All electrical is done and we are ready to hang all the lighting
Staircase newel posts getting installed inside our box unit
But…most exciting is the fireplace quartzite, kitchen counters and bath countertops are getting installed. They started at 10am and still going until probably 6pm tonight.
Dfin specifically asked me NOT to send pictures to her so she can be surprised when she walks in next week. So no pics…sorry
That quartzite is stunning! The fireplace is going to be a real show-stopper. It would have never occurred to me to use a slab as the surround. Can’t wait until photos can be up.
High end houses in my area all use giant slabs of some stone for fireplace surround. If tiles are used, they are usually metal tiles or solid stone chunks.
Here are our costs for all of our countertops and stone in the house so far:
Kitchen - Quartz countertop material $1,310
Kitchen Installation (took 4 hours x 4 guys plus my carpenter to cut and brace sink correctly) $1,160
Upstairs quartz bath countertop and sink mount $200 plus $32 sink
Fireplace White Macaubus Quartzite $200 material plus $450 fabrication and install
We still have an outdoor countertop that is going to get installed and a custom made floating marble vanity. We need to go back to the fabricator’s yard and select our materials
The fireplace is gorgey! The countertops are beautiful, even though under lots of plastic at the moment. It was fun to come home and see the changes all at once
Now that Dfin has seen her new house with several major transformations since she left, I have loaded pictures.
Fireplace is a huge transformation!!! I am so glad that we let go of the red brick. There are just a few trim details to finish and then we have to decide… paint wood mantel white??/ Or go bold with a deep charcoal grey (see photos with a little charcoal grey painted on the mantel ). So far the cost of fireplace change is $650 for slab surround and about $136 for cleaning it out and repainting the interior plus removing all the original trim. We also grouted around the inside of the marble surround after it was installed and painted that out black
Kitchen countertops installed and we are dialing in the plumbing and appliance installation. The photos make the kitchen look very bland at this point, but Dfin has some gorgeous lighting and handles and other items that are going to add color and contract into the kitchen. We are also going to do some beefy trim work around the folding window above the sink to add details to the kitchen
Upstairs vanity countertop installed. It is very neutral because there is going to be a full wall backsplash behind the vanity
And, we finally finished that dang Money Pit garage… it is drywalled, sanded and painted out with 2 coats of primer. Now we need to install a bunch of LED lighting that Dfin’s husband wants and pour some self leveling cement around the post holes that got dug into the floor. We might as well be pouring dollar bills around the posts
Of course the minute we finished the countertops, the entire kitchen had to get covered in plastic again because the flooring guys are here and Guess What!! Gee… the original concrete slab floors are not level and they have to grind everything down and pour a bunch of self leveling cement everywhere. There has been a ton of concrete grinding going on with a ton of concrete dust everywhere. The original builder could hide all this because they installed carpet and some linoleum floors but you have to fix it all for hardwood floors.
And we forgot to mention that we tore down the entire staircase posts and railing because they were not to code and were wobbly and dangerous. The owners choose to install a whole new staircase railing design. It’s important because the staircase is a focal point as you enter the home. I recommended the staircase lights and they are installed. Funny story about the lights. The owner’s H is really into all the electrical and all the crazy sensors, humidty sensors, dimmers we have to install. So, he took the task of ordering the staircase lights. He was supposed to order white ones, but must of accidentally ordered ‘almond’’ or something. They match the wall color perfectly and blend in! He is taking full credit for the perfect color match Dfin is debating whether to stain the oak newel posts or paint them out. The balusters will be black square iron and she wants to add some ‘warmth’ with stained wood against the white beefy trim (see side of staircase) and the black balusters. Once again, the transformation is going to be gorgeous!
IMO, go with the white for the fireplace surround. The bold grey will dominate the stone and draw attention from it. White makes the stone pop out and shine!
Well, besides the fact that they sent stair nosing and molding that just does not match the flooring color or finish, we are proceeding ahead with floor installation. The flooring has a lot more color variation and wood grain variation than we thought from the sample board and photos online. But, in the end it is just gorgeous and we are embracing it’s variety!
The stair nosing and molding pieces has turned into a nightmare. I returned the nosing/molding back to the wholesaler and he got mad that we had cut one piece to test on the stairs (which is when we discovered the color difference). First they sent down another batch and it was still the yellowy color. Then they said it would be 3 weeks to make new moldings to match the flooring lot. We could not figure out why someone has to ‘make’ moldings. Aren’t they available from the manufacturer. Well, it turns out the flooring is brought in from China (like most flooring you would buy anywhere) but the molding pieces are made in the Garrison / Old Master factory here in LA.
Dfin sent an inquiry directly to Garrison manufacturer through their website asking if we could get moldings directly from them that would match our lot. Well, suddenly the wholesaler called back and promised that custom moldings would be available by next week. So, we are waiting for those.
But, meanwhile, we opened up about 10 boxes of flooring to mix them up for installation. About the 10th box… suddenly out comes some ‘darker’ pieces that are weaved in. I realized that the stair nosing is the same tone and color as these darker pieces. So, someone must have grabbed a darker box and stained/matched the factor moldings to those pieces. In the end we could have lived with the darker pieces because there is a lot of variety in the flooring. But, we will just keep quiet at this point and wait for our custom moldings.
Photos loaded of flooring install and a lot of finished rooms
I peeked out of the window and saw that our neighbors finally got their sunroom/deck/whatever-it-is window installed. Took about a year! Now they have paint crew doing internal painting of the windows. Ugh. Their internal finishing has been going for more than a year. Dfin was smart to hire CB!
“Flooring was started in ktichen because it has the most complex cuts. Trying to get the flooring as tight as possible under the cabinets.”
Do you ever consider installing the kitchen flooring before the cabinets go in, and flooring the whole room rather than piecing it around the cabinets? Seems like it would save a ton of labor, at the expense of some extra materials.
