re-decking

May 2nd, 2012

Finished just yesterday, the floor downstairs has to dry for 10 days, which makes this the perfect time to re-deck the undeck.

As you may recall, the rotting deck was pulled out on November 15 and its replacement has been on hold since the end of March while we waited for our engineer to get back to us. So we’ve been living with a harrowing two-story step from the upstairs slider for the last 5 and a half months…

that first step’s a doozy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In all that time, nobody tried to step out onto the deck. Good thing.

Today Joe and his nephew Josh started dismantling the exterior of the deck…

first boards coming off

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

coming along nicely

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plan is to do some spelunking on the inside of that wall in order to see what the structure detail is.

The engineer drew up a concept for supporting the deck without the posts, which David says he’ll share with you tomorrow… The question is how much rejiggering will the current structure need in order to accommodate the engineer’s design. A little? Or a lot?

the desert garden at huntington

May 1st, 2012

A rainy day in Providence seems like a good time to revisit sunny southern California. We stopped by the Huntington Botanical Gardens in Pasadena two Fridays ago…

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There wasn’t time to explore all 120 acres, but being fond of thorny, spiky, alien-looking plants, I definitely didn’t want to miss the 100-year-old Desert Garden. My friend John will appreciate this post.

Before I share some of the “ow! my eye!” plants, take a look at this massive bamboo just inside the entrance…

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Wowza!

And now, without further delay, I bring you glorious blue skies, oppressive heat and where’s my water bottle?

(As always, click to biggify)…

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In case you didn’t catch it in the shot above, please note: some aloes can grow to become trees? Really? I had no idea…

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There’s no sense of scale in this shot. Those plants are at lease 2′ to 4′ across…

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What the… euphorbia also grows like trees here? 6′ tall. So unfair…

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I love this sea of happy aeoniums…

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And these octopi…

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And these starfish…

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I’ve seen radio towers shorter than this thing! That’s easily 50′ tall…

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And the agaves are crazy huge, as you might imagine. Do not hug them…

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I have no idea what this bizarre specimen is but look closely — green lily-like blooms and it’s about to launch missiles…

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Crazy. Who designs these things anyway?

Do yourself a favor and take a quick 360 spin around the Desert Garden. It’s wondrous. Better yet, go there in person because my pictures do the collection no justice. Bring protective eyewear.

 

progress report: floor finishing

May 1st, 2012

Well this is going quickly! David and Joe are putting four coats of finish on the cork flooring downstairs. The first two coats went down yesterday. This morning there was sanding, vacuuming and dust mopping…

get that dust off the floor!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And now the final two coats are going on…

Joe adds a finish coat to the hallway into the downstairs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More later!

floor finishing is happening

April 30th, 2012

There may be only one in this shot but I assure you there are two swarthy dudes laying down the first coat right now…

first coat going on!

 

get your feet on the floor

April 27th, 2012

… everybody rock and roll! Think you can name that tune?

So with the ceiling now finished downstairs, the floor is in motion. No wasting time here, nuh-uh. David and Joe are gettin’ down to bidness, if ya know what I mean…

readiness starts at the knees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The floating cork planks are huge — 12″x36″ and 1/2″ thick, so theoretically the floor should go down even faster than the ceiling…

Duro cork plank

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s some trimming involved to get things to fit…

David trimming cork planks to fit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But these things snap together easy-peasy…

fitting pieces together

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work began yesterday and already the boys are more than halfway done!

floor in progress

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ceiling done!

April 26th, 2012

Yep, the ceiling is dunzo! Finito! Completo! David has the lurid details…

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Joe and I finished installing the ceiling tiles and tackled the final step earlier this week: sealing them. As I just reminded Brook, cork is wood, right? So it benefits from having a finish on it to resist marks and scuffs, and to keep the stain from discoloring over time.

Because the cork on the ceiling won’t get wear and tear from countless feet, we applied two coats instead of the four recommended for floors. The ceiling in the bathroom got four coats because of the increased humidity and the probability of water splashing up onto it in the shower.

The water-based finish was supplied by Duro, the flooring maker, as well as filters to ensure that no grit or anything else was in the finish, and applicator pads…

duro cork finish for the ceiling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They even sent us the mixing stick! The finish is a catalyzed, water-based polyurethane. According to the instructions, you add 6 ounces of resin (the Catalyst bottle) to the gallon of finish and stir well. Easy. As long as you remember that the gallon needs to be used within four days or it will harden in the can.

We whipped up two poles to attach the pads to and then applied elbow grease liberally. To be honest, it was a little tricky keeping a wet edge on such a large expanse…

finishing underway, quick quick quick!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second coat dried very quickly and required moving fast to stay ahead of it. Invigorating exercise.

The finish dried within hours to a dull, not quite matte but far from lacquered, sheen…

ceiling is finished, yay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking good. Next up: the floor.

Mediterranean planting inspiration

April 25th, 2012

You don’t think I’d go to southern California without snapping a few pictures of plant combinations I find inspiring, do you? Nah. Didn’t think so.

(rollover pics for occasional plant ID, click to biggify)

Los Feliz neighborhood, L.A.: Nassella tenuissima, agave, festuca glauca, salvia and, hmm, something else

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Los Feliz neighborhood, L.A.: Nassella tenuissima again, festuca glauca and succulents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Los Feliz neighborhood, L.A.: succulents in a mailbox!

 

Lodge Torrey Pines, La Jolla: rosemary and 6-7' tall Echium can­di­cans “Pride of Madeira” covered in hummingbirds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Los Feliz neighborhood, L.A.: agave, rosemary, phormium. i wonder what that silvery stuff is?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

sunny hillside at Lodge Torrey Pines, La Jolla: rosemary and lavendar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lodge Torrey Pines, La Jolla: better shot of the tufted grass securing the hill below the lavender

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hillcrest neighbood, San Diego: yucca, agave and lots of succulents and cactus I can’t identify

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

house we rented in Palm Springs: festuca glauca and lavender, purple lantana underneath the palo verde tree

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legoland: ricinus (castor bean plant) grows into tall, hard-trunked trees here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legoland: blooming succulents, yucca, euphorbia, cyprus papyrus alternifolius (in the pond) and an awesome blue swath of festuca glauca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Legoland: gorgeous waving sea of Nassella tenuissima

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also stopped at a few botanic gardens, so I’ll share more planties with you soon!

hillside planting underway

April 25th, 2012

Sorry things got quiet again at modremod. We escaped to the west coast to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. Just before we left, the plants I ordered back in January started arriving for the front hillside.

Then Shiva arrived yesterday with a carload of plants for the walkway section of the hill…

hillside planting: laying out the plants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nassella tenuissima (Mexican Feather Grass). 85 of them in all…

hillside planting: only 50 more to go
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So guess what I did yesterday?

hillside planting: mexican feather grass in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More planting happening soon — the arrivals are beginning to stack up. Thanks for helping get it started, Shiva! goteamfight.

happenings

April 9th, 2012
Before we get started, I apologize for some text and spacing issues the blog seems to be experiencing. Hmmmm. Can’t figure that one out.
So here’s what you missed since I got slammed with work:

The ceiling is now completely tiled in cork (click to biggify the grandness)…

ceiling is corked, yay!
Something about it says eco-chic luxury spa, doesn’t it? The planks will get a protective finish tomorrow and the floor will be prepped for cork installation after that.

I mentioned the other day that Rob has been busy giving us light. The ceiling fixtures are in now…

first lights going in
Best of all — they actually work! Illumination. I dig it.

Also ongoing: tiling the bathroom. Our friend and fellow remodeling pro Mark Cummins has been prepping the walls, furring them out (building them up with wood shims) such that the diminutive wall tiles we’ve chosen will space out perfectly and require no cutting. That required a good amount of mocking-up and measuring. (And patience.) Followed by much re-measuring and marking, just to be safe…

marking the tiles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once Mark was confident we had it right, the 1/2″ cement board went up. In the shower, it’s gone from this…

shower wall before

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To this…

walls cement boarded in shower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That’s the hand-held shower pipe poking through on the right. There will likely be an inset section in that wall for setting soap and sundries… a complication but hopefully not an impossibility. After that, water-based waterproofing and then tiling.

At this rate we may actually have a functional downstairs by summer. Doh! I just cursed us, didn’t I? Fudge.

geometric love

April 9th, 2012

Spotted on my run…

geometric walkway