The Fixer Upper House and Garden

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:

Built Ins

The silver lining to this grey day is that the carpenters have been working on the built-ins, which look great. Here are some photos of these works in progress:

The window nook:

The mudroom bench and cubbies (note the Dutch door):

Closeup of detail beneath mudroom bench:

It's really nice to see these French doors in action again. Husband extracted them from his great-grandfather's house in central Ohio shortly before the house was leveled and turned into a parking lot. We've been storing the doors in our basement(s) for 15 years.

Hard Labor?

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be unconscious during childbirth, which was a common practice a generation ago. What was it like to be the inert center of all that purpose? To be absent when your infant entered the world?

Why, you may wonder, is she writing about this? It's because the kitchen cabinets are being installed, and my house is buzzing with more activity than triage in a women's hospital. After a long, hard labor...the baby is crowning! And where am I? I'm at Starbucks. As it should be, mind you, as it should be.

Alas, like all good childbirth stories, the installation of my cabinets is full of drama, but I'm not going to write about that...today. I might write about it later, if the baby is born with two heads and no feet. For the moment, here's a photo of upper cabinets that were installed today, followed by shots of the cabinets being delivered (from an Amish barn) to my suburban front door.

In the kitchen...

Off the truck...

And through the door:

Getting Chopped

A few important things got chopped off this week!

When she was 5, C decided to grow her hair for "Locks of Love," a charity that uses donated human hair to make wigs for kids who've lost their own hair (www.locksoflove.com). This had significance for our family, since C's cousin has had alopecia for many years (now 14 and confidantly bald, he's the most handsome boy in his freshman class!)

C looks good too, with her new grown-up haircut. It took five years to grow her hair so long--she was at Little Leisure preschool when she started. She donated 10 inches of light-brown hair with lovely blond sun-streaks. Here are a few more shots of C's haircut, followed by a photo of something else that got chopped down.

A bit later:

The next picture is of our house--we chopped down two arborvitaes this week, to make way for a storm-drain that must stretch out to the street. Note to fellow gardeners: No, I don't feel bad about taking out the trees. Begone with them! They were overgrown, too close to the house, and not even remotely indigenous. I can hardly wait to dig out those two ugly evergreen bushes!

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.

Floored!

Yesterday was one of those dreary, wet and muggy days that make me wonder why anyone would chose to live where I'm living. I went to the gutterless house in the morning, fearful the melting icicles and slush had seeped into the new basement overnight...they had not! The house was drier than the Arizona desert, and just as dusty. The floor guys were already at work sawing and buzzing, and they made great progress. Here are some shots of the house as of today, Wednesday:

One view:

View from another angle:

And another view:

The Shoe Dilemma

Thank goodness the holidays are behind us, the vacation is over and tomorrow we return to our blessed routine. Call me boring, I don't care. I love a good routine.

I also love a good domestic dilemma, and I face a small but important one for the mudrooom: should we have built-in shoe cubbies...or should we store our shoes in baskets?

Miguel's drawing at left shows one wall of the mudroom. I could have the carpenter build partitions for shoes beneath the "lockers" and bench, which will look tidy but fit only about 3 pairs of shoes each. Alternatively, each shelf area could hold a wicker basket that would hold several pairs of shoes, depending on how big the kids'  feet get...

Another plan, favored by Husband, is to limit each child to storing 2 pairs of "in-season" shoes in the mudroom, with the "off-season" shoes kept "off-site, such as in the basement or bedrooms. I'm not sure how the kids would decide which "2 shoes" to keep in circulation, but I can imagine some interesting getting-ready scenarios. For example:

Me: "Time for church!"

T: "I can't find my church shoes!"

Me: "Check the mudroom!"

T: "I'm past my 2-shoe limit!"

OR....

Me: "It's summer at last! Let's go to the beach!"

M: "Anyone know where my Crocs are?"

Me: "Check the mudroom!"

M: "But it's off-season!"

OR....

Me: "C, it's time for Irish Dance class!"

C: "Where are my hard shoes?"

Me: "Don't you keep them in the mudroom?"

C: "Dad won't let me!"

......................... 

Now that I think about it...dumping multiple shoes in baskets is probably the best idea!

                                                

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!):

Happy Holidays

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE FIXER UPPER HOUSE!

To the readers of this blog at this holy time of year: Thank you for sharing the highs and lows of renovation with me. Thank you for reading and listening and sharing your opinions. Thank you for praying for my loved ones who have been ill or unfortunate. Thank you for sending positive vibes my way. A year ago, I didn't know  beans about blogging. Now, I don't know how I would have survived this year with out it! Whatever your beliefs or rituals this time of year...I wish you all the very best.

Kitchen Counter: Dramatic Turn Of Events

Friends and readers may recall my obsession for finding the perfect kitchen counter. Over the past year I explored counters of every variety and material, and I was set to splurge on soapstone until a grey morning in October when I realized it was too dark for the new kitchen. At that moment--literally--my new friends George and Linda stopped by and suggested that I look at their counter, Sensa Perlado honed marble. I did, and for many weeks I was determined to go with this lovely cream and tan stone, which Husband and Miguel agreed would lighten up the kitchen and look swell with the cabinets.

Then reality set in.

One night last week, the darling and effervescent 10-year-old C did the dishes in the borrowed house and helped get the lunches ready for the next day. She whistled and sang and chatted and did a fine job on the chores save one thing: She forgot to wipe the counter. In the morning, raspberry jelly, chocolate frosting, orange juice and a chili-covered spoon were congealed to the Formica. Fortunately, the cleanup was a snap, and no one was worse for the wear, including the white Formica. Had the counter been marble, it would have had to be refinished.

I'll save honed marble for the empty nester years.

This brought me back to the beginning, much to Husband's dismay. An active participant in the counter hunt six months ago, he now was willing to agree to anything ... anything...so long as I made a decision.

"You've got to pull the trigger on this," he said.

"Please stop talking about counters," the children added.

By last week I had eliminated soapstone, marble, wood, tile and counters made of recycled paper, as well as Corian, Silestone, Ceasarstone and all other solid surfaces. Where did this leave me? It left me with granite. 

I don't like granite because it's overused, but I've realized there's a reason for this: It's durable, affordable and nature-made. If you can overcome an aversion to speckles, it's not even too ugly. So I went back to Stone Habitat in Mundelein (www.stonehabitat.com), which has the best prices in my area, and I picked out a light-colored, speckly granite in cream, grey, tan, brown and black that's called either Santa Cecelia or Venetian Gold, depending on the slab. (I later changed my mind ... again ... and went with Costa Esmerelda!) It looks good with the cabinet door sample, it coordinates well with the fireplace tiles and the best part: it costs less than soapstone and honed marble. To mix it up, I'm using soapstone for the butler's pantry and on the raised hearth in the family room ... and I'm still coming in under-budget.

In fact, the only things that are coming in under budget are those that I'm pricing out myself.