Have You Vacuumed Your Room?
Such slow progress over the past month and a half—it’s not that nothing happened, since there were important spurts of activity, but it’s just been slow going. Some of this was due to communications breakdowns (I am DONE with those, as is the contractor—we hope that weekly meetings will cure this), and some of it was due to the holidays. The contractor went away for two weeks, but fortunately, I guess, it happened to rain pretty steadily the whole time he was gone! So even if he’d been here and it hadn’t been the holidays, nothing would have happened anyway.
Of course, that meant that the house was getting rained on rather heavily with no roof to protect it. The older areas of the house had roof and/or tarps on them, but the new bedroom got its first-ever vacuuming! Twice, and with a Shop Vac! The second time, when I did it, there was a good 3/4” of standing water to deal with, adding up to untold gallons of water and countless trips to dump the 12-gallon tank.
When the contractor came back, he hung his sign out on the construction fence. I had encouraged him to do this, because I’m sure people with similar projects on their minds are watching the progress and would like to know who’s doing the work, and because it makes it look like someone is taking responsibility for what is happening on the site. Also, his graphics are really nice, so it looks spiffy. Speaking of spiffy, we put up Christmas lights along our construction fence to make sure that we contributed to the cheer on the block despite our family’s absence and the half-ruined appearance of our house (see thumbnail for this post)!
Since my last report, there’s been a lot of carpentry going on to alter the rear roofline and to get a roof over the addition. If I had understood all the extra framing (time + expense) that was required to make this special shape to the ceiling I might have demurred, so I am glad I didn’t think it through, frankly. The ceiling plate height in the main house is ~nine feet. The plate height within the narrower gable that roofs the addition only is lower, at eight feet. So in order to create a higher, 9’ ceiling in the added bath and bedroom, the rake of the gable has been allowed to “clip” the edge of the room on the west side (right, in the photo below). On the east side of the addition, the gable clips the outdoor walkway/deck, not the other side of the bedroom (which is set in from the outer edge of the gable). So additional framing was needed inside the room’s ceiling to create the ILLUSION that the roof is placed symmetrically over the room and clips both sides equally. In the photo below, the raking rafters at right are the true rafters of the gabled roof, and the raking rafters at left are added within the gable to make a corresponding slope on the other side of the room. The flat part in between forms the 9’ ceiling down the center of the room. It feels so cozy in there with that special ceiling profile! (I know that doesn’t help you picture it. I drew a diagram but I will not subject you to it.)
The bathroom ceiling is also clipped on the outside (west) wall, and we decided to keep that slope, too, rather than dropping a soffit over the bathtub. We all think this will be “charming,” in the interior designer’s word. New rooms need charm!
So here is the framing as it now stands. There is still more to do, as I’m reminded when I see the big stack of lumber that still sits in the driveway!
This weekend I am going over the orders for bathroom and kitchen light fixtures ($1,500 for 7 fixtures—could be worse) and the plumbing fixtures and accessories for both rooms (horrifically expensive). But when I reviewed that plumbing and accessories estimate and saw that the towel bars I’d picked out are $190, I thought, that’s absurd! Why do I “need” California Faucets to make my towel bars when I can get this perfectly compatible style from Pottery Barn on sale this weekend for just $47!? So I found two cheaper alternatives, assessed the cost difference, and then I guess I’d gotten that out of my system. Will it REALLY make a meaningful difference to the cost of the project, in the end, if I pay $325 less in total for three towel bars in the context of a fixtures bill that high? And I know perfectly well that I can find good-looking and nicely functioning plumbing fixtures from other manufacturers, too, but the bar was set when we bought Newport Brass for the other bathroom seven years ago. I’m just going to go with it. (I only changed from NB to Cal Faucets because CF offers a more stable, coated polished nickel finish).
The other $$$$ I decided to overlook was for the double sconce over the sink. I bought one months ago, knowing (so I thought) that I wanted the same style as I have in the other bathroom. But then I was told that we really will be happier with a ceiling fixture to supplement the light from the double sconce in this bathroom (the two bathrooms are shaped quite differently), and there isn’t an appropriately-sized ceiling fixture available to match the sconce I already bought. I want it to be right. So if you want to buy a nice polished nickel double sconce—uh, let me know. Because I’m about to buy a different one.
Speaking of buying stuff, we have been navigating the world of pandemic-era appliance purchasing! Don’t go out there if you don’t have to. Yikes. (What kind of advice is that? Who goes out to buy appliances if they don’t “have to”?) Months and months ago, I sat down and dutifully put hours of research into specifying the kitchen appliances and getting spousal buy-in. You have to get down to the exact model you want, of course. But then we realized that Bosch, for example, is barely hobbling along on the manufacturing front, everyone wants to get their hands on an 800-series dishwasher, and there are none coming off the assembly line! When you go into the appliance stores, large or small, and tell them what you want, they just look at you with pity. I can’t imagine trying to sell appliances right now!
However, with some legwork, we have been really lucky in finding both the fridge and the dishwasher we wanted just lying around in stock from two different local retailers. We took delivery right away so as not to risk it. So we now have a fridge, a dishwasher, AND a hot water heater sitting in the living room! Full of optimism (i.e., having no other choice), we put down a refundable deposit on a dual-oven, induction-cooktop range—hopefully GE Café will get around to making us one. It’s not as if you cannot buy a range—it’s just that there are reasons you chose the one you did, and you want those decision-making processes to still be valid even though you happen to be buying during a serious shortage. Someday this will be our post-pandemic kitchen, after all (hopefully). If we have to get a used thing off of Craig’s List to fill in for a few months, whatever.
When our contractor leans on me to get the plumbing fixtures ordered, he is looking at the next step once this framing is done: plumbing and electrical. The plumber will need the “rough-in” parts to install soon. For my part, I find it challenging to recall that things actually ARE moving and that parts need to be in place as the project progresses. Which means that some day, I suppose, it will be done if we just keep putting one foot in front of another.