All things new again

I have no idea why, but I decided it was time for a face-lift.  Idle hands are the devil's workshop I guess.  'Cept right now my hands aren't idle.  Might could be that I can't leave well enough alone.  (See boys nodding vigorously in agreement).

I also switched over to some new updated swank posting system that is supposed to make posting oh-so-much easier and creative.  Hmmm.  Right now it all looks pretty much the same to me.  Rumor has it that it makes loading up photos easier.  Guess we'll wait and see about that.  There's much afoot at the CMR so there'll be some photos on their way.

The one thing  main thing I have been looking for is this strike-out feature.  Don't know when I'll use it - - but it's cool knowing it's there.

So here's to my new blog face.  And remember, if you aren't inclined to do anything worthwhile - - just fool around with your fonts.  Words to live by.

CMR Update 01/29 : Plaster, Stone and Heat

There was a whole lot of plaster sanding happening over at the CMR this week. Our visit on Saturday was a little like stepping in Charlie Sheen's living room. White powder spread on every surface (heh heh heh). To big George's disappointment, we didn't see any hookers.

Fans a 'blowing all around to get these walls dried - -



Henry realized that if he runs around the pool room he could see all his foot prints. He also later climbed up on the scaffolding to check out the view (and leave his mark).

Hallway view from in front of Henry's bedroom down to George the Younger's bedroom. Nice visual of all the powder... amazing. I'm wondering how they clean all this up? Humongous vacuum?

The drywall along the stairs was trimmed down to it's final height. I'm pretty sure it's now ready for the railing installation. We finally got the "ruling" from the "code inspector Gods" - - and it doesn't look like we will need to extend the railing at the bottom of the steps. This decision took 2 whole weeks. 2 inspectors, 2 people reviewing code books and 1 angry home owner. My hatred for the city inspectors continues to grow with each passing week. They make everything from installing railings to electrical panels to type of light bulbs not only frustrating, but illogical.

Case in point? In the laundry room there is a big closet, only we can't call it a closet because the electrical panel is in there, as well as access to the back of the rack that will hold the stereo/TV equipment (lots of wires) - so we need to call it a "room." As I mentioned the electrical panel is in the "room." The "room" will have doors that close it off from the laundry area. You know - - just like closet doors, but not closet doors cause this is a "room." The electrical inspector came out several weeks ago and said he thought we should move the entire electrical panel out of the "room." Why? Because there was a possibility that some one could stack boxes or put shelves in front of the electrical panel. When GC Paul asked him why this was different than placing the electrical panel in the garage where people could obviously stack things in front of it - he stumped the inspector. We don't know whether the final electrical inspector will be as dense, but suffice to say, we're not moving the electrical panel. I'm going to make a little warning sign that just says, "Don't Stack Shit Here."

Our lava stone/rock has been delivered. This belongs in the atrium and on the front stairs. There are stacks and stacks of it. Seems excessive - but I'm no stone installer. We'll keep any extra to use as pavers in the back yard some where.

The complex and completely un-intuitive (is that a word?) radiant heating system in nearly all connected up. It's crazy. Just plain crazy. Plus the box to the sophisticated water heater that will provide hot water for both the floors and our sinks and showers has been delivered and the box is enormous. Hopefully it's just a lot of packing materials. If not, I think it is "boiler sized."

Remember when the concrete front steps were poured in December? These are not those. These are new-new concrete front steps that replaced the previously poured front steps. GC Paul said that the old-new concrete front steps had bowed a little in the center of each step. Somewhere about 1/2 inch out from the edges. Since we're putting that nice lava rock (earlier photo) on top of the concrete steps and it will overhang about a 1/2 on each step - it's got to be even. I feel bad for the concrete guys - - but I am sure this isn't the first time for them.

Wood stain / color continues to dog us. Upstairs the wood is Oak (or something like that - - could be ash, could be oak, could be ? It mostly looks like Oak). Our initial objective was to make the downstairs match the upstairs. But this is problematic since we really aren't sure what the wood upstairs is and it's been stained/painted to some really obscure and tragically-impossible-to-match finish. We have tried to get the cabinetry guy to match it - - but it's been illusive to date. Some nonsense about the EPA banning certain kinds of carcinogenic chemicals that were previously used to make the stains. Why the nerve of those guys trying to keep kids safe. I'm trying to match wood here for Pete's Sake. What do I care about a little brain damage down the road?

To add further complication we now have: new birch closet doors, new fir interior doors, new fir windows (with some pine), and we have intended to use pine as trim. We are also going to have these pretty dang big "walls 'o wood" in both the rumpus room and the pool room and large cabinets in the open area. What to do? What to do?

I asked GC Paul if he would be able to get me a "sample" of the birch (since the windows and some doors are already installed). My thought was that this would help me visualize the different woods together. I burst out laughing when I saw the birch sample....

Yup, that's a double birch closet door in a pine frame. Obviously the merits of birch are illuminated - but you have to admit it's kinda hard to move that bad boy sample around to compare it to the fir and oak.

Right now, we are leaning toward doing the cabinetry in Yellow Birch (very heywood-esque for those in the mid-century know). Jury is still out. But, we got a BIG sample of white birch. Yes, we do.

And finally, this past visit to the CMR brought our first family guests to the CMR construction site. My mom and her husband Gerry came to visit. They are on a 5 week "tour of CA and AZ" and stopped by to see us. Mom had seen the house before we actually bought it. She was amazed at the downstairs space. Much bigger than she could have imagined. It was great to see them - - although I suspect Grandpa Gerry wasn't exactly thrilled when we all piled back in his car covered in plaster dust :) He took it pretty well for a man who loves cars.

We're down to the details - and the house is really shaping up. The next weeks are going to be a whole lot of fun while we install the design-y stuff. Stuff we've painstakenly selected, ordered and had shipped over these last many months. Paints, lights, tile, cabinetry (once we figure out the color??), railings, wine cabinet and my nifty marmoleum floor in the laundry room. 6 weeks and counting to completion and then 2 weeks to get the inspectors out and convince them that we did everything right. Oh, yeah, and I've got to make the sign.

Wonka Vision

It's been a few weeks since I got my new eyes. I'm absolutely loving it this whole mono-vision gig - - mostly. I've had to go and get different lens to try twice. Both times I need to get them stronger. Stronger on BOTH sides - - so the difference between the two corrections has grown considerably. More magnification right eye. Less magnification left eye. The first pair made me want to throw up in Target. I could focus on anything anywhere. Now - - much better!

I can see lots of stuff now. I've pretty much conquered inserting and extricating those slippery little discs (fine - - that's an exaggeration, but I'm no longer scratching my corneas every time I attempt to remove them). I am over the moon about my ability to go through time and space reading crap that I never could read without searching around for my glasses. It is freedom - - wonderful freedom.

When I was washing the dishes the other night, I realized that the plates we have been using for some time now have a darling little buffalo on the underside. I, of course, knew that they were called "buffalo china" - - which means they are sort of like plain old diner-ware - - but I had absolutely no friggin idea that there was a little bison rendered on the back. Who knew?

The flip side is that I also realize that I need to pluck my eyebrows more carefully a little more often. Who knew that there were lots of little teeny blondish colored hairs there too? Weird.

Driving - - well driving is an exercise in adjustment. Sure, you can see far. But with only one eye. Sure you can see the dashboard too. But only with one eye. Yesterday I realized that when turning slight left - - and having the rim of the windshield separating the vision of my two eyes that everything to one side was crystal clear. Everything to the other may well have been smeared with Vaseline. And while this weirdly "works" for the most part - - some times I think it might be better if I had the full power of two eyes when driving. (And I kind think that perhaps my fellow drivers might also wish for the same thing...)

Today I went and got some driving glasses - - which are also called "movie" glasses. This was a tad disconcerting as I kept thinking that the level of visual vigilance should be higher while driving than while sitting in a large dark room watching Mama Mia and chomping down on popcorn. Perhaps if a person does come in requesting "movie glasses" the optician has a moral obligation to also suggest that person might also considering using them while operating a large fast moving hunk of metal. I hope so.

All these driving glasses do it correct my already corrected eye in the complete opposite direction. I'm thinking that if I ever try to use them when I don't have my contacts in - I should be able to see Mars fairly clearly on a nice evening. Going from "can't read a damn thing" to "I can read that street sign down the road" is a far piece of correction distance.....

And come to think of it? Now that I will have both "movie" and "driving" glasses, if the occasion should ever arise when I need to drive while simultaneously watching a movie on a large screen - - well, I'll be cooking with gas....

CMR: What a difference a day makes

Or in some cases - - what a difference a week makes.

Big holes covered in plywood become amazing wonderful windows:

Jan 15:

Jan 22:




Crappy looking drywall inserts start to look like real walls in the master bath:

Jan 15:


Jan 22:

Invisibilty becomes the word of the day between seeing where the old door used to be and seeing smooth seamless plaster in the library:

Jan 15:

Jan 22:

Exterior waterproofing is covered with siding:

Jan 15:

Jan 22:

And sometimes, just sometimes it really does all happen in a day! From Saturday morning to Sunday morning A raw gaping hole becomes a door!

Jan 22:

Jan 23rd:

Now the atrium is filled with three new, beauteous french doors and one crazy-nice supersized rectangular window....

This week also brought a little miscommunication in the "window department." Middle of the week, GC Paul reported that the hall windows had come in early. There was much rejoicing!! Early is GOOD! This information resulted in a quick emergency mobilization of the demolition guy who came over on Wednesday afternoon to rip out all the old hall windows. his expertise left us with a very large, super airy hole in the hallway in front of the master bedroom door. Pretty hole, huh?

Bad news? The window people lied. Not all the windows were ready to be inserted in to the obviously window-wanting holes. Only one lone window was ready.... here it is leaning in the living room (beside the new atrium door). It can't be inserted until all the windows are here. No news on when the rest will be ready. In the meantime, our hallway has a very open feel to it. Open as in literally open....

Salmon Nilla

The CMR has finally reached the juncture when GC Paul has put me on notice that I need to settle on interior paint colors. This is good news. The bad news? Actually selecting the paint colors.

I've been spending hours in places called "House of Color" and "Hugh's Hues." The array of colors is staggering. Unfortunately, we're mind-stuck on colors that we used in our house in London by a British paint company named "Farrow and Ball." This is our albatross. Why? You can get F&B in SF. You "simply" have to import it from Canada. A gallon of this luxurious elixir costs roughly the equivalent of our weekly grocery bill. How many gallons do we need? Buckets of gallons. Simply buckets.

George the Elder - - like a dog with a bone - - is now fixated on just getting Benjamin Moore to computer generate the color mix that matches the microscopic color chip color from a very loved and worn F&B Colour chart. MY first tact is to just try to get a close approximation by holding up the wee chips to hundreds of slightly larger chips in various lights in various stores. I'm not entirely convinced that my way is the best way. But, it's my way and I need to defend it to the bitter end.

The weirdest thing about paint and looking at hundreds of paint chips, charts and sample cards? Hands down, it's paint color names. They make the folks that name Opi nail polish look like simpletons. "Big Apple Red" is child's play compared to some of these titles. I want to personally meet the people who's job it is to name paints. The person that can see a shade of pinky brown and settle on the name "Dead Salmon?" Who is he? Did he spend a lot of time comparing and contrasting that shade to various deceased water creatures and eventually decide it was without-a-doubt salmon? When he named the color "Pigeon" did he chase a flock of flying rats around Trafalgar Square. Did he capture one and hold up the smidgen of colour just to feel confident in his choice??

And what's with all the mists? Sea Mist, Star Mist, Gray Mist, Morning Mist, Evening Mist and Midnight Mist? Who knew it was so damn moist and foggy out there in the color world?

And then there's the food colors (beyond the dead salmon): Burnt Peanut, Dill Pickle, Sunny Yam and Elegant Eggplant. Most these shades can't even be used in a kitchen.

Our current color selections: Straw, Stone White, Pigeon (yup, really), Storm, Steam and Atmospheric. Dolphin is on the short list - but we ruled out Tumeric. Straw isn't really available here in the US, but Citrone is. Stone White isn't either, so they've named it's Western neighbor Field Moss. Pigeon, not surprisingly, has no parallel. Only the Brits, and it appears us, are willing to paint a wall or two the colour of unloved rodents with wings.

We now have a number of large sheets of paper painted in various colors. We have ones that are made by Benjamin Moore (brilliant idea to make HUGE 16 x 16 paint chips!!) and we have ones that we made ourselves this afternoon from paint samples, a large roll of white butcher paper and the world's cheapest paintbrushes (yes - - unlike the professional Ben Moore ones, these have a little texture in the way of bristles embedded in them). Tomorrow we will head to the CMR to make some decisions.

Bring on the Salmon and the Stone. Let's pick colour!!!

CMR Update 01-15: Let there be MORE light

Week 6,027 (or what feels that way - it's actually only week 32 - but in "doing-laundry-at-the-laundra-mat-years" it stretches waaaaay out) shed a little more light on the subject. Notice new window on bottom left. That's Henry's bedroom window. Cool beans indeed!


More exterior work meant starting to install some of the beauteous exterior pine siding. If only there was a way to make either the old siding look brandy new - - or make the new siding look weathered and aged - well, that would be ideal. But GC Paul assures us that no one will be able to tell the difference between the two when we are all done. Me? I'm gonna play that wait and see card. Still, gotta admit that it's thrilling to watch it become a bit more of a house again unlike the war zone construction site it's been since they shoved a couple of steel beams totally through the house.



Just like the first window, the second window makes Henry's room look bright and shiny. I'm considering not putting any window treatments in here. That would sure get his happy butt up a little earlier now wouldn't it? In the upper left portion of this pic you can see that Henry's escape route to the upstairs is still in motion. He still thinks that we are going to close it up. Instead, GC Paul still has plans to install him a little secret ladder....

This is a simply another view from the bottom hallway (right in front of George the Younger's room) up to Henry's door way. The light is SO much better than we had imagined!!

Moving upstairs, the door-that-was-supposed-to-be-removed-but-was-forgotten-to-be-removed - - well, it's now removed. So, our teensy-little master bath is now just for us and cannot be accessed by any other way but through the master bedroom. Just for kicks, it's interesting to remember that for nearly a year all four of us shared this bath together. Just for kicks, I am going to announce my unadulterated GLEE that I don't have to do that any more. Boys are pigs. Their aim sucks at everything from peeing to spitting. I know I'll still have to clean up their bathroom - - but at least I can close their bathroom door and let them step in their own pee spots if I'm not in the mood.

Here's the other side of that door where it used to open up in to what used to be the boys' bedroom. Of course, now the boys' bedroom is the library / office where we also usurped the space in the wee tiny Bindery room. Saw the final plans for the lots and lots and lots of shelves that will line these walls. What would a library be without lots of books?

This is the view from the upper hallway down to the kitchen. See nice rectangle all ready for the window? See nice big space all ready for big glass doors to the atrium? And, we just found out today that the hall windows (the ones you can kinda see in the right side of the photo) have also been delivered!! The replacement of these windows was a 3Q game decision. We knew they were old. We knew they had some rotted wood. We just didn't want to accept it. In the end - change order #17 was born.

This is the highly complicated and complex operating system for the radiant floor heat and the hot water heater. In order to operate this system to its highest efficiency I am going to need to return to college to get my engineering degree. As this will take at a minimum of 4 years - - and remember, we're talking about me here - - the one who does algebraic equations by drawing stick figures and smiley faces - - it is likely to take oodles longer. Instead, I intend to ask GC Paul for a big sign with neon flashing arrows that says "For More Heat Turn Here."

Here, in the utility closet (which in order to meet code, must be called a utility "ROOM") are the terminus of all the orange radiant heating tubes from all over the house. Some how someone, much smarter than me, will surgically connect all of these tubes to the corresponding valve on the above pictured very complex operating board. It's stuff like this where you know you are getting your moneys worth. Stuff like breaking through your old bathroom tile with a sledge hammer? Not so much. I can wield a sledge hammer with the best of 'em.

You know those cool theaters called black boxes? Everything in them is black and movable and infinitely artistically open-ended? Now that all the dry wall is in - - well we've got our own version. The rumpus room / pool room is now officially the White Room....

This photo is simply for posterity (or evidence should things not go the way they say it will go). Underneath all this white crap and blobs are our very beautiful polished concrete floors. I have been assured that everything on it is water soluble and will be easily wiped away to once again restore them to their former luster. Yesterday, Henry brought home a smallish 1'x2' segment of dry wall. In the span of approximately 2 hours - - and various "experiments" later - - he managed to get dry wall schmootz all over the kitchen (walls and all), as well as to create a big pile of it in pieces and scraps from dust-size to small rock-size on the back patio. It took me approximately 2 days to almost clean it up. Easily wiped? I. don't. think. so. Hence the photo for posterity (or evidence).

This is a perfect shot of the wooden skylights. Imagine the light. Imagine being able to see right up on to the atrium behind it. Imagine being 14 and having women in short dresses standing up on the atrium? Hmmm. Perhaps we need to rethink?

Another view of the skylights from the inner corner of the rumpus room. See nice light coming from stairs to kitchen? Try to visualize that light, plus the window that's going to be there, plus the glass doors and SHAZAM!! Amazing what a little digging and a lot of windows can do.

And finally, an RIP to our old porch beam. It's laying here on the front walk ready to go to the old compost pile in the sky. I went over today and GC Paul helped me take off the numbers. We'll add them to the little history niche in the garage where the original building permits are going to be preserved. Yet another small reminder of the history of this house that we are making our own changes to. It'll be a tiny wee "195" time capsule.

So, we continue to march onward. I was told today that we need to be ready with all our interior paint colors by next week!?! What??? I was kind of speechless. Paint Colors??? We can choose PAINT COLORS??? Per-itty big change from deciding whether or not to jam steel soldier beams behind the back of the house to keep the soil from caving in, eh?? Sheesh -- what a difference 6,027 weeks can make....

Photo Ops

We're not big family photo folks. It's not that we don't like to take pictures, but the thought of getting all gussied up and standing/sitting/posing for photos isn't something we put on the calendar often. We had a photographer take some family shots while we were in Tokyo. Very casual, very candid. She was great.

Recently, two things came to pass that made us realize that perhaps it was time for an updated professional family shot. The first was that in the Tokyo photos Henry is 3. He is no larger than our family dog now standing on his hind legs. Currently, Henry is standing almost eye to eye with me. The passage of time waits for no man. The second was that both of my sisters and I were going to be together for thanksgiving for the first time in a couple of decades. This meant that all the cousins were going to be together for the first time in a couple of decades. This meant that the timing was perfect to get them together for photos to give to my mother for Christmas. An auspicious alignment of the planets, so to speak.

So the day after Thanksgiving we donned our requisite 21st century black and white (I believe that this is kind of an unwritten law now for family photographs - Thou Shalt Stick with the Monochromatic Color Theme) - and headed out in to the Arizona morning sun for smiles.

In my mind, I equate posed photos with Olin Mills. You know - the kind of photos that show up on web-sites called "The Worst Family Portraits EVER in the history of man" or something like that. But, you know what? We like these. We really like these.

And so, without any further ado - the photos of The Wisniewski Family circa late 2010....

Oh, yeah - - we did get lots of others of all the cousins and the sisters together - - but we got these too. We got so caught up in the whole affair that there are 9,027 odd different poses of groups of cousins, groups of siblings (both young and old) family shots, kid shots, potential engagement photos, and shots of dogs. I'd show them all to you, but in a couple of the big group shots, there are some very wide smiles - indicating hysterical laughter. These happened when I audibly farted. Who's the wise guy that scheduled photos the morning after Thanksgiving dinner that included brussel sprouts? You're going to look at these pictures with a whole different eye now - - aren't you?