Hot diggity dog

Well, it looks like we sneaked onto local spotters and touters Your Heart Out recently — check out our shout out. (Thanks, Amelia, for the heads up!)

And now I'm off to figure out that Bertinelli reference.

Goodbye, Orange

After a little more than a year of living with it, we decided that the orange in our living room was just a bit too strong. It seemed to suck all the light out of the space while caving in on us.

So, on a whim, we bought some paint, pulled our furniture back and in less than 24 hours did a little more home improvement.

It took a couple of coats of primer to make sure that the orange wouldn't be peeking through.

We decided to paint the south wall a kind of gray color, found a color chip that we liked and went to Benjamin Moore to get the paint. We used their Aura line, which is really nice, if not extremely expensive. We would have used their new Natura, no VOC line, but it didn't come in a satin sheen, which we really wanted.
The east wall we decided to paint white, hoping that it would make the space feel more expansive and clash less with the piano.
Paint always looks different on the wall than it does on the paint chip. The color we chose ended up looking a little more blue than we intended, but overall, we think it's a big improvement. Feels like we have a brand new room and all it took was a couple of trips to the paint store and part of a weekend.

Washer and Dryer

It finally happened. After countless rolls of quarters and relying our relatives' generosity with their appliances, we finally, finally have our own washer and dryer:

That's a stackable (duh) Asko set. We had never dreamed of getting this high-end Swedish brand, but we have a designer friend who got us a hook up with a deal. We paid less than one-third of this set's retail price. The washer and dryer actually cost us about the same as a much, much lower end set would have, so we are pleased as punch.

One of the things that we absolutely love about this set is that they are super water- and energy-efficient. The washer spins clothes up to 2000 rpm at the end of the wash cycle (roughly the same rpm that you car's engine will have on a mellow road), and things come out nearly dry. That means much shorter dryer cycles. The washer uses about one-quarter of the water that a traditional top-loading washer would use, even with optional extra rinse cycles. It requires very little detergent and still comes in as an energy star appliance!

So, laundry is our new hobby for the new year. Happy New Year to everyone out there, and all the best in your 2009 endeavors!

Christmas came early...

That beautiful sight is a 220-volt plug for the dryer that will shortly be ours. I could have kissed the electricians who put this in for us.

(I am more excited about this than I have been about anything in a long, long time. So stay tuned for the VERY EXCITING pictures of our new washer/dryer set!)

Fireplace non-update

I had two local wood-working companies come to bid on our fireplace; I heard back from one of them. The bid came in at more than $1,600 with a five-week lead time; we're going to pass on it.

We're also now talking about plan B, which might include a nice tile around the mouth of the fireplace and another round of bidding for a wood frame to that tile.

We always love hearing suggestions from the internet, though...consider this your palate:

Two steps forward, one step back

Tai finished the work on the tile for the washer/dryer nook this week, and I spent some time looking for appliances. We have very specific requirements for what can go in there: 30" wide by 30" deep by less than 78" tall for a stacked washer and dryer. The dryer has to be electric because we purposely didn't run gas to the space, and both the washer and dryer have to be able to run on 120 V.

It's the last condition that is proving the most difficult. Standard power for washers and electric dryers is 240 V. I went to a couple of different spots around town looking for something that would fit our criteria, and in each store, the salesmen showed me the same catalogue with the same, single option for a 120 V electric dryer. This type of dryer evidently also takes a really long time to dry because there's half as much juice running to the machine.

Another option for us is to purchase a combination washer/dryer, which I've only ever seen in Europe. They're tiny — built to fit under a kitchen counter like a dishwasher, and the one I saw the other night was a condensation dryer (no, I don't know exactly what that means). And, about 150% as expensive as a typical stacked washer/dryer would be.

But it's so cute, no?

We're hoping our friend The Google Search comes through with some more options for us, one of which may be running a gas line right through some drywall to the space. TBD...

Fireplace facade

I met yesterday with two different wood workers for bids on covering up our “arty” fireplace:


I don’t have their bids yet, so this is all hypothetical, but we asked for something similar to this, which would also echo the lines of our new entryway console table:




The first guy said no problem, he can do that and he can do that in walnut in about a month or so (bid price dependent, of course). The second guy pointed out that we can’t *technically* have a wood fireplace façade within six or eight inches of the fireplace opening since it turns out that, oh, wood is flammable?

Stay tuned. We’re not exactly looking for more excuses to do tile work, but we may not have a choice because of The Law.

Nook

This was the work on the washer-dryer nook over the weekend:


Before giving the beast of a tile saw back to my grandpa this fall, Tai cut all the tile we thought we needed for this little space, anticipating this very weekend and hoping that he could just throw down the cut tile. That cut tile has disappeared. He was able to lay these six tiles, and hopes to snooker some unsuspecting Home Depot or Lowe's employee into cutting the rest...sometime this week?

And this is why I keep saying bratty stuff like, "I want my kitchen back."

Seeking

...a wood worker for a fireplace bid. If possible, we'd love one who has worked in modern homes or with modern design in the past.

Suggestions, anyone?

Washer/dryer nook

With the plumbing in for the washer and dryer the next step before sheetrock was to have something to plug the washer and dryer into. Fortunately there was already electrical in the back wall of the cubby supplying the power outlet in the living room.

Haiku in honor of L'element

Traditional (5-7-5)

You were the greatest
investment we didn't know
we needed to make


We could not believe
Ikea cab'nets fit so
well, until we saw.


Modified

To the bamboo floor
you huffed, "eh, bring it on,"
but your tires rode low.


Free form

Your clean lines evoke minimalism,
but so many people shirk
from your boxiness.


You were cheap and easy —
the only cheap and easy thing
about this remodel.

Happy New Year

Best wishes to everyone out there from everyone in here! As you might have been able to tell from the increasingly short posts up to this point, we had a crazy December. The first half of the month was spent rushing around trying to make the condo livable to make a December 15 move-in date.

We made it. We made it in time to cobble together a Christmas tree complete with trimmings and that fresh pine scent (a welcome change from the Pine-Sol we used this fall to get rid of the cat smell!). We thoroughly enjoyed seeing family and friends over the past two weeks, and we even scraped together enough chairs to host a few minor gatherings for out-of-towners who might not be around for a late-January/early-February house-warming shindig.

It feels good. Really, really good, in fact.

We still have a few things on our list, though, before we're ready for an official unveil:

1. Finish the built-in bookcase in the living room
2. Face and finish the fireplace (it's a gaping hole right now)
3. Get a long-awaited plumber to pull a drain up to our condo for a washer, install drywall and tile in the washer-dryer nook, paint, finish etc., and put in the washer and dryer.
4. Figure out some solution for a couple of spots where kitchen and bathroom cabinets do not quite meet the wall — we're not crazy about the weird glimpses into the unpainted baseboard and support beams you get from these three gaps

Otherwise, there are the usual tidying-up tasks, including unearthing our office desk from the avalanche of books, old mail, old magazines, Christmas receipts, etc., that have taken over our second bedroom. We also probably need a little straightening up in the bedroom and kitchen, too. But again — it feels good to have a home again.

We're already looking ahead for 2008, though. We worked hard to make this place nice, but we always intended it to be a temporary spot. We're eying places to build, kicking around ideas, weighing the relative merits and demerits in the historic landmark districts around here (ARGH), and thinking about how to approach the year.

In the next few weeks, we'll fill you in on the bookcase process (we had to remove our front door to get the case into our living room...), the fireplace designs and the never-ending search for a plumber. Oh, and a special field trip this weekend that we expect to be entertaining more than fruitful.

Happy New Year to all of you, and thanks for sticking with us through this process. We hope to have lots of interesting stuff to post this year.

Countertops

As Kersten said in an earlier post, I chickened out on the concrete countertops. Time was running short, and trying to learn a new technique on such a tight schedule was giving me panic attacks. Instead we opted for the Numerar countertops from Ikea (pronounced "eee-kay-ah" in our house because it's more fun that way).

Because the walls are as far away from being square as you can imagine, I had to scribe the ends and cut them at strange angles so there wouldn't be any gigantic gaps between the countertop and the wall.



Once the cuts had been made I dry-fit the countertops in place to make sure that everything fit right before moving on.


Now it was time to cut a gaping hole in the countertop for our sink. We had originally intended on doing an undermount sink, but with the change in countertop and the nearly impossible task of finding an undermount that would fit our 30" sink base cabinet, we ended up with a top mount also from Ikea.


Making that many cuts to the countertop made a big mess.


Final step was to fasten the countertop to the cabinets and call it a day (except I probably kept working until really late)

We are in

But so far from unpacked.

More later (including pictures).

Concrete confession

We're not doing a concrete countertop.

OK.

Now that I've got that out there, this is what happened — we ran out of time. Making our own concrete countertop would have taken the better part of two weeks. We were ready for a countertop about a week ago, concrete would have taken longer, and I wasn't about to delay our move-in date of TOMORROW — GASP! — because we really need our own space during the holidays. I hope you all still love us.

Some day — some day soon, we hope — when we are running on more than a few hours of sleep and when Tai hasn't been up the night before until 4 a.m. installing a tile backsplash, and when I'm out from under a bit of stress from quitting one job and starting another and selling a car and packing up our life in the middle of it all, we will show you pictures of this place. If I don't say so myself, it's looking mighty fine. Even without a concrete countertop.

Suck it, electricity

I put up the bedroom ceiling fan ALL BY MYSELF the other night, and I didn't shock myself once.

It went from this....

To this (if you can even tell what it looks like from this picture)

Your call

I wonder if I look as tired as I feel.

Remodeling elves

We couldn't have done this process without all the help from our families. We've mentioned Tai's rock-star dad on this blog many times before (see subfloor 1, subfloor 2, tile) with even a picture of the fine gent here. We interrupted his Saturday night with a desperate call for help wiring our dishwasher and garbage disposal. He graciously responded by crawling around on our floor for several hours:


My mother bravely trekked downtown in the middle of the season's first blizzard to help us paint some closet interiors. The hall linen closet and the living room coat closet both now have paint thanks to her.



The brothers-in-law helped put down the bamboo, and my grandfather spent two back-breaking days under our kitchen sink trying to figure out our antiquated plumbing. Bless his heart — he is SO tired of doing our plumbing. He's also been housing us since mid-August, so I'm pretty sure he's sick of that, too!


My dad and little sister even got in the action by priming on our kitchen walls and front door. My dad made an encore appearance to prime the bathroom baseboard (ah, our lives are so glamorous!). My mother and grandfather made a much-needed dump run for us, which is why you haven't been treated to a final photo of the old toilet in an odd setting — they got the honor of throwing it into the dump pit. I got word this morning from my mother that she ironed and hemmed our bedroom and office curtains for us ("It's curtains for you..." was her exact phrase). And Daniel and Lacy gave us a jump start on our kitchen cabinets one very cold night just before Thanksgiving.

So, this is great. When I grumble about living in Utah (see: the last three years), it's usually because I've forgotten what a benefit it is to live near family. Help with our remodeling project is just a small reason why I'm constantly reminding myself that we are indeed lucky to have all trillion of them nearby!

The Great Salt Lake

We've been able to see this city's titular lake from both condos, and this is a high-energy song from one of our favorite bands (I gifted myself their new album for early Christmas). We're short on high energy these days (so. so. tired.), so pick-me-ups like this have been priceless. As we get down to the little details that will really make this place feel liveable, it's been hard to keep up enthusiasm. We are so close.

The window coverings have been a tricky part of the remodeling process for us. We have four floor-to-ceiling windows, one each in the kitchen, living, bedroom and office — Wendover residents could tell what we're eating for dinner. We hadn't bothered with blinds during the bulk of the remodel because if you're interested enough in us stripping wallpaper, painting, laying bamboo and cutting baseboard, knock yourself out.

Since this is a short-term place for us, we weren't willing to drop too much green on blinds. Enter Ikea (you knew that was coming, didn't you?).

We're quite pleased with our system. Show's over, neighbors!

From the "what Lowe's had" category

Before:


After: