quite an education on stair railings over the last two months. It fell upon me to determine the code requirements we had to meet, what parts we needed and what designs, and the particular quantities and lengths. For starters, a few terms Newel post – an upright post that supports the handrail ofRead more about Stair railings[…]
Well finally, is all I can say about the tile in this shower. The problem was that our tile & stone sub-contractor picked some stone for the perimeter, pony wall, and threshold, that didn’t match the stone used on the sinks for this Jack & Jill bathroom. We had a heck of a time gettingRead more about The most difficult shower[…]
The house we tore down was quite a mish-mash, having been built in 4 phases over 100 years. When it was built, it was built rather plainly, not at all ornate like some of the other craftsman type homes of the original era the old house was built. At one point we had one ofRead more about Re-purposing an old light fixture[…]