Tile guys appeared

The tile guys returned today to patch up the border around the replaced shower glass. I haven't seen it yet, but their work is always flawless, so I can't wait to go home and check it out.
This means that we have just a few large-ish punchlist items remaining, and a bunch of tiny little ones. I still haven't had the energy to compile a list, but I'll try to get to it very soon.

Goodbye fancy

The painters finished the dining room and living room yesterday, and are looking pretty good to finish the kids bedrooms today. They are a great crew -- very nice guys, careful about moving and tarping our stuff, and always clean up the place at the end of the day. I plan to do a full list of sub-contractors later, but for now, if you're looking for a paint crew in Los Angeles give them a call : Mario's Painting Co. Mario Marmol 661-733-8348.

Also, Angel was there today to finish the siding above the balcony and hang doors in the original part of the house. He's getting rid of the old "fancy" door casing and putting in simple, square-cut ones in their place. Goodbye fancy.

Lego sofa

As I've always said: "Lego blocks are several hundred times too small". This problem has been solved with the Bekky Sofa.

Dreaming of decorating

erin says:
Now that the end seems to be in sight, I'm starting to think about decorating. Our daughter is ten months old and mostly still shares the bed with us, so it's hard for me to take her room seriously. Well, we did pick out a great color (icy lavender from Dunn Edwards). And I may steal an idea from a friend of mine and frame a bunch of family baby photos (grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins) for her room.

For Ronan's room, we ordered these wall decals, although we're painting it a calming sand color.

Vanity sketch

Here is what I hope our vanity will look like with the Ikea box, laminate top, Duravit sink, and wall mounted faucets.

Park Oak vanity

This vanity is from one of Leanarch's other projects, the Park Oak house. I'd like our hacked together Ikea sink/base to look sort of like this.

If I squint just right, maybe. . .

Before my morning espresso. . .

Cost cutting

We're actively soliciting suggestions for saving money on the following items, while still looking modern and awesome:

• Flooring for the stairs and masterbedroom
• Surface for the bathroom vanity that'll allow an undermount sink
• Bathroom floor

For the flooring we're looking at engineered hardwood veneer. The pre-finished, click-lock stuff will probably save us a lot on installation costs. I've seen talk of using cement-fiber siding as a floor. Is that nuts?

For the counter top we got a quote on a 3x2 ft. chunk of granite remainder. Per foot costs are lowish ($20) but installation is freaking me out. $900. Help!

The bathroom floor is a tough one, since we're still in love with the $12 sq.ft. Walker Zanger Melange . Maybe we can put some insanely cheap stuff on the walls/shower/surrounds in order to afford this stuff on the floor?

Bathroom floor tile

melange
Originally uploaded by JPPark.

We've found it! This is the tile for our bathroom. It's crazy and we love it. Actually, I'm going to pick up a sample today, so we'll reserve judgment until then, but we're fairly nutty about it.

Stone or porcelain?

I took a brief solo trip to the tile store today. (California Tile Distributors is just down the street and they have it all!) I spoke with one of the employees there, and he confirmed my suspicions. Namely, that porcelain is generally cheaper than stone and easier to maintain. I was looking at something like this.
However, JP isn't sold on the idea.

Although we like slate, I think we've finally agreed to go with something fairly light-colored, maybe limestone, (like this), and find some more expensive tile to accent. I'm really liking this "bamboo".
Originally we thought we'd go with something more like this offset mosaic or zen weave.
But I'm feeling like I need more calm. Perhaps because I'm spending too much time with my three-year-old?

Just found this one that JP and I are both liking, although we haven't seen it in real life. I'll win him over to the porcelain side yet! Daltile that looks kind of like linen.

Where to get bathroom furniture?

Any suggestions on nice-looking, moderately-priced, modern cabinet/vanity/sink? Ikea is letting us down here, as far as the master bathroom goes. Their stuff's too small. We have a space around 45" wide. Help!

Inspection passed, drywall to begin

I just spoke with J.D., who relayed the good news. We now have to pick our bathroom tile and stone, because everything will start happening very quickly. I'm not sure what other outstanding decisions we have to make, but J.D. said he'll pass that info along with the revised schedule in the next couple of days.

Where it's at

We met with James and J.D. the other evening to go over some design and schedule items. Looks like we're going to be slipping on the schedule a bit in order to keep costs down. Not sure yet what the new end date is, but we should hear back next week on that.
Design-wise, James brought some seriously cool samples of materials to look at. We have narrowed down the stair treads and upstairs flooring to either the reclaimed, vertical-cut Douglas Fir or a pre-finished hardwood plank (I forget which hardwood it was made of, I'll post a photo soon). The planks fit together like a Pergo system, with no bevel between boards, so you can't really tell it's not smaller strips.
The master bathroom. Very nice array of stone tiles to look at. We're thinking of doing large cuts on the floor, smaller on the walls and an accent strip of colored (glass?) tiles up the vanity column.

Today, the electricians are back to install can lights in the kitchen. I can't wait to have real light in there when I'm cooking!

The structural inspection went very well earlier this week, with only a couple of minor corrections that can apparently be photographed when complete to save the cost of another on-site.

More thoughts on fixtures. Railings, too.

Erin says:

We've almost decided to go with Hudson Reed for faucets. JP has been scouring blogs and forums for reviews, and most people seem to think that as long as you get the correct conversion parts, installation is okay. Our problem now is that he wants a more overhead-type "rain" showerhead, and I don't. Since I have long hair, I often skip washing it, and I prefer an angled head. We may go for both -- we have to ask if that's possible, or if it's a budget-buster.

We're also waiting to find our if we can have wall-mounted faucets without a weird sink. You know, those bowls that sit on your counter.

On a different note, I really want to get a dual-level handrail for the stairs, so there's one at adult level and one at kid level. I was looking for a photo online, but I haven't found one yet. Our Ikea has them on their stairs.

Looking for fixture suggestions

The plumber told me this morning that we need to have our bath and shower fixtures as well as the bathtub picked out sometime in the next week or two. This is normally the kind of thing we would obsessively research for months before coming to a tortured decision. Can anyone help accelerate this for us? Erwins, I'm looking squarely at you!

James, does the company that makes the knock-offs of highend faucets have a website?

Update:
This shower is nice looking, however I'm sure it's a bit on the pricey side.

CA | Boom

Hi, I'm Erin, JP's wife, and I'm doing a guest stint on Parkhaus today. We went to CA Boom today, which is a really cool home design show.

We're considering ditching the planned addition in favor of a series of sheds www.modern-shed.com. Just kidding, James! But we hope to add one in place of the lead-paint peeling husks we have in the backyard currently.

I'm also crazy about some tile that we saw, which maybe could be an accent in the master bath. It's fused glass; doesn't seem to be on their website, but there are these amazing drawer pulls (Did you ever think anyone could use "amazing" and "drawer pulls" in the same sentence?)

I think we've also ruled out using a concrete counter/sink in the bathroom. It's much smoother than I thought it would be, but probably too big a custom expense for us. I'd rather have cool tile!

Not that we'll have any money left for furniture, but we really liked this guy's stuff: www.yglesiaswoodwork.com. And he's just around the corner in Glendale.

That about wraps it up. Ronan is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the carpenters. Of course, we'll see how he feels about it when he can't go into the back yard! Hopefully they'll have some big machines to make up for it, though.

Marmoleum

I didn't realize Linoleum had left, but apparently it's now back. It's supposed to be relatively inexpensive when compared to hardwood, warm and soft when compared to polished concrete, and eco-friendly when compared to everything.
This one is a tile based system called Marmoleum.