Scheduling a Kitchen Remodel

Whether you are planning a wedding or planning to tear apart your house, a good schedule will help you stay on task and ensure that materials arrive as you need them. 

Here is a sample schedule for a medium sized kitchen remodel that was developed using Microsoft Project, but you could just as easily use a calendar.  The key is to build the build the entire event in your head before you do any of the real work.  Break out each task and take your best guess at how long you need to complete it.  Ask each person and supplier along the way how much time they'll need for their portion of the job.

 

Keep in mind that the planning phase of a construction project can take just as long or longer as the building phase.  If there are major changes to the exterior of your house (i.e., new windows or roofline) you may have to go through your city's Design Review process which can add six weeks or more to your permit time.

Construction should be sequenced in such a way that you are not being held up by any one item with a long lead time.  The items with the longest lead times are cabinets (12+ weeks) and windows (6-8+ weeks).  Because you'll need to know what appliances you're using in order to purchase your cabinets, focus on appliances, cabinets, and windows to start.

Your plumbing fixtures need to be on site during rough plumbing, which is very early in the remodel, so focus on those next.  Tile, depending on where you order it from,  can take 6+ weeks to arrive, or you may be able to find something that is stocked locally.  All finish grade wood, whether it's hardwood flooring or crown moulding, should arrive to the site at  least 2 weeks before you plan to install it because it needs to acclimate to the humidity of the space tp prevent it from swelling or shrinking after it's installed.

The more items you can select and order ahead of time, the happier you'll be.  Prevent decision fatigue!  Use your schedule to prioritize the decisions you have to make to keep stress levels low and have some fun with your new kitchen!

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Best Construction Blog Competition

Greetings loyal readers.  I'm excited to announce that TPC has been nominated for a very esoteric award, Best Construction Blog, by the good people over at Construction Marketing Ideas.

No need to register, just click here and vote for Tar Paper Crane.  Help propel me to nerd stardom people!

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DIY Bathroom Design - Part 2

I'm going to jump right in to Part 2 of our step-by-step guide to planning the design of your bathroom remodel.

4.  Flooring

There are many options for bathroom flooring, but the best choices are sheet goods and tile.  Sheet goods can be vinyl or linoleum.  Linoleum is usually ugly, but it's inexpensive and practical.  There is an aesthetically superior alternative called Marmoleum, which is a natural linseed sheet product with a jute backer.  It comes in a wide array of colors and is earth and asthma/allergy friendly.

If you can afford it, the best floor for looks and durability is tile.  Tile can be ceramic or stone, and comes in every color, shape, and size imaginable.  Take your cabinet and countertop samples with you when tile shopping.  If you are planning to tile the shower surround or walls, you'll want to make sure all the tiles work together.  In our Little Blue Cottage, the kids' bath on the left has 4"x18" Maioliche Vesuvienne Bianco tiles, which are only $4.95/sf at Import Tile in Berkeley.  The master bath on the right has floor tiles from Walker Zanger.  The large tiles are 12"x12" shetland gray stone and the accents are 5/8"x5/8" lagos azul mosaic. 

Notice that nowhere did I say that carpet is an acceptable choice for a bathroom floor.   Do I need to reiterate?  Never put carpet in a bathroom floor.  Ever.  Hardwood is also not a great choice.  It's definitely not durable enough to hold up next to a shower, although it can sometimes fly for a powder room.  Engineered wood is better than actual wood (it moves less), but neither are good. 

5.  Tile

This step is only if you are not going to use one of those prefabricated drop-in acrylic or fiberglass surrounds.  Grab your heavy bag full of samples and head to your local tile store.  You are looking for field tiles (the ones that make up the large span of wall), accent tiles like a border or inside a niche, and caps for the top. 

Here are two examples from our Little Blue Cottage.  The kids' bath has white 3x6 subway tiles from the Tile Shop in Berkeley.  These are a great deal at $3.68/sqft.  There is an accent strip also in white near the top and the shampoo niche is done in Ann Sacks penny round mosaic in sky matte. 

The master has gray/green glass 3"x6" subway tile from Import Tile and the same tile, but in a longer 1 1/2"x9" size for the shampoo niche.

 

Large tiles are fine for a bath floor, but you'll want a smaller version (around 4"x4" is ideal) for the floor of a walk-in shower.  The grout lines serve as extra traction for safety and allow the installer to get the proper slope to the drain.  Unless you've successfully installed tile before, this is a job best left to the pros.  Get samples of all the tiles you want to use and have your tilesetter place the order.  They'll have a better understanding of the square footage required, and also of what trim tiles you'll need to make to the design a success. 

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Design Your Perfect Bathroom Remodel - Part 1

Bathroom remodels are tricky to get right.  Limited by a small footprint, every piece need to serve a purpose and blend with the other selections to keep the room from feeling too busy.

Here is a Part 1 of a step-by-step guide to planning the design of your bathroom remodel. 

1.  Layout  

Think about function.  Do you need a bathtub?  Do you have the space to have a separate tub and shower?  Many people now are moving away from tubs in favor of walk-in showers.  If you are not a soaker, and already have a bathtub in the house, consider the ease of use, especially in older age, of a walk in shower.  Do you need two sinks, or will one suffice?  Do you need storage for linens, towels, and products?  How much?

2.  Cabinets

The bathroom vanity is the most dominant piece in the room, so it's best to let this piece set the tone for the design. Do you want a painted or stained vanity cabinet? Custom or off the shelf?  In the kids' bath here in our little blue cottage, we started with the Pottery Barn Classic Double Console in white.

 

We then added a custom laundry chute cabinet with extra storage for towels above, designed to match the vanity.

  

The chute drops down to a hamper in the laundry room directly underneath this bathroom.  

  

3.  Countertops

Countertops and flooring are of equal importance in a bathroom remodel, but since you have far more options in flooring, it's best to select the counters next.  The Pottery Barn vanity above came with a Carrara marble top, which made this selection easy.  If you went with a custom cabinet, you'll need to pick a stone.  A lot of people think stone is only shiny granite, but there are tons of options out there, from marble to soapstone to travertine.  If you go with granite, try a honed finish for a softer, more matte look.  For a great bargain, shop for stone remnants from your local supplier or fabricator.  Often, they have pieces left over from larger projects that you can get for a steal.  Always take a small sample, you'll need it to take it with you when you're shopping for tile.

Coming up next -- selecting bathroom tile, sinks, shower fixtures, and accessories.

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Truss Me

In construction, everyone has an opinion about whether it's better to frame roofs with trusses or using conventional stick framing,  Here's mine:  Trusses are smart!  They are installed on 24" centers instead of 16" centers, which means fewer trees cut.  Additionally, a complicated roof might take weeks to stick frame whereas trusses go up in a matter of days, which means less labor and lower project costs.

On our English Tudor remodel, the eaves of the original house were decorated with elegant rafter tails.  For the addition, rather than make each rafter tail and plant it onto the outside of the house, we took one out of the demo pile and sent it to the truss company.  They replicated the detail on extended legs of the truss itself so all we have to do is trim, caulk, and paint.  Done!

 

Usually, the biggest argument against truss framing a roof is that with all those cross braces in the way, the attic can't be used for storage.  However, in this remodel, the roof pitch was steep enough that the truss designer was able to cleverly box out a sizable area that will make a great platform for the Christmas decorations.

With the roof framing up, we can move on to shingles and windows.  Yay!

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Spectacular Kitchen Design

Here are the first glimpses of the kitchen and family room remodel in the little blue cottage.  Compare to the before photo here.  The box beam ceiling turned out great!  The walls and ceilings are painted the same color and the cabinets and trim are Benjamin Moore Super White.

You get a good shot of the floors here.  They are 5" wide ebony stained oak, and the mahogany island is stained to match.  The cabinets are beaded face frame with inset doors and furniture-style (open) kicks at the sink and island.  They're hand painted on site to get the traditional brush stroke finish.  More details on the cabinets to come in future posts.

The backsplash tile comes from one of our Bay Area gems, Heath Ceramics.  These are from their Dimensional Collection, 3D designs from the 50s-60s that have been revived into production.  Want to impress that dwelling-obsessed cutie you know?  The Heath factory right here in Sausalito, California is open for tours Fridays at 12:30pm and Saturdays and Sundays at 11am and 3pm.

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Crane Spotting

 

The Bay Area is a great place to be for the girl who loves cranes.  There are the iconic cranes at the Port of Oakland that look like Star Wars At-At Walkers and the giant blue crane that was built specifically for the Bay Bridge repair.  Big cranes, small cranes, I love 'em all.  My dream construction project involves a crane on a barge.  So when we switched from a traditional stick framed roof to a truss roof at the English Tudor house, a special added bonus was delivery by crane.

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The Green Door

Gotta love this lime twist on the classic craftsman red door.  This is a nice and wide Simpson 7860 three panel, six lite front door with matching Simpson 7260 sidelights.  I think those sidelights to the left and right of the door looked better in white, but after much debate, we were asked to re-paint them to match the Boothbay Blue of the shingles.  The thought was that the door looked too wide with that much white on each side of the green.

 

The header crown is stepped above the center door, a small detail with big results.  This trim style is repeated on the adjacent front windows.

 

The inside of this front door is so fresh and so clean in white on white.  The small windows bring light into the entryway, while their height maintains the privacy from the busy street out front.  The trim is the same as the pocket doors here.  All in all, a fabulous front door, inside and out!

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Second Story Addition

 

The second story is up!  This floor is the master suite addition, guest bedroom, new guest bathroom, and a remodeled kids' bathroom.

The challenge with every home remodel is the intersection of new and old.  On the first level, that trouble spot was aligning the floor of the new structure to the precise height of the old (which is, of course, not level) because we're going to have hardwood that patches in to one continuous floor surface with no transitions.

On this level, the challenge is a long hallway that starts in the old house and bisects most of the length of the new.  The old section of hallway is not completely parallel to the exterior walls.  We can't angle the new hall to match or you'll see crooked cuts in the bathroom tile floors, and a jog in the wall just won't do.

We decided to cant the front exterior wall out 3/4" to loose some of the angle.  That much can be absorbed by the plywood and stucco.  Then we framed the new hall walls parallel to the exterior walls and a hair wider than what we need them to be so the sheetrockers can float more mud at the joint of the two sections to give the impression that it's always been one long fabulously straight hallway.

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Trim Out - Interior Door Casing with Style

The HardieShingles on our blue cottage are almost complete.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the work on the interior is coming along beautifully.  This house is very wood trim intensive.  Let's start with 7-piece door and window casings:

 

Most of the craftsman style interior trim came from San Francisco Victoriana.  They have every molding profile you can imagine.  The individual pieces from the top down are:

    Header crown:                SFV 7-37

    Flat stock head casing:  SFV 6-10

    Parting bead:                   SFV 50-1

    Side casing (trim legs):  SFV 14-59

 

At the base from top down, you see the dramatic trim legs again, and they abut a larger plinth block (made on site).  The plinth block is thick enough to allow the baseboard a place to die into.

    Baseboard:      SFV 20-34

You also get a sneak peek here of the wide plank, dark stained oak floors.

 

Put it all together on a pair of pocket doors and you get a picture of perfection.  The interior doors are T.M. Cobb F-30 3-panels in fir.  Simpson has a similar door here.  Check back for trim details at the stairs, crown moulding, and box beams.

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Tile Design Ideas for Bathrooms

Here are the pretty things you've been waiting for!  Material samples provide a glimpse of what the remodeled bathrooms will look like in our English Tudor.  This tile combination for the master bath feels fresh and spa-like.  Love it!

• Tile walls and shower surround (top left) -- 3"x6" Frosted Art Glass A-106 in Willow from Import Tile in Berkeley, CA
• Tile floors (large square underneath) --  Rough textured 12"x12" limestone slate tile in Pistachio also from Import Tile
  
• Bathroom vanity cabinet (bottom right) -- Made locally from Khaya wood with a rich espresso stain
  
• Countertop material (bottom left) -- CaesarStone 4220 in Buttermilk 

This layout for the kids' bath is great for any age.  The hex floor tiles give a period vintage feel fitting of the house, while the frost blue subway tiles keep it modern and clean.

• Tile shower surround (bottom)  -- Ann Sacks 3"x6" Capriccio AS7583 in Sky Blue Gloss
• Tile floor (top right) -- Ceramic mosaic Satin glazed 1x1 hex in Ice White from Import Tile
• Cabinet (not shown) -- White painted
• Countertop (top left) -- CaesarStone 4120 in Raven
  

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Framing Success!

 

 

 

Let's have it for walls!  After a month of slogging around in the mud and concrete, it feels great to roll out some joists and have a floor to stand on.  The best thing about framing is how fast it goes -- big, dramatic change every day!  The first floor walls are just about complete and the second floor walls will be up by next week.  What you're looking at here is the new garage addition on the outside and kitchen and family room addition closest to the main house.   Second floor pics will be here before you know it.  

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