The Fixer Upper House and Garden

Hooks or Hookers?

"It's better to be married to someone who's obsessed with hooks than to have a spouse who's into hookers," I said to Husband.

"Huh? What?" said he, looking up from the laptop.

I was dangling a sack of white, two-pronged coat-hooks in front of the screen. "What do you think about these for the mud-room cubbies?  Do you think it'll look crowded if I use 3 hooks in each cubby? They were kind of cheap. Do they look cheap?"

Cheap got his attention. "What? Oh. They're fine," he said.

I jingled the plastic bag again.

"They're awesome hooks!," he added, sensing my need for more feedback. "Great job!"

But I wasn't going to let him off the hook in regards to the hooks. "OK, so I'm obsessed!," I admitted. "Be thankful it's only hooks! Do you know how many stores I went to this week in search of hooks, door stoppers and a fireplace key with a black flange?

"No," he said. "No I don't know, but I think you're going to tell me."

"I went to six stores, seven if you count two separate Home Depots! And not one store had decent-looking door stoppers! And they're all either phasing out coat hooks or selling them at such a clip that they can't keep them in stock! You try it! You go to two Home Depots, Expo, Lowes, Renovation Hardware, Ace and Craftwood and we'll see how sane you are at the end of the week!"

"Do you want me to get you a beer?" he said, eyeing the computer again. "We have Blue Moon."

I love Blue Moon with a slice of orange, but I didn't need a beer right then. I needed the lap-top so I could search online for decorative hardware. In addition to 20 door stoppers, I need a dozen cool-looking-but-not-too-expensive coat hooks, 15 glass door knobs, one fireplace key with matching black flange and a hand-held shower nozzle that doesn't look like something Dr Frankenstein used to charge his monster. Not to forget 15 or so light fixtures, bathroom mirrors, carpet for the master suite and a retro-looking Formica counter for the laundry room.

"Yes," I said. "A beer would be great."

And while Husband was slicing the orange, I signed him off the laptop and got to work.

Fireplace Surround, Day 2

Some more pics of the progression of our fireplace surround. Leon will grout it today:

from another angle:

Here's Leon, who installed every type of tile possible in our entire house, including porcelain, ceramic, glass, marble and these hand-glazed tiles from Motawi.

On To The Next Thing: The Fireplace Surround

I am coping with the shock of the half-inch overhang fairly well today. Pushing up the leg posts is going to be an ordeal, given that they are nailed to the new floor, so we are going to fill the gaps with a strip of wood that's flush with the leg posts. This is different from placing scribes over the gaps, an earlier suggestion that left me colder than the ice on my front stoop because the scribes would stick all the way out to the edge of the overhang.

Enough about that.

Now it's time to focus on the fireplace surround. The lovely hand-glazed Motawi tiles arrived yesterday, so this morning I had another pow-wow with Bert and Miguel to go over the order. I think everyone was worried about one thing or another---that the tiles wouldn't fit within the just-built mantel, or that we wouldn't have enough pieces, or that Leon the installer wouldn't know what to do with them. Fortunately, our worst fears have not materialized and things are working out fine. Here are some pictures of the morning's progress.

Miguel examines options for the tile pattern beneath the soapstone hearth:

Here's Leon, the tile installer, making some suggestions:

As of about noon today, a work in progress. Leon was very busy!

A corner detail emerges. The photo really doesn't do that soapstone slab justice. It's black with a lot of green swirling around. Very cool:

Set In Stone

I bought my tile today: several hundred ceramic, porcelain and marble polygons from four retailers. Some people buy everything from one store. I'm not one of these people. This is partly because I needed different materials and designs for several rooms. It's also because not one store had everything I wanted for the price I needed. For example, I priced my job at several "stone and tile" stores that could have accomodated my entire job---from the hand-made fireplace tiles (pictured here) to the kitchen counters to the cheapo-porcelain 12x12s for the mudroom. But there was always a problem: at one store, the sales staff was snooty. At another, quality was great but prices were high. Another dealer offered reasonable prices but boring material.

I never said I was easy to please. And for what this stuff costs, you shouldn't be either.

So I shopped around a lot. Husband and budget necessitated that I seek the best prices, but I also shopped for quality material and interesting designs. And for the record I will say that when I was on the fence, I leaned in favor of sales people who were helpful and interested in my job.

I liked Beeta, who runs the desk at Stone Habitat in Mundelein. Her store has a great selection of marble and granite; she was helpful; she negotiated; and the price was right. I bought my kitchen counters (Santa Cecelia granite and Soapstone), fireplace hearth (Soapstone), and master bathroom counter and tiles (Italian carerra marble) from Stone Habitat. The installer, Joe, came to the house to measure before I made my decision. In fact, Stone Habitat and Expo were the only ones who sent installers to take accurate field measurements for the quote (Expo wanted to charge $200 for this service, but I wouldn't pay it). Stone Habitat sells stone and only stone...so I bought my marble and granite there and for ceramic I went elsewhere...

For ideas and selection of ceramic tiles, you can't beat Expo. Its tile department is expansive, brightly lit, and with moderate to higher prices. (I was surprised how bad the lighting was in many tile stores.) Getting someone to help you is a challenge--some of sales reps at my local Expo seem like they've been working the prison night shift for too many years. But a young rep named Katherine was a great help to me. I did the kids' bathroom at Expo: white ceramic subways with glass mosaic accent tiles the color of a Fresca bottle that's been in the ocean for 30 years; 2x2 octagonal white ceramic floor tiles, and Corian "whitecap" counter tops. Worth noting about Expo: its installation quote was outrageous; Donald Trump must buy his tile there. I bought the material, but not the labor. Also worth noting: they're having a tile sale--20% off. This helped a lot. Worth worrying about: I suspect delays.

I got my mud-room flooring at a heavily advertised chain called Century Tile. Originally, I planned on using brick-colored Marmoleum, but I went with 12x12 porcelain tiles that look like natural slate, per my decorator Jean's suggestion. These "NK-17" tiles are very durable (comes in handy with 2 dogs) and cost less than $4 a square foot. They'll be ready for pick-up tomorrow.

Because I shopped around and negotiated everything, I was able to splurge on the fireplace surround in the family room. I'm going with the handmade tiles pictured above from Motawi (www.motawi.com), which I bought at The Fine Line Tile Gallery in Chicago. They're expensive, and the installation is, too. But it's worth it.

While We Were Away ...

While we were away, GC and the subs were very busy. What fun it was to come back to a house with walls! Here's the 2nd floor "window nook:"

Behold, the fireplace wall:

A view down a hallway (please forgive the vertical nature of this photo!):

Fireplace Surround I

Given what I wrote previously about everything having to be just right before one goes tile shopping, it's been hard for me to undertake this task. Events, weather, health, karma, car woes, children, moving, social commitments...all have conspired against my efforts to pursue the absolute most wonderful fireplace surround for our new family room. But I haven't given up the faith that I'll find what I'm looking for...once I know what I'm looking for.

My idea is to do an arts & crafts tile surround a la bungalows from the 1920s. I'm presently exploring Motawi tiles, which can be found locally at just one retailer--The Fine Line tile gallery in Chicago (which is kindafar from both my owned and borrowed homes, and hence is hard for me to get to). Motawi tiles are hand-glazed and made from local clay in Ann Arbor, Michigan (www.motawi.com). I love the Midwest connection, and I like that the Motawis say they're inspired by the Arts & Crafts ideal that "art should be for the people, and by the people ..." However...at prices like $90/square foot, Motawi tiles are definately not for all the people.

There are ways to circumvent the extreme expense. For example, if I go with the willow border shown in the photo at left, I could get black and green field tiles from a different tile maker whose prices are more reasonable ($30-$40 square foot). But the color selection from the substitute company is limited, and you can't substitute tiles with justanyold tilemaker, because Motawi tiles are a funky size. For example, a 4x4 Motawi tile is really 3/16 of an inch less than 4 inches, and it's 5/8" thick, which is chunkier than most tiles. Another problem--significant--is that I don't love the green that's offered by the more reasonably priced tilemaker. Naturally, I prefer the expensive green that's offered by Motawi. 

The field tile is perhaps even more critical to the design than the willow border tile, as it will cover 80% of the surround. So I've really gotta love the color and glaze of the field tile (not to forget Husband--he must love it too, and does not); I've been carrying around a green 4x4 tile (that's really less than 4x4) everywhere I go, hoping the color will grow on me. So far, all it's doing is making me hungry for pea soup.

Here's Miguel's drawing of the fireplace wall:

And below is a photo of the fireplace in its present state. We bought "the royal superhearth" woodburning Majestic fireplace. Our GC is concerned about tiling over the black metal surround, but the guys at Chicago Furnace say this is doable:

Will report back when I've gathered more info on the fireplace surround issue!