Most Of The Scaffolding Is Down

The painters took down the scaffolding from the East side of the house today. You can see the silver accents that were the last details to be painted. The windows on the top 2 floors will be painted once we get around to restoring the individual sashes.

Ground Floor Kitchen Cabinets Are Installed

We designed the ground floor of our house as a possible rental unit down the road so we installed a separate kitchen down there. This is an Ikea Adel Medium Brown Kitchen with stainless steel appliances from Bosch. We'll install a granite counter and mosaic tile backsplash. We had originally planned to install a Bosch side-by-side refrigerator but the right side door would not be able to open fully. We plan on ordering the LG 21755 counter depth refrigerator with bottom drawer freezer in stainless steel.

Finish Interior Trim Almost Complete

The carpenters have been busy the past week finishing up all of the interior trim (the baseboards) now that the hardwood floors are installed. In the background you can see the new arch that duplicated the pre-existing one that had to be destroyed during the foundation upgrade to the house. The plasterers still aren't finished and they have spent more than 12 hours trying to get it to look right. Each of the 3 floors of the house has the same detail so it's easy to see if they did it right.

New Windows Are In

We ended up replacing all of the windows on the ground floor with new custom sash over sash laminated glass windows. We didn't install double pane, insulated windows because the climate is so temperate in the Bay area and they don't offer the physical security that laminated glass provides. There used to be bars protecting the ground floor windows and I'm happy to say that they will not be replaced. The existing sashes will be recycled upstairs as much as possible so they won't go to waste. Many of the south and east facing windows on the house are worn out.

Bathroom Is Finished

It's been a busy month which is why I haven't posted in a while. The marble subway tile looks great in the shower, tiled to the 10 foot ceiling. You can save a great deal of money if you plan in advance. I purchased the sink, toilet and Rohl hardware all online from Homeclick.com for almost 40% off. The shower has 3 shower heads: 2 shower arms on either side of the wall and a 12" rain shower head coming down from the ceiling. I really love this shower, particularly with the radiant floor heating! Now I have to decide whether to install a 3/8" shower door or 0.5" unit.