With outside of the house finally painted it was time to replace front door. I wanted a styled that was a cross between bungalow and craftsman style. This is the door I selected.

I went with douglas fir as it was somewhat less expensive and matched the interior woodwork. I used a walnut stain and satin polyurethane finish.  I used an Emtek lockset – it’s looks good but the locking mechanism and latch are sufficient but not great.

Overall I am pleased. I think the door makes a huge difference on the houses curb appeal.

Another big milestone past. My project got a fresh coat of paint this week. The crew is working on the trim as we speak, so a final picture with trim and everything will be posted early next week.

New Field Color

Old Paint Scheme

Here is a preview of the trim colors

One step closer to complete on the my kitchen remodel. This weekend I finished up painting the walls. The color I used is Benjamin Moore Louisburg Green (HC-113). This is a bold green and I think it ties in nicely with the floor and white wainscoating.

All the detail around the doors and windows made painting a challenge. Although the pictures look good, I struggled to get crisp lines around the mouldings. I tried taping, freehand — no matter what your going to get paint on the moulding, so you had better keep a wet rag close by for quick fixes.

This is the picture of the window seat

The built-in for the eating area

Kitchen Sink Area

Yet another step closer to the finish line on completing my kitchen remodel. Now I have painted kitchen cabinets. Overall, it looks pretty good but the process of getting to this point was painful.

The big lesson I learned at this stage, is when you get down to the finish work, you had better be on site to prevent any screw-ups. Yes there were pretty big screw-ups. Although I provided explicit directions for the painter not paint both sides of the pocket door, the did anyway. The even painted some of the moldings I spent days to stripping and restoring. If I am unable to get the paint completely off the pocket door, I may have to replace it — which means the painter’s fee will be slashed in half (the douglas fir pocket door cost me over $1K) .

Despite complications and frustration the kitchen is shaping up nicely.

Before Photo

After Photo

Now I have some painting to do and I need to select my backsplash material. That means another trip to CV Tile in Pasadena and a consultation with my favorite tile person Veronica. After rummaging around amongst tile samples for an hour or two here is what we came up with.

Originally, I was only looking for glass tile, but after seeing this combo, I think the border of white and greeenish/gold tile are extremely compelling. I will need to get a whiter white to match my cabinets, but this is a winning combination!

Stay tuned — within the next couple days I will be painting the walls and ceiling. I have selected a earthy green as my field color. It’s going to look rich

Progress continues on Projectbungalow. This week the kitchen countertops were installed.

I selected honed absolute black granite for the countertop material. Originally, I wanted to use soap stone but it’s 2-3x the price and your kitchen cabinets must be built to accommodate this material. The key difference is the plywood top needs to be inset versus on top of the cabinet structure. My cabinet maker placed the plywood on top of the cabinets.  John Yeh with Colormason, my countertop installer, also told me that the cabinets have to be just about perfectly level to use soapstone. The reason being is the stone sits directly on the counters — so if you have to shim the material to create seamless joints the underside of your counter top will have gaps relative to the cabinets.

Here is a picture of the material i used — isn’t it gorgeous

I also installed a Oliveri stainless steel sink. This was a great value at roughly $900. Its heavy gauge stainless and comes with a stainless steel drain grid. Additionally the inside edges are all radius, so cleaning and maintenance will be much easier than the Blanco I was originally considering.

This part of the project including material cost about $3,700. What an improvement.

Now I need to get started on the backsplash — I think green glass tile just might do the trick

The next big step is to get all the the trim work complete in my kitchen. Then it’s on to painting and lighting fixtures.

The picture below shows how I have decided to do the finish work, For the casing above the wndows, I decided upon a simple detail. I used 1″ and 3/4″ square sticks to create detail on the window and door way headers. It was less expensive than buying mouldings and I think it fits pretty nicely with the overall design

I also installed wainscoating. The wainscoating along with the window seat and trim will be painted white. I am going with a sage green on the walls. The color will really make the trim work stand-out

I only wish I had a slightly larger window for this wall — what do you think bigger wndow or is it fine as is?

Wow, finally I am starting to make some progress toward having a real house. After just about a year and a half, I am within a few weeks of having a functional kitchen.

Below is the picture of my new installed floor. I contracted this project out and it was a smart move. Raphael and his crew with New Vision Flooring, knocked out the project in one day. They installed a new sub-floor and the linoleum in about 9 hours — pretty quick and the install looks really good.

We used Forbo linoleum tiles. I used light-green and gray as the field colors and finished it with a black border.

The total cost of the project was $2700; $1700 for materials and another $1,000 for labor

Today was a key milestone for my project. The last drywall screw was driven home today.

Now with all the drywall and plaster work done It’s time to focus on the trim. I never realized how much a house’s appearance depends upon the trim.

Last week I shared some photos of my pocket door installation. Below are the before and after photos. You can see the full resolution images at flickr by clicking on either of the photos.

Before

After

I am also including a photo of the how nearly complete family room. The photo below is taken from the kitchen. The unit under the window will be built into a window seat with 4 oversized storage drawers

It’s a bit hard to believe but this area used to be the kitchen — see the photo below

As part of my original plan for my kitchen remodel I designed a large opening between the breakfast/family and dining room areas. As I neared completion I realized that this design wouldn’t work.

First, instead of making the house seem bigger, being able to see through the house from the front door actually made the house seem smaller. Secondly, the dark stained wood in the dining room clashed with the white painted wood for the eating area. Finally havin a direct flow from the front to back door is bad feng shui. Superstition is that having the front and back doors aligned causes money to flow into and out of the house — hmm been happening a lot around hear lately.

View from the living room to back of the house

The solution, install a door between the dining and family room. My architect suggested I install french doors. Taking her advice would have been much less work, but I didn’t want to loose the wall space required for door that swing into the living area. I decided upon installing a pocket door. Although they are a bit harder to install, I thought the benefit in terms of usable space would be well worth it.

Step 1 of my installation was to rip out the wall and soffett for the existing entry way between the dining room. This was not fun at all because I had reinforced the walls with structural grade plywood.

Step 2 frame the opening for the pocket door. The door I am installing is 42″ wide X7′ tall. As a result the framed int area 86″ wide X 7′ 3″ tall. You need to leave some extra height for the slider track.

Here you see the framing work and pocket door frame installed

Step 3 install the door. This is just a temporary door, which I used to make sure I had the framing level at the top and the door jambs are plumb. I spent a couple hours fiddling with the the door jambs to make sure they were plumb.

Door installed here — notice the temporary door is too short

So that’s it my pocket door is installed — If you have questions feel free to ask. Next step is to redo my drywall.

I lost my camera a couple months ago. So while I have been working away on the house, I have not been able to provide any progress updates. I had hoped that has I started cleaning the house up a bit the camera would surface. Well no such luck. Today I finally broke down and bought a new camera.

The kitchen/family room is not done yet, but these photos will provide some perspective on how things are shaping up.

Before View

Almost after view

Windows and doors have been moved to create the new configuration for the back of the house. Here are before and after photos

Before Picture

Almost After (paint needed)

It may not look like it now but once it’s done the kitchen will be a huge improvement