We're still here!

I know it's been quite a while... but we are still here and still love living in our Rummer. 

The major projects are mostly finished and we're sort of just spending time enjoying living in a great house. 
I guess that's not entirely true... I've been working on "Plan B," our 1956 Airstream Safari. Haley says she wants to go on a trip in June and there is a LOT left to do before it's roadworthy. I'm thinking I'll start another blog to document that little adventure. 

In the meantime, we've had some great pics taken in the last year or so... why not share!

I do hereby solemnly promise to try and add updates on the home office re-do, the garage workbench, and future plans for the master bedroom and bath. 

Thanks for dropping by!

-Steve

It's time to install an exhaust fan!

I can't remember what I was cooking (burning), but we unhooked the smoke alarm and hid it under some pillows in the living room... and it still went off! I have the faint memory that the house smelled like bacon for several days. That's right, bacon! :)

Let there be light!

One of the major complaints about the old kitchen was the lighting... or more to the point, lack of it. There were four 80s style "modern" fluorescent lights that worked okay, but it always seemed like we were working in shadows. We designed in a few different lighting solutions into the new kitchen let's take a look... shall we?

Globe Lights
These iconic light fixtures are a must have for any Rummer. They were in virtually every Eichler, and Mr. Rummer knew they were crucial to the nearly identical styling of his modern homes. The previous owner of our home threw away all the original globes and replaced them with ordinary fixtures (?!!!). She told us people were always bumping into them and that they didn't put out very much light. The kitchen had four, the family room had two. We've already replaced one in the loggia and two in the hallway. So far no one has bumped their heads. (Except for all our friends who are 7 feet tall.)

In order to have the kitchen globe lights centered between the beams, we had to move two existing wiring boxes (and figure out a way to cover up the holes they left behind), and add one in front of the fridge & ovens.

Our daughter came up with the brilliant solution of just using a smoke detector to cover one of the holes, and a carbon monoxide detector to cover the other one. Brilliant, simple and we needed them anyway.

I'm in the process of writing up a post about tweaking Ikea Fado globe lights so they look more like the originals. Stay tuned...

Cabinet Up Lights

Since the area above the wall cabinets is kind of encased between a couple of beams, it always looks kinda dark up there. So we wired in some fluorescent lights and wow... what a nice dramatic lighting effect. It's kind of an ambient look that is great in the evening. (Don't be fooled by what looks like white hot magma on top of the cabinets in this pic... the camera setting was wonky. It's really quite soothing.)
Notice you really don't see anything weird about the beam at the left in the two above pics, as opposed to the lights on the beam in the pics below. Keep reading to see what's up with that.

Task Lighting
These were really needed! I wish we would have thought ahead a little more and accomidated the light fixtures in the hanging cabinets so they would appear more recessed, but they work well, they look fine, and they make it a LOT easier to see what’s happening on the countertop.

NOTE: These seem to generate quite a bit of heat, so much so that the cabinets get fairly warm on the inside. We may be switching out the bulbs for something cooler. Maybe LED?

Spots in the Faux Beam
Haley is the genius mastermind behind these lights. Aesthetically we knew we needed to put a beam over the cooktop, but after talking with our construction guy, there wasn’t anything structural needed, so a false beam would suffice. We figured the area over the cooktop would need some extra lighting and neither one of us is crazy about track lighting (usually looks like an afterthought). Why not recess a few can-lights into the false beam?
It seemed like a simple idea, but it took a little extra encouragement and problem solving with our electrician and construction guy to make it happen. Just look at how much light they throw out. These lights are in my top 5 things I like about the new kitchen. I married a genius.

Here are a couple of our favorite shots.

NEXT UP...
Countertops. The countertops you see in these pics are temporary; sheets of melamine. We are hoping to get solid surface counters. Probably white. Hopefully much less expensive than what we've been seeing lately.
Backsplash. It desperately needs color under the hanging cabinets. We're thinking of a mosaic made from 2-inch square tiles, mostly white with random turquoise, grey & brown accents.

Floor Prep, VCT Installation and Polishing

We had hoped that the floor would be fairly straightforward and simple. I suppose it was, but there were a few things that needed doing that we didn't know would need to be done.

Example: the two pictures below. It looks like John (our expert floor genius... he did the VCT in our loggia & hallway) is smearing a bunch of dirty cement on our crisp & clean plywood subfloor. Well he is because unlike the particleboard sheets he wanted us to use as a subfloor, plywood has grain issues and a few of the joints were either too wide or were splintering a bit.
(We elected to use 1-1/16" tongue & groove plywood instead of particleboard mostly because of structural issues... there was a large crawlspace access hole where the fridge needed to go and a mysterious crawlspace hole in the family room. Frame in a few supports, lay down the super heavy duty plywood and that's one sturdy floor!)

A little dry-time and sanding and the floor was ready for Armstrong VCT.

After the VCT was down... let's polish that stuff! We found a great floor guy (who also works the pro-desk at Home Depot) who does floors on the side. We had him strip & polish the new floor AND the now dirty loggia/hallway floors in hopes that the transition between the loggia and the kitchen would be as seamless as possible.

It reminded me of a pint-sized Zamboni. this machine did the finish stripping and I think layed down some of the wax... I hear it took 6 coats of high gloss wax!!!

And to bring out that shiny finish, here's a high-speed buffer taking care of business in the loggia near the atrium.

The gleaming finished floor. It almost looks wet!!! AND it's super slippery when wearing socks (which makes it perfect for moonwalk lessons).

Sheetrock finishing

I was conflicted about taking on this remodel challenge.

On one hand, our contractor told us that unless we used the sub-contractor she sent out to give us an estimate (of $1,500... original guestimate was $700), the cabinets wouldn't hang right, we would be unhappy and have to tear it all out and start over, which would cost us even more money.

On the other hand it looked so simple, most of the sheetrock would wind up being obscured by cabinets, tile and/or appliances and I do have a little experience with sheetrock*. After giving all the walls a coat of primer, I'm confident the cabinets will hang just fine.

We painted the beams, too... first the white primer, then two coats of Rodda Oxford Brown.

Today, the finished flooring is being installed. I hear that we're going to need about 75 pounds of floating compound. I can't wait to see how it looks!

*Our first home was a 1912 bungalow. We had a baby on the way and since the upstairs wasn't insulated, I tore into the baby's room to insulate, weather-proof and update some of the electrical. It was a room with angled ceilings, a dormer, double-hung window and a pony wall. Nothing was even close to being square. I ended up having to use a lot of mud to fill in gaps, but when it was finished it looked great and our little baby girl had a nice, toasty space for her crib.

Tile is gone. Concrete board is on it's way out!

We spent the weekend removing all the tile from the kitchen and office nook. It was really quite the job, and learning from our past experience with the loggia floor we rented an electric chisel. Steve got to work on it and he made it look so easy. So I thought I'd give it a try... NOPE! That thing had to weigh about 40 pounds and I was only good for about 3 tiles before my girlie arms gave out. So I turned it back over to Steve and he made quick work. I demoted myself to debris hauler... carrying bucket after bucket of broken tile to the dumpster. (Sadly, I was still sore from that little job.) Steve's hands were thrashed after wielding the power chisel all day, and then he had to hurry off to play 3 sets at Portland's Scream at the Beach. I don't know how he does it all!


Our contractor let us borrow her large crowbar thingy. It worked great for prying up the concrete board and removing the nails. We still have about 1/2 the concrete board left to tear up, but it should go pretty quickly. The boards in the office nook were screwed in so that may prove to be interesting.


The floor guy is coming in tomorrow to measure and order the VCT tile. We are using the same tiles that we put in the loggia. It will really simplify and clean up the look from room to room.

Walls Out. Beams In.

The wall between the dining room and kitchen is gone! (Thanks Steve.) The tiny wall between the family room and dining room (the one with all the tricky wiring in it) is gone, too. A new beam now spans the opening from the dining room to the family room.

The pantry is totally gone (yikes) and the whole space now feels huge and very open. I know that it will close up a bit as we put the drywall up and cabinets in, but it seriously looks like a new house. Here are a few pics to show the progress.

The pantry is really gone:

View from the dining room:

View from the family room:

View from the loggia:

New beam with all the wiring hidden inside:

Replacing the beam by the eliminated pantry proved to be a little challenging. With the new beam secure, our beam guy took out the old shorter beam. That shorter beam was the main support for a few of the tongue and groove pieces. But that's not a big concern because tongue and groove lends stability... except for the section where the short beam was hiding 3 boards butting up against each other. Ugh! We ended up installing a metal support strap to hold those boards together. Now, we need to re-skin this small section of the ceiling. Since it's sandwiched between the beams, it shouldn't be too challenging to blend it with the rest of the ceiling. We haven't been able to locate 1/2" x 6" tongue and groove, but Steve has some creative ideas for this project. I'm looking forward to seeing what he does.

The new beam now lines up with the beam in the dining room:

Ceiling boards where old beam was:

Metal strap screwed in place to stabilize the 3 boards in question:
The beams are in and secure. Next project... the floor!

We've found a cabinet guy!

Yep! It's true. Met with Norm Dickinson yesterday to go over the cabinet design. He stayed for 2 hours discussing all the details, finishes, and options. He was very reassuring. He believes this job to be fairly easy and has no doubts that he can translate our vision into a real kitchen. Since he is the one actually making the cabinets, I am very relieved and have no anxiety. (That's a good sign.)

Bonus Points: he fell in love with our 11" x 17" color print out of the kitchen from Case Study House #22. He asked if he could take it and put it up on his shop wall. YES!

Also, Steve completely removed the wall between the kitchen and dining room last night. It is so open now. Beam guy should be here soon to finish up the beams and ensure the posts and tongue and groove ceiling are structurally sound before we proceed.

Color Renderings of the Kitchen Design

I seriously don't have the time to be playing around in Photoshop, but I can't help obsessing over the kitchen design. A new cabinet guy is coming out today to take measurements and we are very excited that he understands the style we are wanting. I created these renderings from Steve's design to ensure that everyone is on the same page with the design concepts. We'll see how the meeting goes today. (Fingers crossed.)


Here are a couple of back splash ideas... We are at a complete loss as to what to put there. All white seems too "white", but we do not want it to be busy. We've had fantastic luck with the Hakatai mosaic tiles on our bathroom and pool projects, but I'm not sure it's right for this space. Please let me know if you have any brilliant ideas!