These Little Lights of Mine

So after four days, the electrician finished up his work on the upstairs yesterday. With the exception of getting one fan that had the wrong receiver included, everything else is in and working. Starting in the rear bedroom, there are the wall sconces that flank either side of the bed. (I should admit that I had originally intended to use these in the bathroom above the vanity before I changed the design of that wall). Because the switches for these are directly below the sconces and fairly prominent, I opted for stainless steel switch plates and black dimmers. (Note our first real snowfall of this winter outside the window.)

The ceiling light fixtures include four of these recessed fixtures which pivot and turn, or can be left flush. I also decided to install ceiling fans in both bedrooms. While I'm not the biggest fan of ceiling fans (excuse the pun) as there are some really ugly ones on the market, they do help with air circulation. I opted for the simple Concept I fan by Minka Aire.

In the hallway, a simple ceiling mount fixture from IKEA lights the landing, while the stairwell is lit from strip lighting in the new cove. You can see that I still need to finish painting, as well as the orange that is still being considered (and may or may not stay). There is also a surprise on the way for this area once I get the painting done!



Finally, in the bathroom, while I have to finish the custom light fixture that I'm installing over the mirror, the 'night light' is now working. This light is operated by switches in either bedroom so that you can turn on the light in the middle of the night before even leaving the bedroom so you don't have to fumble around for the switch. The switches in each bedroom have a small indicator light that both help you find the switch in the dark and let you know if the light is one already (in which case the switch light is off). And while not a light, I also had to show off this clever little switch that I bought for the bathroom fan (the middle switch in the gang of three). This bathroom fan timer allows you to set the time (up to an hour) or set to on. What appealed to me (beyond the modest appearance) is that you don't have to worry about forgetting to turn off the bathroom fan.

So, while we're on the subject of non-lighting installation, the electrician also installed the dedicated outlet for the tankless water heater, so one step closer to having the plumber return to finish that install.





He also installed my doorbell!










And on Sunday David helped me install my shower converter, so things are really coming together upstairs.

Now if you'll excuse me I've got some painting to do...

The Last Goodbye

While I can't say that I'm sorry to see him go, it was awfully nice of the Bushes to fly by, or rather, over, on their way out of town.

This is 'Executive One' (the designation given 'Marine One' for the transport of the now former President) en route to Andrews AFB after a final aerial tour of the city, as it flies directly over my house on Inauguration Day.

Rubba Dub Dub - I Now Have a Tub! (And a toilet...and a sink...)

So I'll write more soon, but in the interest of getting these images up, here's my new bathroom! I still need to reinstall the shower converter (as well as install the wood panels between the hall and the bathroom), but otherwise it's all there and working!

New Year, Almost New Bathroom

So the bathroom has definitely progressed. Of course not as much as I would hope, considering that I still need to get the plumbing fixtures, lighting, and wood partitions installed, but nonetheless it is coming together. Just before Christmas the time was installed, and I have to say that I am pretty pleased with the results. And with my time off I was able to paint the walls -- the brick wall, with all the mortar joints and irregularities, took forever! I finished up most of the touch-up last night. Hopefully now I can get the plumbing fixtures in sometime this week!

Prime Time

This past weekends task to caulk at the corners of the bathroom walls and ceiling where they meet the brick wall, and around the built-in storage unit, and then prime the new drywall. One thing that I learned? New drywall is thirsty! I ended up applying two coats of primer for new drywall to the bedroom and bathroom. Now those spaces are ready for the final paint. I still have the stairwell and hallway to prime, but hopefully that will get done this weekend.

In other news, I'm hoping to get the tilers out any day now, and the carpet for both bedrooms is on order. Once the tile work is done I can get the electricians to come back to connect all the new wiring. Then I can install my new lights, switches, and outlets.

Due to the problems with refinishing the bedroom floors, and not wanting to spend too much time or money on the floors, I decided to move forward with new wall-to-wall carpet in both bedrooms. I'm looking forward to getting that in soon so that I can then complete the bedroom with trim, and then I'll be ready to move back in.

A Time for Reflection

The year end is always a great time to reflect on things...well, figuratively speaking, of course. Well, now I can do that literally as well...okay, well at least in the bathroom. This is thanks to the fact that the new bathroom mirror was installed today! It's amazing what a difference this is going to make towards making this small bathroom feel larger and more open. I really can't wait to get the rest of the bathroom done now.
The mirror will be bounded at the bottom by a new white carrera marble sill ledge, the left side by the tiled chase, the right by the wood wrapping of the door system, and the top by the custom light fixture I'm making for this area (note the electrical feed).

(Not) Floored

Well, this weekend's project didn't exactly go as planned. I know that's bound to happen in the course of a home renovation, but it's still frustrating when it happens. As I continue to yearn for a complete bedroom, my project for this weekend was to begin the refinishing of the wood floors. So I set out on Saturday morning to the local rental center and rented a drum sander and an edger. I had done my research, talked to the man at the tool rental place, gotten all that I thought that I needed, and headed home to get started.

The first task was to prep the floor. This included smaller tasks, such as sweeping and vacuuming the floor (as it was covered with drywall dust) and somewhat larger tasks, such as filling in the portion of flooring that had been cut away for the now removed floor register. That task actually went pretty well, with me beginning by adding reinforcing along the floor joist below, and then removing a portion of flooring from beneath the stairs in the kitchen. (These were the end pieces of some of the flooring where the original floorboards meet the plywood in the kitchen, where the original floorboards were poorly replaced, presumably because of moisture problems or rot. An upcoming project will have me replacing the entire subfloor in the kitchen, including the area beneath the stair that will become the laundry area, so these pieces were fair game.) I cut down these pieces to length and used them to fill in the hole. Being fairly satisfied with that task, I decided it was time to move onto the sanding of the floor. This is when things started to go south...

So, a little history before proceeding. All of the upstairs and the living room downstairs had linoleum tile under the wall to wall carpet when I bought the house. As part of the renovation of the rear bedroom and hallway I've removed these in these areas (I've left them in the front bedroom, which will receive new wall-to-wall carpet, and the living room, which will receive new hardwood). Though these tiles came up rather easily, and though most of the sticky residue had become less 'tacky' due to the subsequent layers of dirt, plaster dust, and drywall dust that had fallen on it in the course of construction, unfortunately the adhesive had become absorbed into the surface of the wood enough so that as I began to sand the floor, the sandpaper sheets became quickly gummed up. The sheets of sandpaper were supposed to sand approximately 100 sf, but I couldn't go more than about 4-6 linear feet without the sandpaper being rendered useless by the gummy residue. Feeling defeated, and with daylight fleeting, I decided to cleanup and start again the following morning.

Sunday included two trips to different Home Depots to try to find more sandpaper for the drum sander, though unfortunately the drum sander that I rented, which used Velcro to adhere the sheets (which the guy at the rental center said was easier), was different then those rented at Home Depots, which used a continuous belt. While I therefore was not able to get more sandpaper for the drum sander, I was at least able to get more sandpaper discs for the edger. And, as I was not willing to completely admit defeat, I ended up using the edger to sand down the landing, which I think with a little work might be able to be stained with okay results (considering that I'm staining the floors an espresso finish).

So now I'm up in the air about what to do in the rear bedroom though. While it seems like I might be able to sand down the floors, it seems that it will also take a lot of effort. Having the floors professionally refinished on the other hand is a costly proposal, and it would likely be cheaper to put down a new engineered floor, as I'm planning to do downstairs. My concerns regarding that, however, center around the fact that the upstairs floor isn't level, and I'm not sure how that can be dealt with in this particular case. The other option is to just carpet both the front and the rear bedrooms, but I'm not fully sold on that option. So I'm going to continue to research and see if there is any way to deal with the adhesive residue and continue with the refinishing. Stay tuned...

Bulking Up

So my own project while the drywallers have been working upstairs is to install the framing for the bulkhead around the ductwork in the living room downstairs. Originally I had asked the drywallers to do this, but one of the more imperative aspects of the bulkhead is that it run straight from the front of the house to the back without any 'jogs' or bump-outs. When the drywaller was insistent that it would need to have a bump-out near the kitchen, I said I'd do the framing myself. As the old adage goes, "If you want a job done right..."

Well, so far so good. Though there will have to be some removal of the ceiling in the kitchen to get the framing up in that room. But fortunately I have a little time before I'll be ready for the drywallers to start downstairs.

Getting Closer...

So the drywallers came and worked all day yesterday. It was a whirlwind weekend for me, as I had to go out of town Friday and Saturday, so Friday morning began in Vienna, VA (where I've been staying while I'm sans bathroom) with a quick stop at Home Depot for 1x2's and 3' before heading to the house to install some framing (to furr out the wall around the front bedroom door where the original studs were installed turned sideways) before heading out of town. I returned late Saturday so that I could be around yesterday while the drywallers worked on the upstairs. The results are the installation of just about all of the drywall upstairs and in most cases taped joints and the first layer of mud. It is amazing what a difference the drywall makes, though I'm still pushing forward and won't be quite satisfied until it's all painted and done!! And yes, I'm starting to second guess the paint colors that I bought for these areas (I originally bought them before I decided to bite off this much of the renovation -- actually I guess I could actually pin-point that as one of the factors in my decision to go full ahead with the renovations -- I decided that it didn't make since to paint walls that I was just going to be tearing down in a few months. Oh well! At least paint is easy enough to change if I don't like it!)

To Infinity and Beyond!

So about eight or nine years ago I went to San Fransisco, and it was while looking through one of the great gallery shops there that I came across the work of glass artist Josh Simpson. In addition to many other beautiful glass objects, Simpson creates what he refers to as 'planets'. And that's exactly what these glass spheres look like. Each has exquisite detail under a clear 'atmosphere' surface. Looking in many cases worlds visited by the crew of the Starship Enterprise, or in other case, containing what resembles underwater creatures, each of these planets is unique. Using a kaleidoscope of colors, shiny minerals, twisted elements, and air bubbles, Simpson creates objects that allow our imaginations to run wild.

About a year after seeing the planets in S.F. I was touring the Chrysler Museum's extensive glass collection in Norfolk, VA, where I came upon one of Simpson's enormous megaplanets. I was again spellbound looking at this object from every angle, with all of the blue 'oceans', green, red, and iridescent 'land forms', and orbiting 'aircraft' and 'creatures'. I decided to research Josh Simpson's work online, and that's where I learned about the 'Infinity Project'. Simpson, having been inspired by children's marbles that he found outside of his kitchen door, thought about the concept of found objects, especially glass objects. He was intrigued by the thought of finding an object and all the questions that such an experience would conjure: What is it? Where did it come from? What was its purpose? Inspired, Simpson decided to start 'hiding' his planets, and also to choose at least one person a month to do so as well. Simpson provides selected individuals with two Planets (one to keep, one to hide) inscribed only with the Infinity symbol. Intrigued, I wrote Simpson, expressing my intention to hide one of the planets in one of my projects under construction. I was interested in the notion of cosms that this would create: to have this very small world inserted within the space of a wall inside a building, which was yet a small part of a town or city in one of many countries, on a continent, on our planet, one of many in the universe. I was thrilled to be notified that I was selected as an Infinity Project participant.

As my first design project, an eye care office where I had intended to hid this planet, started into construction I was unexpectedly laid-off from my job, a victim of the late 2001 economic downturn. Unable to place the planet in that project, I decided that I needed to wait until a significant project came along. Some just didn't seem permanent enough, such as the tenant spaces that we designed, with an likely lifespan of about 10-15 years, maybe less. Others just didn't come to fruition. And then there were those that I just didn't feel were quite worthy. Then, a few nights ago it hit me. Here, for the last two years I have been working on a project that has challenged me in many ways and that has inspired determination and become a sort of testing ground for design ideas. This project has become sort of a personal obsession. What better project than this to place my planet. It seemed appropriate, I realized, considering that one of the joys that I had experienced during this project was the 'artifacts' that I found in the walls and amidst the ceiling rafters. And it even made me somewhat accept the notion that the walls that I have just built might one day be torn down by a future tenant, a thought that I have had in the past (but moreso from the "with all the work I've done someone better not rip this out" perspective!). I'm now almost excited about the notion of one day (hopefully way in the future) tearing out the wall and finding this small glass globe, and wondering, "What is this?"