<p>coralbrook, from what I can see now, your Flicker account is fixed.</p>
<p>Interesting lighting choices by the buyer. They are very modern, but with an Arts&Crafts vibe.</p>
<p>The Buyer’s bathroom sconces are kind of strange. The bathroom is very small and they stick out a little bit and you can see the lightbulbs behind the glass when you are at the door. I would have chosen something a little more streamlined and less protruding from the wall. Also, they are too modern for the vintage style she is going for in the bath. </p>
<p>Although, her sink pedestal thing is very square and modern also. We are going to be plumbing that in over the weekend and I’ll post some pics.</p>
<p>The thing that is driving me crazy is we have literally spent about 100 hours trying to strip paint, scrape, sand, stain and varnish the original window and door trim. In addition, we had to tear off the original window sills and bottom trim because of severe termite damage, buy new expensive wood and mill new pieces. In order to get the new wood to match the old wood I had to take two pieces into a specialty paint store. I needed them to match the stain perfectly. Well, I am now the proud owner of the most expensive can of gel stain in the world!!! $75 for a quart of the stain and it took them 2 days to get the match. </p>
<p>In hindsight, I should have just torn off the surrounding window trim and put all new wood around the windows and doors. That would have saved a ton of labor. But, everyone was so intent on ‘restoring’ the original wood. </p>
<p>Let’s hope she doesn’t decide to paint it! :)</p>
<p>Speaking of which, do you know anything about the feasibility of stripping paint from hundred-year old oak doors with unusually-detailed trim, and restoring a varnish finish?</p>
<p>Regarding stripping paint from old doors. We used a Citrus based paint stripper which was milder. You can get it at Home Depot. Use a small putty knife with thin towel wrapped to strip the paint so that you don’t gouge the wood. On the final stripping, we used very fine steel wool to get the paint out of the crevices. Then we had to sand the wood and it was really hard in the crevices.</p>
<p>Then you can just varnish with new polyurethane. If you are trying to restore something that already has a varnish finish (but doesn’t need to be stripped), try Restore It product. We used that on the original built ins that had really old varnish on them and we didn’t want to strip and sand, just restore the original luster of the varnish.</p>
<p>Its really hard to get the paint out of the crevices of the detail. We finally had to use really small screwdrivers to gouge the paint out of the crevices with the stripper. </p>
<p>Dental tools are great for getting into the crevices too. I get mine at Harbor Freight.</p>
<p>The doors in question <em>appear</em> to still have the original finish under a few layers of paint. It may be varnish, it may be shellac. The trim is unusually elaborately milled, and the doors are oversized. They were first painted probably in the 60s, alas.</p>
<p>Workplace Accident</p>
<p>It was just a horrible day yesterday. We are under the gun to get the Spanish Bungalow done for a bank appraisal inspection on Wednesday. We had some small woodwork that needed to get done. The Buyer wanted us to remove the door from the hallway entry. Well, there were little cut outs from the hinges and the latch. </p>
<p>My lead carpenter, whom I cannot live without and has worked with me for 5 years, had a terrible accident on the table saw. He needed to use ‘old wood’ to try to make these small little insert pieces of wood. We had stripped all nails out of the old wood. But, I heard a huge BANG and the next thing I know blood is spurting everywhere. There was a hidden nail in the old wood and the saw blade just kicked back. I’m not sure exactly what happened and I don’t want to know.</p>
<p>Wrapped his hand in clean rags, threw him in the car and 6 hours later after the emergency room he had major stitches in 3 fingers on his left hand. He can’t work for 10 days, and I don’t want him to work for awhile to try to recover from the trauma. Thank God he didn’t lose a finger.</p>
<p>Luckily I had personally signed him up for MediCal health insurance 3 months ago because he just wasn’t getting around to it. And I carry workman’s comp for him since he is an employee. If this had happened to one of the day laborers I would be in big trouble. </p>
<p>We are limping along with a couple of other workers but I won’t let anyone touch the power saws so our finish carpentry is at a stand still. </p>
<p>Not going to make our deadline for appraiser and I have no idea when we will. But, it was so scary I don’t really care today. </p>
<p>OMG coralbrook. I am glad his fingers are still there. Tools can do so much damage so quick, even if you know what you are doing. Sorry for both of you!</p>
<p>How horrifying! I’m so sorry!</p>
<p>So sorry about that accident! Only saving grace is that it sounds like it could have been much worse. Hope he heals well and this becomes a distant memory soon. You sound like a great employer, CB.</p>
<p>And, the photos you posted of the house by the beach are AWESOME. What a great job you did on that house!</p>
<p>I echo @collage1’s comments. You are a good employer, and your carpenter is very lucky. Just 10 days off and he can resume his trade. Not everyone is so lucky.</p>
<p>Well, here’s a happy note for today.</p>
<p>On Project #2 beach house. The listing agent (who is my agent also), made a fancy sales video with a drone camera doing aerial shots of the beach, the house. It was fascinating. Send me a PM if you are interested in the sales video.</p>
<p>But the bigger news is that she wasted her time and money… I don’t think anyone has even seen the video because the owners received a full price cash offer of $1.1 million after only 3 days on the market. Wow, I was actually thinking they set their asking price way too high. Obviously I know nothing 
</p>
<p>Owners have sent just glowing emails thanking me profusely for renovating their home so they could get top dollar in their sale. The buyer is a single man about 60yrs old who has been working in Asia and returning to California. He told the agent that he was buying it for the big walk in shower - my design!!! </p>
<p>coralbrook, that’s fantastic. Tell the sellers that the best compliment they can give you a referrals to other clients like them. </p>
<p>Yes, they offered any reference/referral I needed. I will have to think long and hard before I do another client remodel again. </p>
<p>I charged a ‘project management fee’ on top of actual cost of time and materials. To give out numbers, I think that the total remodel of their house (excluding kitchen and bathroom cabinets which they kept) was $75,000. The issue is that I discovered that I just cannot manage two projects at the same time. When there are clients involved, it is a full time job. For example, we had a standing Saturday morning meeting (because the husband worked) that took about 4 hours of my time. That was every Saturday for 10 weeks!! Job was estimated to be 8 weeks and we went 9 weeks and then there was a final 10th meeting.</p>
<p>Another issue is that the team I pulled together for Project #2 made expensive mistakes. To do it again I would have to be on site full time supervising. I just don’t trust that team to work for me again. In the end I had to stop the Spanish Bungalow project and pull my permanent team over to finish the job. It is very hard to find good workers that have detail finish skills.</p>
<p>So, if I had to do the client remodel full time my ‘management fee’ would have to be higher to compensate for the fact that I am not doing a flip at the same time. At that point I do not think that I can compete with licensed, bonded fancy contractors. About the only ‘value add’ that I could bring to the remodel project would be interior design consultation and my ability to get contractor discounts on the materials at some places.</p>
<p>It has been suggested to me that consultants trying to price their work should figure out how long they expect the project to take and then tell the client it will take three times that long. More often than not, the higher number is correct.</p>
<p>Understate how fast it can be done and over deliver. (is that clear? Say 10 weeks when you think 7 and then finish in 9 everyone happy) </p>
<p>Well therein lies the problem. If I had charged for 10 weeks of time for myself and the crew, my remodel fee would have been pretty high and not really a bargain for the project. </p>
<p>Spanish Bungalow Progress Update</p>
<p>Well, we are getting close to the finish line. Although this house does not look outstanding from the outside, the inside is coming together very nicely. Both the buyer’s agent and my listing agent came through today to see if we can possibly get ready for the appraiser by Friday morning. Originally scheduled for Wednesday, but I’m desperately trying to get ready for Friday. It’s a little hard when no one is cutting a piece of wood I don’t have anyone onsite right now that is ‘qualified’ to operate the saws.</p>
<p>We have finished the bathroom. It’s an interesting combination of original hand fired tile against modern stainless pedestal sink and lighting. Then top it off with the crazy left over vinyl floor that was floated down with some cheap quarter round and you have an interesting mix. Not my design, the Buyer’s selections. On top of everything, the gorilla team has managed to completely break the toilet seat and I cannot seem to find a replacement for the fancy toilet I bought. The Buyer is planning to put in one of those bidet/heater/Japanese toilet seat things. We had to put in a special outlet behind the toilet for it. Maybe I can convince her she doesn’t need a toilet seat because she is installing her special seat.</p>
<p>We have almost finished the kitchen, just need to drop in the faucet and do the plumbing under the sink. Soapstone countertops went in today and they are just gorgeous. But, for some reason the fabrication guys (note that they are men… ) put the busiest mess of white veins right in front of the kitchen sink in their layout. Why did they have to do that? It looks really weird. Piece over on other counter doesn’t even have one vein in it… why did they have to put all the crazy veins right there? I used to have tile guys that would take the pieces of travertine with the brown poop marks and put those pieces right next to the toilet. Everything else in bathroom floor looked uniform and great - what were they thinking? Do they even look at the pieces when they put them down??? Don’t use travertine floors anymore.</p>
<p>Need to install stove and install the venting from microwave through roof.</p>
<p>Our woodwork in living room is gorgeous. Did I mention that I am the proud owner of the most expensive quart of gel stain in America, custom matched to original wood? Both agents commented on how good the wood looks and it all matches well together. We still have to get two coats of urethane on all the stained wood, but I don’t think the appraiser will notice. We have another issue that the original wood floors have gaps from the baseboard. We are going to have to stain, urethane and install shoe molding down to cover the gaps.</p>
<p>But, mostly we have a lot of trim wood that has to go back up and there is no one to do the trim cuts. Oh well</p>
<p>And, the front yard is just a bunch of weeds because she took landscaping out of the contract. Now the agents want me to clean up all the weeds, uggh</p>
<p>Lots of new photos loaded to the Flickr group</p>