turtle + mole

saturday was our family visit with my grandmother and a belated birthday celebration for my older brother, jason, my dad and me.

my younger brother, justin and his wife, najia arrived early and got to watch mathew install the shower fixtures. justin got in to try it out. mathew told him to turn the top lever but he didn’t fall for it.

(left) showing the different trim color choices used throughout the years. (right) najia and justin laughing at something mathew is doing.

(left) my grandmother. (right) mom and grandmother.

(left) najia, dad, justin. (right) jason, mole, justin.

while my grandmother was here she kept complaining about how long the remodel was taking, complaining that she wouldn’t get to move in till september, complaining that it was going to be years before she could move in. she wanted everyone to leave so we could get back to work. i don’t know about you, but i’m not motivated by complaints! but when everyone left we did get back to work.

the weekend went by too quickly.

the bedroom is now ready for us to move in but that won’t happen until the bathroom at least has a toilet. i finished painting final bedroom trim while mathew put moisture barrier paper over the sub-floor.

next he started cutting cedar flooring to create the border for the bathroom floor. since it’s such a small room, we decided a single border was enough.

sunday was tax day. doesn’t mathew look happy? we’ve never put off doing our taxes before… mathew’s freelance business is so lucrative, that even though we pay estimated taxes during the year, we still owe the equivalent of 2 years of our old rent! this year will be different, mathew just accepted a position with arup, an engineering company he’s always wanted to work for.

after taxes were done it was back to work upstairs. in the left photo above, you can see him using ‘daniel’ (to keep with naming tools after the people we’ve borrowed them from). it puts special serrated nails into the side of the tongue-and-groove board. not many people use this old mechanical version any more; the more modern version is air-powered and shoots staples instead.

while mathew finished installing the floor i sanded the dining area. i got about half of it done. in the photo above right he’s routing a groove into the bottom of the board to fit over the tongue on the border boards. the router is attached to the vacuum to catch the sawdust– sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

pretty.

mathew has been in new york this week visiting his brother and hanging with the guys at another one of those crazy destination bachelor parties. he made sure to leave me with enough house projects to keep me busy. (as if i need more projects to keep me busy..!)

(left) on friday genanne brought me early birthday flowers! tulips and daffodils are some of my favorites and they opened to greet me saturday morning. (right) first i vacuumed the dining area which we had been using as a workshop.

then i gave all of the trim in the bedroom a second coat of paint. i moved onto the bathroom trim and wainscoting giving them a coat of primer. we can’t use tape on the unfinished plaster walls so i just have to be super careful when i paint. i think i spent 8 hours painting yesterday!

today i went back up to put a 3rd coat on some bedroom baseboards (although i forgot to sand the 2nd coat! …hope that’s not a problem.) i put a coat of white satin on the trim and wainscoting in the bathroom and i remembered to sand this time. and i’ve also discovered that this bathroom has really excellent acoustics for singing (not that i’m worth listening to..!)

we’re not sure if we will paint or polyurethane the plaster walls in the bathroom. i want yellow paint but mathew has gotten very attached to his plaster walls and wants to keep them exposed…

it took me a while to make a post about last weekend… it’s been a busy week and it’s only wednesday morning.

(left) midori and andy were in town from portland. they stopped by for a short visit friday morning. (right) a detail shot of mathew’s rounded corner travertine tiles. a labor-intensive project!

here i am prepping the tile for grout: after scraping excess thin-set, we vacuum then apply grout release. these travertine tiles are very porous so grout release is essential. without it, the grout would proabably stick to the tile and become one big, ugly mess.

(left) mathew sponging off excess grout. (right) the bedroom door trim with one coat of paint. and a janeen-painted switch plate cover from our old place. its nice to have something familiar.

mathew’s sister leonora called on saturday and said she’d be in town. she stopped by and we went out for burritos for dinner. she offered to help with the house so we put her to work helping paint trim with me in the bedroom. it was fun, we got to talk a lot while painting. after a break with water & “lemon-cubes” and  luna and larry’s coconut bliss (really good vegan ice cream made from coconut milk!) it was too late for leo to take bart back to berkeley so she stayed over.

the next morning leo offered to paint some more! i think she really wanted to paint that little cabinet door green but there wasn’t time. (right) here mathew is cleaning up the dining area, moving his tools to his workshop and prepping for paint.

it was a full day of work that started fairly early.

some picture rail trim mathew used for a paint stripping test. on the left is an example of what the heat gun can produce, if you look closely there are tiny plaster bead details on the upper half. on the right he used a chemical stripper which completely removed the plaster detail.

as i started to paint i worried that this was the wrong color…

our friends (nancy, alex and mae) dropped by with a delicious lunch (salad and quiche made by mae.)

…and for dessert, yummy homemade shortbread. and as if all of that weren’t enough, mae even brought a gift of towels! they will go nicely in our new bathroom. whenever mae visits, aftwards we always say, “i can’t believe she did all that! we don’t deserve her!” THANK YOU MAE, we truly appreciate all of your generousity.

alex gave mathew some great ideas for the bathroom. later mathew finished up the window framing. and while i was painting, mathew installed the ledge that goes above the wainscoting.

i finished my painting, and after 3 coats and a proper drying, the color looks the way we’d hoped. it’s a little unusual for me, but i wanted a warmish-cool color that would go with the blue carpet (staying for now) and compliment our bedding. so we went with a yellowy sage green. it’s called “pale avocado” and looks yellowy in the daytime and more green at night.

we finally got to grout the tile, but we ran out of grout so we’ll finish it today.

it was a busy saturday. but all along mathew was sad, thinking it was sunday. so now today is his bonus day!

friday was all about the letter “p.” paint, pandas, pizza, pears, plaster and ptoilet.

our first color purchase! (inspired by potterybarn.) on the walk back, panda and heart cookies from the bakery around the corner.

(left) every friday is homemade pizza night. last night it was tomato + cheese, and potato, onion + rosemary. (right) one of our lemons grew up to be a pear.

(left) mathew plastered the last (mini) wall in the bathroom. (right) mathew’s solution to the ptoilet size problem.