Work Begins Again

After a month long delay for design reasons and city inspector reasons, work has begun again.  Since I’ve been in Tahoe for almost a month, I haven’t been obsessing about it.

But, now I’m back.  I met with the contractor yesterday to make some design decisions about the bathroom tile and to check out the new windows in the Master Bedroom.

Since we are losing a window in the Master Bedroom because of the kitchen addition, I wasn’t crazy about the lack of light coming in with the tiny windows that were previously above the closet.

This was the original window which will be closed up due to the kitchen extension.

The original plans called for removing the smaller windows and installing a large window in the wall.  I sat down with my trusty Photoshop and drew up a couple of renderings of what the windows might look like.  I did not like the look of the “one window” and it doesn’t really go with any of the other windows on that side of the house.  Plus, it looks directly out on our neighbor’s house.  Privacy would be a factor.

Then, I drew another possibility using two larger windows but not as long as the above window.

I liked this option much better.

One of the hallmarks of the Mid-Century Modern homes, besides the simplicity of the architecture, is the natural light coming thru large windows.  The original home had two skylights in it.  My mom added three more.  So, we were considering adding another one in the bedroom to add light.  However, the roof really needs to be replaced before adding another skylight and that is not on our agenda now…probably in a couple more years.

So, we settled on the two-window option.  Yesterday I was able to see what they looked like.

It was way better than I could have hoped for.  Even though we may still have some privacy issues, this option looks much better and solves the issue of adding more light.  This makes me very happy and almost makes up for the small bathtub the contractor installed without asking what I wanted.

Yesterday when I met with the contractor, the tile guy was there measuring the bathrooms.  I think I might have mentioned that we found some tile that we liked at Lowe’s, but the contractor sent us to a tile store because he said that sometimes the big box building stores are not real careful about dye lots on tile.  We have found that to be true with a remodeling project we did to our present home.  So, we dutifully went to the tile store suggested and picked out some tile.  To tell you the truth, I was not thrilled with the tile we found.  I thought it was okay, but I liked the Lowe’s tile better and the Lowe’s tile was 1/3 the cost.

VS.

All we have to decide now is the accent tile for the bathrooms and the backsplash tile for the kitchen.  We are probably going to move away from green tones and head more towards turquoise tones to stay with the colors of the era.

So, the drywall should be going up in the bathrooms today and tomorrow and the tile will go in next week.  The hubster and I will be over there this weekend trying to get the bathrooms painted so the tile can go in.  We also have a whole bunch of staples to hammer in to the floor so the hardwood can be installed.  We gave the cabinet guy a check to get started on the cabinets.

Oh! and we have to actually pick out the hardwood floors.

To do:

1.  Pick out accent tiles

2.  Pick up bathroom tiles and grout for tile guy

3.  Pick out kitchen backsplash tiles

4.  Pick out hardwood floor

5.  Finalize appliance and plumbing fixtures order

6.  Hammer in staples in floor

7.  Paint bathrooms.

8.  A lot more stuff, but I get overwhelmed pretty easily, so it’s better for me if I have a list that is less than 10.

Later