CMR: The Home Stretch 4/24

Folks were at the house both Saturday and Sunday working feverishly on getting the CMR ready in time for the Wednesday night deadline.  We are confident that our movers are on schedule to arrive at our temp apartment to pack and move.  I wish I could say I have the same high confidence level regarding the completion of the construction :)  And yet, I am hopeful that these guys will pull at rabbit out of their hats to make sure that most things are done - - at least those necessary to move in.  Only time will tell.  72 hours of time to be exact.

Mostly, they're working on the icing.  My favorite part of the whole construction cake.  The end of the week brought Dan, now forever known as THE man of steel, in our books.  Most of the railings have been installed in the interior....

The kitchen railing and Dan THE man of steel

The railing that will serve the purpose of ensuring that
a) I do not fall in to the lower room
b) the boys have something to climb over for sport

The Wii Room railing.  Will this room ever get a better moniker???  I hope so.

Another photo of the kitchen railing.  Why?  It's too cool for school.

The lower railing as seen from the pool room up to the rumpus room.
New wine closet WITH lights can be seen.

The birch panelling is HERE!!  Not finished yet, but it's the bees knees.
And in the best game of "Fish" ever - - we got what we asked for!

The new bath is almost completely done.  Glass enclosure, sink,
 toilet, faucets and towel bars.

The polished concrete floors are revealed in the downstairs bed rooms.
They need a quick additional polish, but they're swell.

"Some" of our light switches have been outfitted with these nifty mid-century
 push buttons.Many others will look exactly like this as soon as we get our
electrical inspection and the ugly white plastic toggle switches are removed!

Where to put the house numbers???  Here where they used to be?

Or here?  Where we like them better!!!

In 72 hours there's a lot to do.  Most importantly, we need some shelves in closets, the floors polished, the cabinetry in the wii room and the paneling completed.  Nice to have before we move in would be a back door (while the nice thick plywood is nice, a working door might be better), interior doors for all the rooms and closets and the completion of the finish for the skylights in the atrium.  There's a million little things that will remain - - but those we can "live" with for a while.

Oh yeah - - and somewhere in the next hours a nice cleaning crew would be great.  I went over today to clean the inside of the fridge.  Note to self:  If you're going to turn off your refrigerator for a year, one box of baking soda is not sufficient.  In a battle of time and residual humidity, mold will win.  Every time.

CMR Update: Wine and Ambiance 4/21

We're exactly one week away from the big move and the team is cranking over at the CMR.  Foreman Luke is managing well with his trusty clipboard in hand.  I can hardly stand to leave there since every hour brings more of the "cool stuff" that we've imagined.  Sure, the construction part (digging the big hole.  filling the hole with stuff like cement and wood.) was awful dang amazing - - but now the pretty stuff gets done.

Steve the Wine Guy did his magic today.

You start with a big crate

You add more crates

You put all the crates in a big hole in the wall and look at them

You put on some doors and you got:  Wine Cabinet!!

Howard the Electrician is hustling about making sure all the light fixtures are getting put in:

George the Younger's Lair

Nifty bullet lights in the pool room

And the King of Steel arrived today with our custom railings.  Can you say, "Totally Wicked!" - - well that's what I said.  Finally, I can walk down the hallway without the niggling feeling like I was going to end up ass over tea kettle one floor down.

Hella Cool Metal!

It's going to be hard to keep up with everything that's getting done these days.  But, it looks like it's going to get done - and we're going to see our stuff again in the house that we built.  Astonishing.

CMR Update: Stainmageddon: The Battle Begins 4/7

All looked peaceful and quiet as I approached the CMR this morning.  The new exterior paving and cement work (most required by the evil City of San Francisco) sat drying in the morning sun.  But there, in the bottom left side windows, was a sign that all was not right within.  Then I noticed the absence of construction trucks, construction workers....  could it be?  Could Jorge the Stain Lord have arrived to save the CMR from the grasp of the evil brown stain monster?

I snuck inside to take a look.  Things looked both ominous and promising....

Keep closed from whom or what???

Not a surface left uncovered.

Red paper on windows - - - creates a peculiar glow.

Entire rooms are blocked with colossal hefty bags

Everything protected but the wee octagonal window frame

What does this mean?  A secret message for the Stain Lord?
Or just construction jesters??

But Jorge the Stain Lord???  Where was he hiding?  Where had he chosen to begin his epic battle???

The maestro's gear is the only thing left accessible

The samples are prepared and wait for final approval

A shadowy figure in the upper hall... could this be Jorge the Stain Lord??
No.  Just one of his side kicks.

Here HE IS!!!

Jorge the Stain Lord!!!

Jorge the Stain Lord many not look like much with his curious respirator mask and his unassuming costume (where is his cape??) - - but this is the super hero that will deliver us safe harbor from Stainmageddon.  He will take the reigns and where there is brown - - he will make gold.  He will sand and he will spray and he will compare and contrast -- and he will CONQUER!!!!!

Go Stain Lord.  GO!!!!!!!

CMR Update 4-4-11: Progression and Postponement

It's early April.  Stuff is getting done.  Some of that "stuff" is delaying us some more - - but it's one of those, getting-it-done-right-takes-longer scenarios.  Stainpocalypse 2011 requires some serious taping off of entire walls and rooms - so they need to hurry up and get stuff done so that they can morph the whole house in to something akin to the containment room in "Outbreak."  Jorge the super stainer will then come and do his magic to make sure all is done correctly.  Apparently he is the virtuoso of all things honey oak.  I can only dream.

On the good news front - - the house is really starting to look like a house... 

Before we left for Disney we had a summit to discuss what to do with the exterior of the skylights.  All of the creative team was in attendance:

Our Creative Team:  Foreman Luke, GC Paul, and the Architects John and Geoff

They set the lights in a temporary bays and we noodled inside the plastic tent that protected all our house innards from the week of crazy rain.  It was overcast, but the greenhouse effect made it about 7,000 degrees inside the courtyard tent.  We tried to make our decisions quickly!

Skylights placed temporarily.  You should've seen them hoisting that center
one up from the lower level.  It weighs alot!

They did some finish work inside while the rain made outside work impossible:

The finish work on the beams between the skylights.  For this picture, the lights weren't in yet.

A view of the skylight bays from across the rumpus room looking in to the pool room.

Then, while we were away in Disney wrestling with our rainy weather, the sky miraculously cleared here in the Bay Area and - - - yessirree!!  We got exterior paint!!!  It's still not completely finished, but we are pleased as punch with the color.  It's similar to the old color, but brighter and shinier!

The front!

Part of the rear!

And now I am too lazy to correct the sequence of photos - - - but here are some shots of our first views of the library cabinetry.  It's going to be such a GREAT room!  It's still being pieced together like a massive jigsaw puzzle.  I stopped by yesterday again for a meeting with GC Paul (without my camera) and it's already changed so much.  The corner desks were in and the pieces were now flush with the walls.

The lower level is now almost entirely painted.  They paint all the walls and then in the last moment, come back and do all the touch up work.  We also used this color in our London house.  It's called Stone white - - but as you can see it's really a nice warm greeny color.  It is more than perfect to hang art on!  The wall to the right will be covered with large birch squares (a mid-century take on "panelling" that isn't oak or knotty pine).  We saw the samples and (fingers crossed) if it turns out that way - - it's gonna be so good!  What you see on the walls in the rumpus room and the pool room is the grid system that they use to hang it.  They just bring in the panels and "snap" them in to place. 

Rumpus room color and wall grid

Pool room wall grid

And now it's time for out with the old lights and in with the new lights!!  It's weird that coming in and finding lighting fixtures excited us so much - - but it did.  It's fun seeing the stuff you selected get installed.  We were a little nervous about some - - but in the end, we like them all.  Howard the Electrician put a couple in the wrong place - - but this is an easy change...

 

Out with the old....

New hallway scones to take the place of the weirdly placed overhead
 fixtures that were there before.  Note to original builder
 - - you can't hang ceiling lights on a sloped ceiling...

The fixtures are new, the globes were reused.  This is in the laundry room.
The globes can't be see very well in this photo, but they are true mid-century gems.

These are the fixtures that will be in the pool room and the wii room.
 Right now this one in is George the Younger's room.

These are the BIG Globes that will be in each of the boys' rooms.
    An updated look on a traditional mid-century globe.

We also made progress on the stairs.  The the little "train track" in the middle on the wood?  The stainless steel railings will fit perfectly in there.  Or so they say....

 

The kitchen is now mostly put back together - - and we are already trying to figure out the timing (i.e. when we will have the moola) to get the one that we really really want.  For now, I can say with a high degree of happiness that AT LEAST IT ISN'T PINK any more!!

 

Evidence of forward movement in Stain Wars 2011?  New Stain samples for the downstairs!!

Birch on the left.  Oak on the Right.  Fingers crossed.....and waiting for Jorge!!

And in bathroom news - - the cap pieces for the pony wall arrived from Heath and so we are 100% tiled.  The big glass wall to separate the shower is on order, the medicine cabinets are here - - and all the sink and fixtures are sitting in boxes ready for installation!

Most importantly - - we spied this in the garage on Sunday....

The potty!!!

And finally - - the first buds on our wee apple tree.  Spring is here and the move is now scheduled for April 27th!  Ready for three weeks of GO GO GO!!!!