Renovation @ MindSay

here is the wall to my master bath 4 weeks ago

and here it is today. I am going to go wash, wash , wash.

we just need to re install the paper holder and a soap dish. Voila!!!!

It is 2:30 pm and  my cat has made a jail break, the warden opened the door to the den and ignored the feline mad dash for freedom. The cat has been incarcerated or should i say sequestered during the day while our master bath is being torn up shredded and hopefully in a week--- remade. The plumber arrived at 8. By 10 am I heard him mumbling to my husband about needing to open the wall to the bedroom - the wall on which hang two GENUINE matisse lithographs- so i put on construction headphones, took two valium and went to sleep with the cat in the den.

When I floated out of my self induced karmic nirvana, I learned that the wall did not have to be opened. The plumber had found the waste lines and the stack and the hot and water lines and the all the demolition is going to be contained in the master bath itself.  but that means we sleep in the guest room tonight because the master bath floor is all open joist and debris.  and leave it to me to sleep walk into the room and break an ankle. (the bath room has no door- one just turns a corner from the bedroom- lest you should ask why I dont just close it)

in about two weeks though I will have a wonderful bidet and a newly position commode and a tile floor to die for that produces HEAT. HEAT do you hear me? no more cold floors  during the cool portland spring fall and winters. aha!!.. no rorom floor rugs with fringe for abster to chew and most importantly  and finally, a bidet to keep my chocho fresh and clean all the time. (How americans live without a bidet seems really barbaric to me and we think  foreigners have bad grooming habits. give me a person with a little sweat over a person who hasn't fully wiped the tushita any day. oh the thought is really horrible. euwwww

we are in the process of beginning the master bath, minor but expensive, changes. It entails adding a bidet and  getting a new floor which will be heated. so yesterday I took the spousal unit to the showroom to select the tiles we wanted. I had been there the day before and chose a light green and taupe slate looking floor tile and when we started looking at samples jim, without knowing the one i had chosen, picked the very same one. that was a strong signal that we choose well.  we also picked out the laminate flooring for the studio- a light cherry wood look. the designer working with us is adorable and very bubbly and understood the look we wanted right away.

after the showroom we had some lunch and decided to have an little fun outing to Portland's Movie Madness... the funkiest video rental store  on earth. part rental, part store, part museum. they have the gun John Wayne used in The Man who Shot Liberty Valance and the uniforms worn by Lake, Colbert, and Goddard in So Proudly We Hail......... a fav war movie of mine as a teenager. And to top everything else they had a copy of Ichikawa's The Makioka Sisters. one of the most beautifully serene and glorious films ever made, I first saw the movie in the 80's in Denver and earlier this year I read the novel. (which i think I blogged about). Then as if we were not having anough fun we spotted a french patisserie - that's redundant huh?- and stopped in for the most decadent of pastries and agreed that life is about as good as it gets.

Now that we have moved the outdoor furniture around it's quite ideal, the adirondack chairs and tables are at the pond, some of the butterfly chairs are on the north patio surrounded by large planters, the swinging chair is on the screened deck and the chaise lounge is on the top deck hidden behind canvas and wrought iron screens. This means that after a really hot soak in the jacuzzi  I can walk out on the deck naked and have total privacy. this is better than the hot tub I was dreaming about.

Perseids is beginning but i will write more about that after the wild sky show sunday and monday night. Look southeast- and there will be no moon to get  in the way.

So while most everything about the Portland house was perfect (exceptions: was going to have to steal a bedroom for my closet, no bidet and the problematic kitchen island)  I knew we could redo parts of the kitchen with minimal mess and bother. I began by purchasing the appliances I wanted before we moved in. We had to have a refrigerator  and the existing cabinets on the side of the K with water for an icemaker would not fit any  modern refrig so I had many options… even a subzero if I felt insane.  And I knew I wanted a baking center with a fisher and paykel oven and luckily there was s low desk area with  space underneath it for the oven. The island was the real issue as it was a 36 inch dacor cooktop on a 45 inch island, no space on either side for plating or to hold even a bowl of batter. And I had rejected dacor  once before… why live with one now? So I decided on a wolf rangetop with griddle and I would place it along the wall and get a proper overhead fan w the CFU’s required for the monster of a cooktop. Then the island could become my major prep area. I contacted three kitchen contractors and the bids were between 15,000 and 30,000  which was impossible as we had just spent almost 10,000 on appliances. Sooooooooo I decided with all this time to kill I would be  the contractor  for the kitchen and interview people to do pieces of the job.  What a trip and what a major money saver. I started with a great demo guy named Dell. He worked with his son Josh and they tore out part of one side of the kitchen so my french door kitchenaid fridge could be put in place, they saved every scrap of gorgeous old oak so that jim- or someone could reconstruct the cabinets that had been built in place in the 80’s. Next I found a fantastic carpenter named Neill who liked to do funky projects and he started the process of changing the existing bas cabinets to fit my new range top oven and island concept. His aura was amazing, he was quiet and neat and thinks outside the box and was an precise and careful with my kitchen as he would be with his own. And his prices were amazing. The only other person I have seen work so carefully is my husband Jim, so that is high praise for Neill.  Next my realtor put me in touch with a great electrician named Mark who installed the electricity where I needed it and entertained me with great stories about a crazy doctor in Lake Oswego who was making last minute changed  continually to a house he was remodeling… lets raise the ceiling a few feet was one morning’s announcement.  Then it was time to configure the cabinets that would go over the new cooktop and include my hood. I decided that no one could match 25  year old custom oak cabinets so why even try. I went with a great blue glaze with oak trim and the designer is a lovely young woman who will come over for tea when the kitchen is done.  The final thing, well final so far. Was the countertop for the now two level island and the bake center. I wanted something totally heat resistant  so stainless would have worked but it was too cold for the heart of the house kind of space… so I settled on soapstone as long as I could find a slab with no green at all. I got a bid from a stone place here in Portland to do the two areas for 2550… gulp, there went my idea of soapstone and I was almost determined to use ceramic tile instead when I just spent an entire morning checking out all soapstone dealers west of the rockies…. When I fell upon M Teixiera. A great guy named Philip Drysdale had two slabs of perfect size called Brazilian Nights with no green and said each slab would cost  approx 300. So he sent me jpegs of them and I sent him a check express mail and within a week I had two fantastic soapstone slabs in my kitchen for one third the price of the local contactor. They are exactly what I wanted and when oiled burnish to a deep charcoal which now informed the tiling and finishing such as new hardware for the kitchen. By the end of this month the cabinets and exhaust fan will be installed and then I can do the wall tiling myself, Neill will come back and tweak a few cabinet doors and  my kitchen wilol be finished for under 10,000. a tad better than the contractors prices.

As far  as the master bidet went,  When I learned from two plumbers that to install a bidet with new plumbing/ stack etc would be a minimum of 5,000… I went with a brondell washlet seat for $136- thank you ebay--- and now we have a commode bidet combo whuich is actually better than a bidet as you don’t have to get up and move to another seat. Plus it has a heated seat for winter. Way cool.   So that is it for kitchen renovations. Tomorrow I will discuss the construction site which has become my street as the surrounding properties which were once part of this houses extensive yard were sold off and development of them was contingent upon the sale of this house. SO while I spend part of the afternoon hiding  in my meditation  room wearing headphones I must remember that this is why we got the house for under half a million rather than the 800,000 it would have cost if the land had not been subdivided. This chaos is the short term price of paradise and it will end before winter I think.

Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor will get luxury boxes and more seats as part of an estimated $226 million renovation to the American sports icon, under a plan given initial today.

The University of Michigan Board of Regents voted 5-3 in favor of the plan, which would increase the stadium's capacity to 108,251. The final design and construction contracts still require board approval.

The target for completion of work on the home of the Wolverines is 2010. About 83 suites and 3,200 club seats will be added, the university said, while widening seats and aisles will cut seats in some parts.