A Clear Idea

Well the time has finally come for the last posting on our remodel. After 11 months Mr. & Mrs. Remodel can hardly believe that they are done although the evidence is all around them.


Hold on. What’s that black line next to the stairs?

There comes a point in a remodel pursued with the permission of permits when you are ready for Mr. Inspector to sign off the job as finished. That doesn’t mean the whole job is complete, just the parts that he is interested in. Since we had reached that point quite a few weeks previously we thought we might as well bring him in and get that done.

We called up, made an appointment, and the following day Mr. Inspector came along to check all was well. As he was finishing his look round, he glanced at the open stairway area and casually asked: “What are you putting up there?” “Nothing,” said Mr. R. “We like the open look.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Inspector told us that we couldn’t do that because it was against the building code; someone might trip coming down and without a barrier to stop them they could be launched into the living room.

Oh… What do we do now?

The slightly less bad news was we didn’t have to have the whole area filled up as long as there was a barrier above the third step up. When you planned to have something completely open, not having to have it all closed isn’t seen as good news.

Well we thought about a railing. We thought about a wall. We didn’t like either idea. Then Mrs. R suggested glass. She’d often seen glass used as a barrier for stairways why not do something similar? We called Mr. Inspector. He said that was acceptable as long as the glass was a half-inch thick.

So we called South Coast Screen & Glass who had done our shower glass. And we called them and called them. We even called in to see them. No one would return our calls or make an appointment to come round to see the space. So we contacted Capistrano Valley Glass & Mirror who were more than happy to take on the job.

Although it was going to cost more, we decided that just having plain glass might look like it was something we had to do. Whereas if we had the glass etched, it would look like we meant it and it would become a piece of art.
We chose a bamboo design because it was near the bamboo art studio doors. Plus bamboo fitted the glass shape and the design they suggested was not cartoony like some of the other designs we saw that would otherwise have worked.

The black channel for the glass was fitted early on but we felt it was best that the glass be installed after the carpet was in.


Here it is while waiting for the glue to dry (limbo dancing anyone?)


Here is the design from the other (etched) side.


Clearly a winner.

Thank you dropping by and following along. I hope you enjoyed it or learnt something about remodeling or both. We must do this again sometime… or not.

True Grit

This is the penultimate posting before Mrs. Remodel’s chronicle of the remodel comes to a close.

Today’s project concerns a cupboard on the landing. Again you might have caught a brief glimpse of it previously.


If not, here is what it looked like.


It is original to the house and looking a bit battered and worn.

This cupboard was the subject of much thought and discussion between Mr. & Mrs. Remodel. What should we do? We considered pulling it out and putting an IKEA cabinet in there but it was too wide for their widest cabinet and too small for two small ones. We thought of pulling it out and putting a bookcase in there but Mrs. R liked the idea of some storage for things like toilet rolls for the upstairs bath, spare linen and other bits and pieces that could be put behind closed doors.


Finally we decided to keep it with some changes. One change was to remove the old shelves and the cleats in the upper cupboard.


We also sanded it down to get rid of the hard edges where some of the paint had been worn away or flaked off.


Then it was painted.


The doors were sanded and given a coat of paint.

While Mr. & Mrs. R were talking about ideas, Mrs. R wondered about making a beachy feature of the cupboard by putting some sort of sandy paint on the doors and the flat surface between the two cupboards.
We found a granite finish paint at Lowes (we didn’t need much but the granite finish only comes in a gallon pot and costs about $40). This green was the nearest colour for a beach look in the range and looks better in person as the texture tones down the green.


Nice new shelves.


The painted doors already to go up.


Shell handles from a special order range at Lowes completes the look.

Door to Door

Today we are talking doors.
We made the decision to replace all the upstairs doors despite the extra expense because it was just going to look better. We are quite a bit over budget because we continued to add things to be done. And because we were the victims of our own success. Everything we did was so nice that it just made almost everything original look grotty.
We also needed new doors downstairs because the bedroom doorway had been moved and we preferred to start from scratch and because a previously open doorway was being given doors.

Before we see pictures I should explain that the doors were often put on and then taken off over the course of several weeks. Doors were put on for an initial fit and then taken off for finishing, put on again with one set of hinges, taken off when we changed our minds and wanted other hinges, put on when… Well you get the picture.


The room that was to be Mrs. Remodel’s art studio came without doors. The previous owners had a curtain that went across the opening (and which went with them when they moved). Mrs. R wanted doors so she could shut herself away for any number of reasons including some privacy to mess up a painting she might be working on.
The opening wasn’t a standard size so Mr. & Mrs. Remodel looked into custom doors. They found a very nice pair of doors with green glass molded to look like bamboo. They were very nice. Very, very nice. But they were over $2,000. Next…


So Mr. R reduced the size of the opening so we could buy off the shelf (so to speak) French doors from Lowes, which cost $250.


Of course French doors aren’t very private.


So we bought some window film in a bamboo design from ArtScape (bought at Home Depot before the carpet fiasco), which provides the amount of privacy Mrs. R likes (it’s an English thing) while still allowing light in.
The film is very easy to put on. We did it in the garage with the doors horizontal, resting on tables.
The handles (throughout) are from Lowes.


Mr. Remodel liked the idea of having a French door the master bedroom to match the art studio but there was the privacy issue again. Mr. & Mrs. R did not want to use the bamboo film again so they scratched their heads looking for another solution.
They thought of putting wallpaper in the glass area with a different design inside from the outside. Another idea was to put fabric over a wooden frame and attach it to the door on the bedroom side but we had some issues with it that made it problematic.


One day Mr. R was online looking at window films and found one by ArtScape that had not shown up during previous searches. It was perfect for the tropical foliage look we wanted.


Excellent!


We finished the doors (which all came from Lowes) with a polyurethane finish for a natural wood look.
The door in place opens into the walk-in closet. The opening is smaller than a regular doorway so we bought a regular door and cut it down width-wise. Why did we do that? I think it was cheaper than buying a door in that size.
The doors cost around $100 each.


Here’s one of the doors, which was lying down (it was tired) for bedroom three.


Here is the other one for the upstairs bathroom.


For bedroom two we decided on another French door to bring some natural light to the landing. As yet we have not decided on a window film for the door.


The glass closet doors are original to the house. Once we cleaned them up (including scraping stickers off the glass) and bought some new track hardware, they looked and worked fine.


Mr. Remodel built custom shelves for our junk in boxes.



The furnace door gets a face-lift and new handle.

Turning Stones to Treasure

Finally the day had come. Carpet day. No more walking on dirty yucky thin carpet, concrete and floorboards.
We found the carpet we liked months and months ago. We saw it at Home Depot. It’s by Shaw Carpets and called Peddle Path. It was brown and tan with tiny flecks of green. It wasn’t too light or too dark. It was perfect. We got a couple of small sample pieces and carried it around with us when we were out shopping to check how it went with our other choices. It also went well with our furniture going in those rooms.

When the time was nearing when we needed the carpet, we went to Home Depot to get the rooms measured. An outside company contracted by Home Depot does this and there is a $50 charge, which then comes off the price of the carpet.

Before someone came round Mr. Remodel had already taken his own measurements so he could compare them to Mr. Carpet Co.’s figures. So Mr. Measure came along and did a very quick measure. Well that’s probably all right because he does this all the time.

However, when Mr. Carpet Co. sent us the plan of the rooms and the carpet required, it was considerablely off compared with Mr. R’s numbers. Mr. Carpet Co thought we needed a lot more carpet than Mr. R did. The cost was an extra $500 and there was a lot of waste. And a lot of seams.

Mr. R firstly asked why they didn’t turn the carpet in bedroom two and run it the other way and have no seam rather than run it the way Carpet Co. wanted to with a seam a foot from the window? Well they conceded that point. On the carpet square footage, they said there was extra carpet because it could only run in one direction on the stair sections (I thought that the stairs would be carpeted with long one piece but each stair had a separate piece). Even so, they wanted to use much more carpet than Mr. R reckoned.
Mr. Remodel asked them for the measurements so he could see why his and their figure differed so much. They can’t do that they say because the measurements belonged to Home Depot. Mmmm but we paid for them? Okay, so we called Home Depot and got some story from them, which boiled down to not getting the measurements.

So what would you do? Throw away the $50 measurement fee and go elsewhere, or pay an extra $500?
We walked and went to LA Carpets in San Juan Capistrano.

Ben from LA Carpets came and measured and guess what? His figures agreed with Mr. Remodel’s. Plus, he said that with the thicker grade of carpet, it could be turned either way so we did not need all that extra carpet. (No one at Home Depot or Mr. CC asked us what grade of carpet so I don’t believe that was their excuse.) So we decided to go with Ben and scheduled the installation.

Here’s an interesting fact about buying carpet that you may not know. When we came to LA Carpets looking for the same carpet we had seen at HD, we could not find it under Pebble Path. This is because the same carpet is given different names according to which store it is sold at. I’m don’t know whether it is at the request of the retailer (making you think that the carpet is unavailable elsewhere) or is done by the carpet producer. But Ben was able to help us find it among his Shaw sample boards under the name Treasure.

Without further ado here it is.


Carpet pad is down with the carpet ready to go in the master bedroom.



We picked the thickest grade and it feels so good to walk on.


Looking good in bedroom three.


And in bedroom two.


Suddenly it is hard to remember how grotty it looked just moments before.



Happy feet, I’ve got those happy feet. Thank you LA Carpets.

Bench Work

It’s nice to have these simpler rooms to work on because we are a bit fed up of remodeling. Even Mr. R is getting tired of it.

On with Bedroom Three.


This is the walk in closet with the clothes poles removed. The slanted piece is to accommodate the stair well below. As necessary as this is, it is also vexing. It makes that corner a bit rubbish (as we say in England).



Taking the carpet off makes the floor cleaner but that corner is still rubbish.


Mr. Fix It takes a look and surmises (correctly) that the slant doesn’t have to take up all the room it does. Some of it can be removed without affecting the stairs.


That way you can make a little bench covering it so the corner will not be so rubbish.


Clever Mr. Fix It.


Looking better all the time.


And yet better.


Now the closet has a little bench for sitting on or storing things on. Thanks again Mr. Fix It.


Mrs. R is very ready to see the back of the peach paint. This wall also needed a lot of patching.


A newly painted white room with some paper blinds enjoying their last moments of life.



A couple of creaky boards replaced.
Existing baseboards are given a new coat of paint as with bedroom two.

Room and Bored

In the last post carpets were mentioned. Well as much as Mr. & Mrs. Remodel would like to bring in carpet now (since they are a mite tired of walking on bare cement, floorboards, and what yucky carpet is still left) there are still several jobs that need to be done first.
We are at the point in the project where we can really taste the finish line but there are still several weeks of work to go. Our energy and interest levels are flagging but we can’t give up now.

However, the good news was that because the downstairs rooms were completed we were able to move everything in the upstairs bedrooms downstairs making those rooms easy to work in.

Let’s start with Bedroom Two.


At some point, someone had removed the cottage cheese finish from all the ceilings but it was still in the closets so that had to come out.


Plus we took out the carpet in the closet so we could do this.


This is spare tile from the upstairs bathroom.

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Although this wasn’t a difficult colour to cover up, the walls themselves needed a lot of patching. This had been a child’s bedroom and the walls were in a rough state.


Ah looking better.


Then up came the carpet. Interestingly, the baseboards were not in bad condition so we decided to keep them and paint them.

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Finally we got to replace the temporary paper blinds with cream-coloured vertical blinds by Levelor.