Moribund week

The build is creeping along at a snail's pace due to the serial nature of the renovation at this point. Each sub-contractor creates a bottleneck for the next sub. Unfortunately, due to the nature of each item there is minimal slack in the schedule. The only slack created is waiting for the bamboo to season.

The stairs were installed this week. Larry and Sally did a fantastic job with the grain selection and matching. Each tread is composed of nine separate pieces of Douglas Fir. It took five days and 60 clamps to glue the treads. It is unfinished at this stage, Matt the floor person will be applying the stain. Matt loves finishing and constructing staircases. It is reassuring to meet people that are passionate about staircases, I'll never have to worry about them collapsing.


Matt's assistant Donny dropped off the bamboo this morning to acclimate to the seaside humidity. I am glad we hired Matt and Donny. Donny weighs 150 lbs, the other flooring company wanted to use a 300 lb guy. This maybe workplace discrimination, but I do not want to empirically determine the mechanical failure threshold of Douglas Fir. In addition, I would likely be sued because my staircase discriminates against morbidly obese people.


Here is the 2x4 that supported the temporary staircase. I cannot believe that single post propped the entire load. Go figure, vectors are amazing!

In other news, the winter was tough on my San Diego friends (i.e., life not turning out like they expected or wanted). Hopefully, the spring weather will wash away their winter blues. Someone must of swapped my regular contacts for rose colored ones.

Up next is the counter top, cable rails and cabinets Mk 2.

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to SFS. Wish I could watch J and Little Thingies give you a wedgie and a wet willy.

She smells like fish!

Check out Jeff's new fish tank:

It's a monstrous 50L tank with real plants and stuff. It's still a work in progress, but it's massive. Still waiting to put fish and shrimp in that thing.

Divorce #2

I received a terse e-mail from the architect -

W, this is not the first time you have said this, so lets not do it, just do the panels...without the back lights, S

In an earlier e-mail I voiced concerns about the lighting optics for the bookshelf design. I did not expect such a response. I imagine this is the end of our working relationship. My perception is that architects tend to be overly sensitive and that their designs are not open to discussion. Of course this is a gross over generalization but anyone want to debate this with me? I find the same sort of attitude in my line of work. People tend to be overly protective of their theories or models even in the face of conflicting data. On the other hand, I orphan all my papers and ideas. If someone wants to take shots at them, then by all means. Except know that I'll likely be refereeing your paper next time asshole.

Moving on, here are pictures of the installed cabinets. The cabinet construction was select vertical grain Doug Fir, Maple interior, full overlay slab, eased edge, no trim, Blume and Haefle hardware. I could lose myself for hours in the Haefle catalog. Imagine a telephone sized catalog of just hardware. The drawer inserts were all Haefle. Note the new storage space underneath the stairs. I intend to put our children in there when they act up. The best part of the storage space is the trap door to the crawlspace. I suppose our kids could imagine all sorts of unpleasant things coming up from underneath the trap door. These fears of course will be compounded since it will be pitch black during the time out.


This is the tread sample. In the end we went with an eased edge instead of the half round. Brazilian Cherry Wood will be applied on the leading edge of the tread, this is to minimize wear on the leading edge. I wanted a steel strip, the contractor and stair craftsman talked me out of the steel detail, they said it would be uncomfortable for bare and socked feet.

PS. To all my neighbors who doubted our design, renovations and my abilities to manage - You can go FUCK YOURSELVES.

Cabinets being installed.

The cabinet and assorted bits arrived yesterday. They installed part of the kitchen yesterday, today they are finishing the install. They will come back to install the hardware. We need to decide and order 21 pieces of door pull hardware. At $20/pull, that is not chump change.


Looking at the cabinets makes me so happy that Chad did not build our kitchen. Chad tried to bid the kitchen build. Chad is a fuck-nut amateur. The dovetail on each drawer is a thing of beauty - the joint is completely tight. The cabinet person was able to fix the misaligned doors with minimal interruption of the grain pattern.

Stairs are to be installed Monday/Tuesday. The flooring arrives next week and will "season" for a few days. Carmelo is hard at work finishing the painting. We met with the new carpenter yesterday. Jim's initial impression of him was, "bold," while I viewed him as eccentric and quirky. I imagine this may comes with the territory when the carpenter is a MFA graduate from the Carnegie-Mellon's industrial design program with a minor in sculpture.

Wood-work, doors and staircase handrail details are still being worked out. Other then that, things are moving along. I am getting tired of cooking and eating in the kitchen. I am sure the neighbors are tired of seeing me in my underwear eating breakfast.

Just for a Day

A quick update:


1) My loaner car is a 2008 SUV, I felt like a Southern Californian just for a day. Immediately, I had this overwhelming desire to vote Republican, shop at Wal-Mart, eat McDonald's, wear flip-flops and a trucker hat, drink Starbuck's coffee and be a fucking dirt-bag rat bastard.



2) House update - Carmelo has been showing up at 6 am every day much to my better half's chagrin. He typically sits quietly for an hour before starting the day's work. Today, Luis helped Carmelo paint. This Luis is different from Big and Little Luis, who applied the dry wall. Carmelo's car is broken so he gets dropped off every morning. Poor guy he has to deal with wifey's ire at the start of his work day. The walls are primed and ready to be painted. The floor has been prepared for the bamboo flooring. Cabinets to be installed tomorrow. I received the staircase tread sample, we are going over final edge details. Slowly getting there. I did manage to effectively let go the carpenter. I meet the new one tomorrow. I was told last week that there is typically one divorce during the build - the spouse, contractor or architect. For me, it was the carpenter.


3) We drove to the desert to look at the wild flowers. Note to self, I hate the fucking desert.

Snow Daze

A massive storm is expected to hit K-Hole this weekend with 30cm (11.8 inches for the imperial system users) of the white stuff. I prepared by securing a covered parking spot for my car and stocking up on milk. I'll have lots to do inside my apartment since I need to research and write my ALR essay.

In other news, I'm currently obsessed with kimchi and jPod, both the book and tv show. I was curious the other day and added kimchi to my canned vegetable soup. I've found my new comfort food. I'm going to go to the Asian market tomorrow to stock up on kimchi for the weekend. I also need to buy more scented candles since heated kimchi is a pungent mofo.