Details

We had the stair treads and risers cut and fit today. They are going to look good.

 

The cats are beginning to feel at home….

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Finish Work

Well, it has been a prodigiously long time since I updated any pictures and much has happened.  Once the plastering was completed and the front door set, we took a little break and spent a month in France! We visited friends and relatives and bicycled all over the Loire Valley and in the south of France. It was fantastic to get away from work although I didn’t know how much we needed a break.  We rode along the Loire river through small villages on the way to Chenonceau and all the stress seemed to melt away. Oh, and did I mention that if you ride every day….then you can eat everything in sight!  Which is pretty much what we did.

Pastry in Chinon…..

Bike trail to Chenonceau

further south

When we returned, it was right back to work on the house. We set all the cabinets in the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms…

counters, hood and ’52 Wedgewood ready to go.

a larger oven and a dishwasher! (our first)

the bamboo butcher block in progress

laundry room

One thing we have always enjoyed are glass awnings. When I was growing up, many of the art deco buildings in Pasadena had glass awnings with the wired safety glass in them. On my first trip to France I was thrilled to see so many glass awnings and swore if I ever got the chance to build one I would. I was able to find some trick hardware from CR Laurance for a modern awning and we powder coated our roof panel lifting plates and attached them to the wall as anchor points. We had to use 9/16″ safety glass and it was tricky to get it up and in place, but we are really happy with the results.

This is our modern  glass awning. We chose blue glass, which  looks the best with our building.

We also installed all the cabinets in the bathrooms and the fixtures:

Floating cabinets and a vessel sink from China. The sink was a gift from Ariane’s good friend Marie who did a ceramics artist in residency there.

 sink interior

Bathroom with glass shower installed

Ariane and I are now busy laying the floors upstairs.

bamboo floor in closet

Almost finished with the master bedroom Most all of the electrical outlets are functional, all but a few of the lights are installed, and the sound system is working so we can listen to music in each room.

Our fabulous foyer light fixture, the moon of Meepzorp

A wall sconce made by Barry Frantz looks terrific.

We continue to plod along every day, trying to get out of our trailer before Christmas!

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One Year In and The End is in Sight!

We have been so busy, I had to bypass the posting on the plastering process…which is probably ok as it was a long and difficult process. More so for the plasterers, as we were all operating on some bad information and they had to figure a lot of things out as they went. I cannot say how much we appreciate all the good work done by  Felipe Landin and his crew,  Luis and Marcelo, of Mission Plastering. Great work and attention to detail and we highly recommend them.

Marcelo and Luis

Hallway

Living room

We installed copper backsplashes and then the kitchen cabinets. Pacific Heating of Morro Bay made all the backsplashes. Green Goods of San Luis Obispo made the cabinets and they did an excellent job, excellent quality.

Island cabinets

the tape is where the hood will mount on the backsplash

A few more drawers and doors to set and then the countertops!

And finally some really good news!  Our front door finally arrived and we made quick work of getting it in. Now the house is completely closed, and Felipe will stucco it this week!

building a house requires a daily infusion of red wine!

Milano door installed and ready for the stucco.

The door will look good from the inside

Entry door, and an art piece by Christina McPhee.

We cleaned up the floors upstairs and now you can see what the bathroom is going to look like:

Much of the electrical finish and plumbing has been completed. The utility room is completed and so has the laundry room. So we are left with setting bathroom cabinets and fixtures, stairs, upstairs flooring and  the decks.  Just a brief update, but we are getting it done.

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Devil in the Strawstack…and Devil in the Details

It has been another long time since the last post because most of what we have been doing is drudgery. We installed all the interior sheetrock, and taped and mudded it before the plasterers could come in. We figured it was a lot less expensive to fill gaps with tape and mud than with plaster…. it took about 15 boxes of mud. We then restained the floor with some more black, and last week we sealed and lacquered the floor.

kitchen wall mudded and ready for plaster

wall for stove, with floating bamboo shelves

I also got to turn to some finish work. We found some cool looking vent covers for the dryer and the ceiling fan in the laundry room and I installed those.

dryer vent on the left. the cat door needed a cover so I made some out of aluminum sheet and installed them on the cat doors.

Laundry room vent cover

While I have been doing this, Ariane has been oiling the cabinet doors with tung oil. We took some of the doors to the glass company for inserting glass and they should be back this week.

We did not like the look of the vents for the central vac system and I was able to adapt a diffuser from Seiho Co. to cover the exhaust vents instead and keep up the semi-industrial look of the structure.

Diffusers mounted over the exhaust for the vacuum.

Most of the exterior lights have been installed so the outside is getting finished. The plasterers have started on the inside and the plaster is looking good!

Office ceiling plastered and drying...muy liso!

Felipe and Luis plastering the office!

Felipe plastering the office wall

Luis plastering

Felipe did not have experience working with Biolime, but he was able to get familiar with the product very quickly. He has done a terrific job on the stucco and now on the plaster as well.

We will soon be setting the cabinets and installing the fixtures.  yeah!

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