Hurray! Toilets! -- Wk 60, August 17 - 23, 2008

I wasn't going to update this before our trip to WA, but I decided there would be too much to show after we get back (lighting a candle for that) so here we go.

Exterior:

Let's start with the drama. Last post there were night pictures of the exterior sconces. Here are some daylight ones. I got a little wacky with the camera angles.

This is the guest room and front porch.
This is the great room and back porch.
This is down the south side of the house.
This is the fireplace.
This is the west side of the shop and the pedestrian door.
This is the shop deck stair wall.

And this is a garden feature I hope we can have. It's a bottle tree from Caroline's place in Johnson City, TX (next door to my cousin, Ronna). She sent me a link to an online vendor of trees and bottles, but I like hers the best. It just kind of sprouts out of the flowers.

Furniture:

This is our butt bench. These are common down here, but we had this one specially made for the guest bath. We may or may not use it in there.

A few posts ago I confidently put a picture of the loveseats we were going to have in the great room. I waited to order them until Crate & Barrel started its custom furniture sale. When I found out that instead of being the same price as using the standard fabric for the loveseat we picked, each one was going to cost almost double -- on sale, yet -- I started looking again. Joan and I went to the Penney's Home store and found something even better and within budget, so I ordered 2 sofas and 2 ottomans this past week.

The fabric above is for the sofas and the fabric below is for the ottomans.

And this is the sofa I picked. It's much more traditional than the Crate & Barrel one and bigger, but I think it will look better and it's definitely more comfortable. It's called the Arcadia and is made by Broyhill, but I couldn't find it online either at Broyhill or at Penney's.
Since it is bigger, I had to rearrange the great room furniture layout a bit. We still don't have all the pieces we need, like the side tables, but we'll get there. I checked yesterday and so far at least I've spent much less on furniture and decoration than I budgeted.


Kitchen:

A few things happened in the kitchen this week. One was the positioning of the cooktop. When I selected this GE Monogram, I chose it because every burner is adjustable from high to low. I didn't really notice that the front was curved like the front of the rangehood until Dave put it in the hole.

Speaking of holes, this is the one for the kitchen sink.
And here are the drawer fronts and doors on the island.

Baths and mechanicals:

This is a detail from the linen closet door. This was the last piece of tin punching Trout did and he really got wild and crazy and very detailed. We got barrels, we got saguaros, we got bird holes in the saguaros and they are blooming.This is the floor of the master shower, ungrouted.
This is Trout's vanity with the sink in, but ungrouted.
This shows his light fixtures. A very tall arched mirror will be between them and will cover up the box in the middle.
That's the hot water heater on the left and the water softener on the right. There will also be a recirculating pump that will keep the hot water on the ready for all the baths. I thought this was a bit of an extravagance at first and then read it is actually considered to be an environmentally sound thing down here because you don't have to run the water for a long time before the hot comes through. Last post I had a picture of the guest bath vanity lights and how odd they looked. They have now all been reversed and they are much better.
And the blessed toilets. They aren't functional yet, but there is hope. This is the one in the guest bath.
And this is the one in the master bath. Please note that they are the same color and the walls are the same color -- but not in these pictures!
This is the one in the shop bath. It is white and is a different brand.
So that's what's new for Week 60 of the project. The next update won't be until September 14th at the earliest. Have a great Labor Day.

More Refinement -- Wks 52 -53, June 22 - July 5, 2008

There are lots of cabinets and there is lots of tile work to do, so the past two weeks have been primarily devoted to that.

Septic System

However, we can't talk about real refinement without showing the septic system. For those of you who have one, if you didn't see it put it from the beginning, you probably have little idea of how it works or what it looks like.

Ours in WA was built when the house was built (1927) and was tiny -- 600 gallons. The drain field had only one line originally. Of course it failed just before we sold the place, and we had to have it replaced, but the tank was grandfathered in due to the house's age.

Most newly installed septic systems in western WA require a mound system and pumps because the water table is so high. One thing we learned when we moved here was that it is pretty cheap to put in a septic system here unless you hit solid rock, but very expensive to put in a well. In WA those two expenses were reversed. Fortunately, we didn't have to put in a well because we have Tucson city water, so we saved that expense down here. You can see how well-drained, sandy and dry the dirt is in these pictures.

But there are no sewers where we're building and it's so far out that we will never see any in our lifetime, so we will have a septic system and this is what it looks like.

This tank is 1200 gallons and has 2 lines out from it.

This is a close up of some of the apparatus.

This is a close up of one of the lines. The pipe sticking up is one of the clean outs. Perhaps the new ones in WA are this way, too, but down here they put a clean out close to the house before you get to the tank and then some at the end of the drain field. Along with the tank itself, that makes for 3 clean out options if you ever need them.

Gas Trench

Other digging that was done was for the gas line from the street to the house.

Cabinets

Last time I promised an update on the laundry cabinets and this is it. This is Kelly and Trout working on the doors for them. Kelly found some very cool hinge hardware that automagically closes the doors without allowing them to slam when they reach a certain point in the closing arc.

And don't worry about Trout pressing down on the door on top of the drawer here. Those drawer glides are very strong.

Master Bath

Tiling moved right along on the master shower. The wall goes up to 8 feet and then stops just like we wanted it to. The tiling goes almost to the top. All the lizards are in.

And the top rows of trim tile are almost complete. The tiles in this pattern are the primary decorative tiles in Trout's and my vanities. The gold is his and the blue is mine.

This is how the corners look. Dave and Tim did a great job of going around the corner and continuing the tile pattern. This is the way these tiles are intended to be laid. They won't be laid like this on our vanities.

This is a cut-off corner we will face as we shower. It was planned so that two 4" square tiles would fit across it.

This is the master tub almost finished. We decided to put a lighter color terra cotta accent wall behind it and the toilet. I will also used that color on the back wall of my vanity.

It's the darker of these two paint samples. This is one shade lighter than the accent wall behind the rangehood in the kitchen.

Our Sinks

Several posts ago I mentioned that we bought our vanity sinks but that I didn't have pictures of them. Now they are in the house and I do.

Trout's is the same pattern as his primary vanity tile. In fact he picked the sink before he picked the tile.

When we went to do the final selection, there wasn't one like my primary decorative tile. I debated whether to get a blue and white sink that would be plainer or to get one with a wilder pattern. Both Trout and Vicki (our builder) encouraged me to get the wilder one, so here it is.

This is the vanity tile that this sink will set into.



Guest Bath

The tiling was almost completed in the guest bath. This is the edge by the side of the vanity.

I don't have a picture of the sink for this bath yet, but the rim is the terra cotta you see here, there's a terra cotta peacock feather trim like this and the basin has a white background with green prickly pear painted on it.

This is the tub and the mural at the back of it.

Exterior Colors

We had to make final decisions on our exterior colors so Dave could order the paint. We pretty much stuck with what we'd already picked. All along we intended to let our neighbor to the north choose the color for the north wall of the shop since it faces them and we will rarely see it. She chose the same color as the rest of the shop -- Pomegranate.

I put some of these pictures in a post before, but this is basically what we will end up with.
The east side of the Pomegranate shop.



From the southeast side of the Lapis house.

From the southwest side showing the Spanish Olive fireplace and dining bay.



Spanish Olive courtyard stairs and Pomegranate shop.

Week 13 -- Lots of Homework

This week started with a meeting with the builders to firm up decisions previously made & to make some we couldn't make until now. They needed our input before Trout left for WA. It turned out that I needed to do lots of homework picking fixtures for the baths -- especially the faucets -- after he left. After months of online as well as brick & mortar showroom research, I decided to try to get everything from Kohler. It started with the kitchen sink faucet. Well, I guess it really started with the kitchen sink.

Over a year ago, Trout decided that he wanted the biggest sink possible. He saw this one in a local showroom & it was love at first sight. The normal sink is 33" wide. This one is 43" wide. It will be cobalt blue. The actual sample is darker than this looks online. This is a picture from Kohler's fabulous website. The model is K-5850-3 Cantina.

We planned for a single-hole sink as is shown in this picture, but then we decided to install a Reverse Osmosis system for drinking water. That means we either need a 2nd hole in the sink or to mount the RO faucet on the countertop. We decided to go with the 3-hole option for this sink. One hole will be for the drinking water faucet, one for the regular faucet & the last will be for a soap dispenser. I always thought soap dispensers were a little too high toned for me, but oh well...

That brings us back to the faucet. Trout wanted the one with the longest reach I could find since the sink is so big. That turned out to also be a Kohler product & down the Kohler road I went. This is what we chose -- a K-10433 Forte pullout faucet followed by a K-1893-C soap dispenser.

Having selected this Kohler Forte style, I used it just about everywhere else I could. This is going to sound like a Kohler commercial, but of all the manufacturers I considered, they seemed to be the best at having things that followed through from room to room. This K-10217-4 Forte tall faucet is the one we will have for our master bath sinks. The one for the guest bath will be the same except shorter.

We will not have vessel sinks like this. Our sinks will be very large (21x17) oval Talavera ones. We are likely to have the faucets mounted off to the side rather than in the center on the back side of the sink as is normal. The faucets will be mounted on the countertops because there are no holes in the Talavera sinks.

I'm almost afraid to post the toilets & master bath tub because the online color is so off the sample. It's called Sunlight & shows up very yellow, but the cast iron sample is much more muted. In fact, it is exactly the same as the color of the white, even the solid white, Talavera tiles we will be using in the baths. I am a little iffy about this, though, & intend to see a fixture for real, not just a sample or online before they are ordered. Both house toilets will be like this K-3489 Cimarron. This K-839 Maestro tub is a drop-in one for the master bath, but the one in the guest bath will be the same color if not the same style.

This doesn't look like much for all the hours I spent on it, but most of the time was involved in trying to educate myself about what was really needed where. After a couple of calls to Kohler, I think I got it straight, but I hope our builders or the plumbers, the Duchenes, correct any ignorant decisions I may have made. We still have to finish up the selection process for the Reverse Osmosis system, the utility sinks in the shop & garage, Trout's shop bath & the laundry.

Speaking of the Duchenes, I spelled their name wrong last time. They are of Mexican heritage, but according to the genealogical research one of their cousins is doing, they are descended from a French soldier who came to Mexico with Maximillian & decided to stay, so their last name is French, not Spanish. Here are 3 generations of Duchenes fixing a pipe that the pad prep guys broke while filling in after the rough plumbing.

We went out to the lot on Tuesday after our meeting with the builders on Monday. As we were driving home, Trout, who rarely shows any excitement about anything, finally admitted he was getting a little stoked about the project. Here he is talking to our builder, Dave, about some construction issues with the shop.

Part of what they were talking about was how the columns down the center of it are going to be supported & what needed to be done with those that are at the walls. Here are some before & after pictures of the footings for those columns. The first 2 are center columns & the last one is a wall column.

Since we're talking about structural issues, this is a picture of the footing for one of the porch posts. It obviously doesn't need to have the strength of the shop columns.

With the forms in & the dirt flattened out the house shape is starting to be a little more understandable. So here's a series going from left (the guest room) to right (the shop) as if you were facing the front of the house.

The guest room with the guest bath & the great room beyond.

The entrance with the great room beyond. The guest room is to the left & the office is to the right.

The office with the kitchen & nook beyond.

The laundry with the master bedroom beyond.

The garage with the master bath beyond.

The rest of the garage with the courtyard beyond.

The working area of the shop with the shop bath & office beyond.

The parking area of the shop.

Ending with a view picture is usually fun. This will be the view from Trout's shop office. Unfortunately, the shop office is not designed so that he can sit on the toilet in the shop bath, open the door & see out the windows. I'm sure if it was he would.