More photos of the skylight and headhouse

Yes, I know it's Saturday and I should be taking a break from work but we had to go in to the building this morning anyway (to pick up our mason and drive him to the airport) so I took some more photos.  Seeing the skylight from beneath, with the plywood removed, was absolutely thrilling.  It's the first time during the project that the reality perfectly matches what I'd imagined that the space would look and feel like.  Love.

Installation of the skylight and the headhouse windows

I went by the red brick building at day's end yesterday and got my first in-person view of the new headhouse's windows.

One more window still needs to go in on the back side of the structure.  It's the one that will give us our ocean view.

Our fabulous mason just received the stone sill for that window this morning and he's going to try to put in this afternoon.  I think that might mean that the window itself can't go in until Monday (the mud probably needs to set).

Overall I'm pretty happy with the windows.  They're really solid and look great from the outside with their beveled muntins.  My issue with them is that there are no muntins on the inside.  (I'd rather have true divided lights, of course, but apparently they don't make those with skinny stiles for double-paned windows because the stiles won't allow for the necessary vaccuum to be created.)  It might be possible to buy more muntins separately from the manufacturer and somehow secure them to the inside of the window.  We'll look into it.

Initially, I'd wanted a glass roof too, and the thought that maybe I should have pushed for it came into my mind yesterday as I stood in the space.  Everyone from my boyfriend to the architects has been really negative on the idea, claiming that the room will get way too hot.  We'll see whether it does, whether the room feels open and airy enough without it, and then go from there.

The skylight was pretty much installed this morning when I stopped by the site:

Love it!!!!!  Unfortunately the plywood covering the floor of the curb box was still nailed in place so I couldn't take photos from below or get a sense of how the light and openness will affect the master bathroom, which is directly below.  Things to look forward to tomorrow!

In less glamorous news, the gas company was there and we're just about hooked up for our gas heating.  They need to let the plumber run one more pipe and then they'll return to get us live.  It will be soooooo amazing to have heat in the building finally!

Also in the utility room, the back door to our little triangle of space boxed in between buildings is getting partially bricked in to allow more HVAC equipment to fit in from of it and hung from the wall outside:

I'll leave you with a shot upwards in that glamourous back triangle, which has proven absolutely essentially for all kinds of mechanical venting, since our building is on a corner and up against other buildings on all sides.

Thinking about wallcoverings

This morning was pretty mellow as I caught up on design magazine reading (the March issues of House Beautiful and Elle Decor both arrived yesterday), weighed in on versions of the staircase railing design, chased the plumbing estimate for the master and guest bathrooms, and provided details for a wallpaper estimate.

We're waiting on two insulation quotes and have been talking about getting the wallboard and plaster quotes, as well as paint quotes.  Mention of the paint quotes made me jumpy when I realized that I'd need to choose all the wall finishes before we asked for numbers.  Most of the rooms will be painted, but there are a few areas where I'd rather use some kind of wall covering.  I need to identify those areas so that the painters don't include them in their pricing.

The three places I've chosen for non-painted finishes are the walls in the common entryway of the building, the walls of our powder room and the ceiling above the open staircase to our bedroom level and above the adjacent hallway. 

For the walls of the common entryway, I want a midnight blue fabric that has some texture and probably sheen.  All along I'd been thinking of some kind of velvet - linen or perhaps silk.  When I was in New York a couple of weeks ago I visited one of my two favorite fabric stores and gathered a couple of swatches.  None of them got me really excited and the prices certainly aren't give-away.

Last week I visited a local fabric store with a huge selection of upholstery fabrics.  The prices were significantly better and they had an incredibly broad range of silks, but not much at all in the velvet department.  So I started to think about using a silk dupioni.  This was the darkest blue they had in stock, but they can special order a darker version.

Hard to photograph.  I think it's a bit too purple and also a bit on the light side, but it definitely meets my "textured and shiny" criteria.  And the price is great compared to the velvets as well.

Moving on to the second space....  Ever since I visited a wonderful feather store in Las Vegas, I've wanted to do a room where the walls are completely covered in feathers.  Crazy-sounding, I know, but the stuff is just so beautiful I want to be entirely surrounded by it.  My long-suffering boyfriend restrained himself from uttering an immediate refusal and instead requested that I make a sample panel with the material, thinking that then I'd see that it would be terrible.  No problem!  I ordered the feathers, got a plywood panel at Home Depot and set to work with spray adhesive.  Minutes later, I had the following:

The feathers don't cover the area quite as generously as I'd anticipated (the first photo shows an area of about 1 foot square) so it would be pretty expensive in a large space, but in our tiny powder room, I think it will work perfectly.

The last room where I intend to use a wall-covering is on the ceiling in the third floor hallway.  The idea is to bring some life to a windowless area with lots of books and to suggest the hopefully wonderful indoor/outdoor spaces that await at the end of the hall (the "courtyard" master bathroom, the head house and the roof garden beyond).  I want something really lush and intricate and realistically colorful (branches in brown, leaves in green, etc.).  It would be great to find something where all the flowers are white, too, since the outdoor and indoor garden rooms will have all white-blooming plants.  I looked at floral fabrics in NYC and here but nothing  my world.  My mind kept going back to de Gournay's fabulous murals but I'm sure the prices are stratospheric.  Instead, I'm inquiring into alternatives.  This is the kind of thing I have in mind:

 So far today I've resisted visiting the building.  I want to wait until after the crew goes home so that they'll have had a full day to make progress on the installation of the headhouse windows.  Can't wait to see that space!

Flying

I spent 2 hours at the red brick building this morning and man, those guys are flyin' in there!  In addition to the GC's full carpentry crew (5 people), also at work were the mason, 2 plumbing guys, 2 HVAC guys and 2 sprinkler guys.  Then, while I was there, the ironworker and his assistant came to look at the area where the balconies are to attach, the aluminum window/skylight sales guy dropped off the window clips that we have been *begging* him for all month and the architectural draughtsman came by to make some field verifications.

The most exciting part for me is always seeing the framing go up and the team didn't disappoint.  They finished off the top of the staircase between the first and second floors.  Here's what the top steps look like:

Then they built the wall at the top of the stairs, the powder room walls and the nook where the refrigerator will be nestled.

Below is the view from the front part of the kitchen towards the back part of the kitchen, the pantry and, on the very right, the doorway to the powder room.

Here's the powder room.  I focused mostly on photographing the floor to show its shape and dimensions.  You can see that they've already got the drain for the toilet in.

They also re-framed the wall between the third bedroom and the guest bathroom to make the bedroom bigger.  It's hard to see what's what in this pictures, but they give a sense of the space.

Next, they're going to frame the tub deck and drop the Waterworks airjet tub in.  It's basically going to be centered where the broom is in the photo above.

Last but not least, here's how the fireplace is shaping up.  Our mason is a rockstar - he's back in town since Monday lunchtime and within less than 24 hours has taken it from what you saw in the last set of photos to this:

Faucets and shower and tub sets for the master bathroom

I think I've figured out the fittings for our master bathroom!  As you know, this room is one of the most important in the building to me and I've put what's probably an unhealthy amount of thought into its design.  Choosing the faucets, spouts and shower head is a major component because it's one of the obvious means of harmonizng a lot of disparate elements.

The tub is a dark gray metallic and the sink is edged in gold, so it's challenging to choose the metal that will look good with both.  I definitely prefer the look of gold, but chrome is the cheapest and most widely-available option.  Polished nickel has a slight gold undertone to its silver, so that came to mind.  Then again, I thought, maybe get another metal entirely: oil-rubbed bronze?  The tile on the floor and walls is white-painted brick and black and white can be very classic and crisp together.  Plus the metal on the skylight above the shower is black.  Of course, bronze is the same price as gold and I prefer the look of gold, so if I'm going to pay the premium.... Around and around I went in my mind, and that's just for the finish color, never mind the question of the right style and shape for the fittings.

I'll spare you more of the deliberation and show you what I've come up with.  First, a photo to refresh your memory as to what our vessel sink looks like:

Here are the wall-mounted faucets and spout that I've chosen (ignore the awkward photo cropping - the best photo showed it as part of a tub-shower set):

The valve trim for the shower is the same as for the sink.  The shower head is the one below, but in polished brass:

Our tub, to remind you, is this one:

 And the fittings are the following:

To make the tub set work, we're going to have to build, sheetrock and tile a thin box that hides the water pipes as they come up through the floor behind the tub but in front of the window (the window is too low to mount the faucet directly on the wall).

I love the porcelain solution for the tub set because it doesn't put the gold right next to the zinc (except the flash of brass on the "necks" of the handles) and the porcelain echoes the porcelain on the sink and will blend in with the white-painted brick tile. 

As for the style, it needs to be understated because the tub and sink are such dramatic pieces.  I had looked at modern styles that were very simple (the Kohler Purist was the most appealing) but I really do prefer a traditional look.  Also, I worry that there's enough contrast in the room without dragging in a contrast between ultra-modern and antique.

Finally, I'm excited about the x-handles, which echo two other "x"s in the room: the "x" on the front of the bathtub and the tiny "x"s in the painted design of the sink.

I'm waiting for the estimate from my sales rep now but looking at the list prices, the cost should be in line with Kohler, which would be fantastic.  (I was feeling guilty about the expense of Rohl, never mind Perrin and Rowe and heaven forbid THG or Sherle Wagner!)  It would be beyond awesome to get something unique that fits the space for short dollars.

The tenants' kitchen cabinets have been ordered

We checked a major to-do item off our checklist last night: finalizing the tenants' kitchen layouts and ordering the cabinets. 

Back in December, I priced some white-painted wood cabinets from a local independent kitchen guy and then went to Home Depot to cross-check the pricing.  I'd seen some ads for Martha Stewart's new Home Depot line of kitchen cabinets and thought they'd be a safe, tasteful and not-too-expensive choice for our renters.  In real life they look pretty good - almost as good as painted solid wood and much less expensive.  I like the idea of supporting local small businesses but am glad I got a second estimate because going with the Home Depot cabinets saves us about $12,000.

After some back and forth (I had originally been thinking of a simple Shaker-style panel), we settled on the Turkey Hill door style below, but in white.

They take about 4-6 weeks to arrive.  In the meantime, my next step is to get estimates for the installation.

Choosing master bathroom faucets and painting the trim of an entry door gold

My brain is exploding from hours spent trying to figure out what the look and finish of the fixtures in our master bathroom should be.  (The plumber wants the rough valves for the shower so the moment for a decision is fast approaching.)  If money were no object, I'd just get THG or Sherle Wagner and be done with it.  The wall-mount version of this THG faucet would be lovely with our 19th century English transferware vessel sink but it's $2500 so that's not about to happen:

Our contractor came by the house on Saturday morning, picked up our salvaged cast iron kitchen sink, zinc master bathroom tub and the Waterworks guest bathroom air jet tub, and brought them in to the red brick building.  Here's the zinc tub still wrapped but sitting in its intended location on site:

So cute!

Since I seem to be chasing my tail on the master bathroom fixtures, I'm going to take a break to share the results of a few hours of work on Friday afternoon and Sunday.  I tried painting the trim on one of our entryway doors gold to see if that would improve the look.  I think it does, though it's hard to capture the sheen of the gold with the camera:

Next, I want to try antiquing some small pieces of mirror to see whether that helps dull the prominence of the seams between the mirrored panels on the doors.  We have an appointment this evening at Home Depot to try to finalize layouts for the tenants' kitchen cabinets and there's a craft store nearby so I'll try to stop in and see if they sell some mirror antiquing gel on the way home.