Kitchen Update

A couple of weeks ago the new undermount kitchen sink arrived.

It's a Rohl Fireclay single compartment sink. It and the mounting brackets were about $700. Fireclay is suppose to be nearly indestructible and resists chipping like enameled cast iron does.
I can attest to the fact that it is much lighter. I was able to set the sink in place alone.

Delivery was free from Allmodern.com.

The old sink was a top mounted sink that came with the house that we had been using for the last two years.

Since the cabinet top was cut out for the old sink, I had to butcher the cabinet to mount the new sink. It doesn't matter though since it will be covered by the countertops.

Counter top installation

Speaking of which, arrived today. A few weeks ago we went to a counter place and ordered some granite countertops, finally. I'm not going to mention the business because I'm not happy with their customer relations. Actually, I didn't even go to the place that I had meant to go to because I read the map wrong (but that's another issue).

Anyway, the installers finally showed up this afternoon as the weather was turning wretchedly cold and windy. In about an hour they had the tops installed and polished. I can't say that I'm over the moon with the install. I've seen some discolorations that I'm not happy about.

They use a very acrid epoxy to join the seams with and it gave me a headache and stunk up the house for a long while.

It is nice to have some counters finally and we are happy about that.

The granite plus installation was about $1200.

The new kitchen faucet is a Grohe Concetto, which is a German mfg. but the product is made in Canada.

The faucet was about $300.

It's very nice quality and has a retractable spray head in the nozzle.

We opted to go with the deepest sink we could find which is 10".

I use a lot of big pots and pans and a two compartment sink is a real hindrance when trying to wash them out.  Hopefully this large sink will meet our needs a little better than the old sink.

Next up...tiling the backsplash. Whoopee!


   

Fence Addition

I began working on the side fence last week. My neighbor suggested it after seeing the first one I built in the back. We're splitting the materials.

There was already a wire fence between the two yards that has been there for a while. I decided to bolt the new posts against the existing ones to avoid extra digging.

Cost of materials $800.

Hi Efficiency Washing Machine

Over the weekend the State of Georgia had a sales tax holiday on energy star appliances so we decided to take advantage of it.

The LG brand gets high marks for their machines so we decided to go with them. I bought this one at Home Depot nearby and they delivered it and took the old one for free.

This machine is virtually silent! It saves on water and electricity.

Georgia Power has a rebate program for washing machines for $25.

The washer was $699 less a 10% discount and no tax so out of the store it was $625.

With the $25 rebate it will be $600 even.

Bathroom

 Finally the light fixture arrived! Besides one or two other additional things that aren't fixtures we are basically finished with the bathroom renovation.

The final cost was around $3500, less labor of course.

A little bit of touchup work needs to be done but it's minor. We'll probably just leave it as is for a guest bath and not a master bath.

It's not perfect but I'm glad to be done with it. The tile is probably the weakest link. I learned a lot about it by doing it, so the next tile job will be better.

bye bye 1971!

Bamboo Ceiling

Underlayment on ceiling

The old ceiling in the bathroom was stippled with a "crow's foot" pattern which looked like crap.

Without tearing out the ceiling, which I did not want to do, the only obvious choice was to cover it up. It's only 40 square feet so it isn't that big of a job so we decided to use bamboo flooring.

The first step is to install an underlayment over the stippled ceiling first to level it out. This is just a thin foam pad that is stapled in place. Cheap and simple fix.

The bamboo flooring is tongue and groove so it goes together fairly easy. The bamboo is pretty forgiving and not hard to work.

It was kind of an afterthought because it would have been easier to install it first, but it worked out okay and it looks very cool!

Grilles

The grilles for the vents in the floor finally arrived this week.

It took a long time to find a mfg. that could accommodate us. After a very long search I found Advanced Arch Grilles online and they have a terrific product.

It might not seem like much but having the grilles finally is huge.

For over a year I've had just store bought wooden grilles laying over the holes where the supply and returns are at just to keep stuff from falling down into them.  The problem with grilles is that they are generally sized to just a few standard sizes. The openings in the floor were not standard at all lengthwise. The width was.

Both of the returns are 37" long. It's a detail that most people won't even notice but what you will notice is a cheap looking faux wood grill lying on top of the floor. There are some ornamental grilles out there that are cheap as well that are slightly more appealing however they only come in standard sizes.

Advanced Arch Grilles were easy to work with. The online order was followed up with a callback soon afterward. With forty percent down payment they start the order. Their cad department sent me a drawing of the grilles and I was able to review and sign off on it before it went to the fab shop. They turned around the grilles in about three weeks.

Custom grilles - $575.

Bath Fixtures

Allmodern.com is a cool site that has tons of manufacturers from Europe that might not ordinarily come to mind when searching for fixtures. They typically offer free shipping on most of their items.

New wall mounted sink by Cermica Tecla about $300.

New one piece TOTO water closet from Noland, $550. Super quiet!



Noland is a showroom near spaghetti junction that carries a lot of nice fixtures for bathrooms. They carry lots of high end fixtures and there is rarely even anybody in there looking around. It's off the beaten path.

The wall mounted sink was fairly easy to install. The Hansgrohe faucet came with the pop up drain and tail piece, which is important because a lot of manufacturers don't include them. The instructions were pretty clear and not hard to follow. It took about 30 minutes to connect the tailpiece and the pop up drain.

Hansgrohe faucet $150.