(Almost) Move-In Ready

Tonight we finished laying bamboo floors and got the fridge and dishwasher in place. Tim installed a lever and deadbolt on the deck doors. Earlier today Jason, our electrician, did some more trim out electrical on the first floor fans. The drywallers chopped a wire when they were here, so that added a good deal of time to Jason's troubleshooting.

Tim, Carlos and Fernando got some more decking down today but we'll save the photos of the deck for next week when there's more to see. Some of us were experiencing lung irritation yesterday and today, and the jury's out on whether it was due to last night's ammonia leak following an explosion at a nearby cold storage facility, or Ipe sawdust, which Fernando says can be somewhat abrasive.

Tomorrow our good friends Leslie and Kevin are going to help us move our furniture, books, and other odds and ends from the apartment over to the house. The house isn't quite ready for full-on living, but we have a fully functioning bathroom on the second floor, and tomorrow Dean is scheduled up our basement utility sink, dishwasher and washing machine, which will give us the essential plumbing we need for our daily routines.

This photo is taken from the front door. This is what the view from the front door looked like a year ago.

Bamboo Floors

Half of our first floor is covered with Easy-Lock bamboo made by Bambo. This is engineered flooring and goes in really easy. The bamboo surface itself is 1/4" thick with standing support ridges and has a green flaky substrate that makes a complete mess when cut.

That's a stack of unboxed bamboo in front of the deck doors. The cardboard in the foreground is a temporary protective cover so the high volume of contractor traffic doesn't thrash the floors.

Circley Square

Carlos and Tim spent some of yesterday finishing soffit for the front porch. It's now starting to look like finished construction; the porch is just about done save for metal roofing, railings and decking.

That's Dave in the photo. He spent all day with us yesterday laying bamboo flooring in the living room. Dave and Cynthia both have been a huge support for us and we can't thank them enough for their generosity.

The title of the post is somewhat literally inspired by the circle-shaped cutout for the can light and the square support framing in the soffit. In thinking of the circle and square, we took a line out of an absurd music video called Hands Are Bananas.

Subway Tile

These wall field tiles are 3" x 6" and are sometimes called subway tiles, presumably because you find tiles this size and shape in subways all over the world. These particular tiles are handmade and are about 3/8" thick. We picked them up at Dal-Tile here in Portland.

This wall will have tile running all the way to the ceiling since this is the corner into which we'll place the clawfoot tub.

Rear Deck Framed

Yesterday Michael and Jeff were back on site and they finished pulling the deck framing and stair stringers for the rear entry deck and front porch. The lower deck in this photo is the "recycling bench" on which we'll store our recycling and trash bins. The lowered deck makes it easy to toss things in from the back door and to move them on and off the deck to get them down to the end of the driveway for collection day.

Wood Underlayment

This 10 mm thick black rubber pad is our under-bamboo soundproofing. It's also from Sound Isolation Company. Wood floor soundproofing requires different materials and since our subfloors are ply wood and not concrete, we need a thicker pad than someone might use in a new high-rise condo. The pad is made from 93% post-consumer waste like as tires and old dodge balls. It's extremely heavy. One 4' x 25' roll weighs over 200 pounds, and we'll use close to 5 rolls. That's half a ton of soundproofing on our kitchen and living room floors.

Thanks to Matty Cat for lending us his heft this evening. Matt and Justin lugged these things up unfinished deck stairs and it was precarious, if not somewhat dangerous moving the behemoth rolls of rubber. We'd also like to thank Matt for his help a few weeks ago hanging insulation in the basement bedroom ceiling. (That too, was a soundproofing project.) Matt and Karen have been a huge support to us through this project and we'd be filling our milk with tears without them.

Fresh Tile No Traffic Until Tues Thanks

Today, Rude (pronounced "Rudy" for those calling him "rude," which he rarely is) planned and set the bathroom floor tile in place. We're using 3/8" thick Brazilian Black Slate which appears to be considerably strong given that it's stone, not ceramic. Rude tells us that stone tile normally ships in thicker grades.

The fuchsia wall coating is a waterproofing membrane that goes on a bit like liquid plastic. Once it's dry, it'll form a watertight barrier behind the tile. Water that does get behind the tile will run down to the floor tile and, with luck, either evaporate away or evacuate the room through the floor drain.

Tile Underlayment

Yesterday and today we've spent some time installing a layer of sound isolation barrier, which goes on top of the subfloor and beneath the finished floor. Since we have living space in the basement, we're hoping to keep noise isolated in each space. In the ceilings on the first floor we used spray foam insulation to keep noise from going through the ceiling into the upstairs bedroom. Given the foot traffic we'll have on the first floor, we are adding the additional layers of underfloor material.

For tile we're using a 3 mm thick styrofoam-like composite material with an adhesive backing, made by Sound Isolation Company. Our good friend Rude (of Portland Cement Co. and who's laying our tile and pouring our countertops) tells us that this stuff is great to work on and that it takes thin set (the mortar mix used to hold tile in place) as well as Wonderboard does.

Frosty Glow

This is a fluorescent wall sconce in the stairwell on the landing between the first floor and basement.

Kitchen Paint

The kitchen alcove and bump out are brown and we extended the white of the ceiling onto selected sections of wall here and in the living room. The white in between the sections of color adds a lot more interest to the room and brings out the varied geometry of the walls.

Living Room Paint

The living room has gone from all walls orange to one wall orange. Last night Chano and Leo finished the first coat of orange on the whole living room and when Rachael and I saw it, we simply didn't like the way it abutted the brown walls in the kitchen. So we scaled it back a little and went with a white living room and a single orange accent wall, which we like a lot more.

Power Up

The first new light fixture.

Remodel Exhaustion

A tired owner takes a thirty second breather. We're nine days from move-in and getting tantalizingly close to the end of the project. The siding is nearly all on. Only the living room remains for painting. Trim out electrical and tiling both start tomorrow.

Urban Panda

Very rare. Spotted on our garage roof this evening, angling to get at the bowl of cat food sitting in the back yard.

Porch Progress

The rafters and sheathing are on the front porch.