Mike and Jeff's New House

Our new bookshelves finally arrived from Room and Board in Minneapolis...They are made out of recycled lumber from an old lumber mill in Forestville, CA. In addition to the shelves, we bought an Eames Lounge chair....it's a great place to read....

Our least favorite words this month? `Your house has some dry rot' Fortunately our friend Al is an amazing carpenter, he replaced our dry rot damaged siding in record time... The couple that bought the house needed to move in quickly as they were both starting new jobs in Sacramento this week...thanks to Al, we closed escrow in only 21 days....

The market here is flattening.........In today's market, this 900 sq. ft., 2 bedroom, 1 bath house just 50 feet from the freeway fence is worth $379,000..We missed the top of the market by 6-9 months and would have gotten at least $400,000 back then.....crazy...

Since moving into the new house we have largely been working next door on getting our old house ready to put onto the market....It now has a new roof, refinished hardwood, new vinyl floor in kitchen, lots of garden improvements, and on and one and on...... The old house went onto the market this past Friday, this past Sunday the realtor had an open house, we received an offer on Sunday night, we countered their offer on Monday night, they accepted on Monday night, we are going into escrow today (Tuesday.) It's a happy thing.... Here is a shot of the front courtyard that we had built this past weekend at the new house. Once we get the pre-cast concrete cap picked out, the mason will come back and install that. After the cap is in, they will apply stucco so that it matches the house color.

Well....we did it... Two long weekends of hauling stuff from one house to the other has come to an end... Does the blog end now? Heck no! We have to finish the trim work, we have to start the landscaping!! And the old house is undergoing a huge amount of work to get it ready to put on the market..... Stay tuned!

The first piece of furniture is now unpacked and ready for movie night.... One day we'll have a TV worthy of this 108'' long sofa.... A lot of our new furniture came from Room and Company, a modern furniture store here in Sacramento that is at 48th and J Street. http://www.roomandcompany.com/cgi-bin/index.pl

Our house has 4 toilets, 3 of them have POTS (Plain Old Toilet Seats) The one pictured below is in our master bathroom. It sort of looks like a regular toilet. Then one notices that it has an infrared transmitter on the left corner?? Then one notices that it has 4 winking LED signals to alert one to the status of the toilet???? What could it be? Why of course, it's a bidet seat with a remote control! I think their website explains it FAR better than I can. http://www.washlet.com/default.asp

This control panel is mounted on the wall next to the toilet but it is designed to easily detatch so that one can adjust settings while comfortably facing forward.... Leave it to those Japanese engineers to come up with an ergonomic solution to the pesky problems associated with hi-tech hygiene.

Although I know that the comments on this one will be numerous and earthy, one really has not lived till one has tried this thing. Our HVAC guy tried it....he forbid me to tell his girlfriend about it because he knew she would want one. (Actually, he spent a fair amount of time in there, maybe she'll get one after all.) It has a built in water heater - variable of course. It has a built in seat warmer - variable of course. It has a built-in dryer - variable temp of course. It has a wand that moves back and forth - either oscillating or pulsing. One can control the intensity of the water and the `region' it is aimed at. But best of all: It has a catalytic converter to suck odors out of the toilet bowl- yes, I'm serious.

This is a view I took today at about 5:45 PM. When the afternoon sun comes in through the living room windows, the place just glows.... Mike spent the better part of four days prepping these floors and the cork floors on the second and third floors for their final coats of polyurathane. Like a bowl of home made ice-cream, it was worth the wait....

Here is a close-up of the floor in the living room. The floor electical outlet is brushed aluminum so it gives one a comparison point to reference........

Every journey starts with the first step....we have 32 steps and it took almost 4 days to cover them with cork and nosing.. Here is the first one that Jeff did.....Every piece was cut to fit, then glued and nailed into place.

Annie Oakley famously sang that `You can't get a man with a gun'.....but one can nail a red oak stair nosing into place with a nail gun......Just one of the MANY power tools that we have acquired over the course of this project

Some of you still don't believe that we have cork floors. Here is a close up from one of our stairs...It took a LOT of dedicated daily wine consumption to produce enough wine corks for over 1,500 square feet of cork flooring, but by golly, we did it!

Here is the view from the 3rd floor looking down to the landing. Jeff designed the landing with a grate so that natural light from the skylight could filter down to the lower landing....

Here is the view from the landing between the first and second floor....The concrete floor is more reddish brown in the back of the house....

Two coats of Bona `Traffic' floor finish and the cork looks ready for the Dwell Magazine photograpers. http://www.dwellmag.com/

At long last the end is finally almost here.....Jeff and I are going to use some vacation days next week to knock out the final punch list so that we can move in the weekend of June 10 & 11th. Have some time on your hands? Stop by, we'll give you a job. concrete floors downstairs - strip bad areas, re-stain, seal cork floors on 2 upper floors - clean and seal stairs - install cork on treads/risers & attach red oak nosing pieces kitchen - install cabinet doors/handles & all the shelves and drawer inserts. laundry room - install washer and dryer garage - finish painting section where the doors were stored master bath - install cabinets on both sides of the sinks offices - install filing cabinets/shelves kitchen - hook up refrigerator/wine cooler / dishwasher

Tomorrow we owe the bank our first payment on the new house. We're almost done! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- mort·gage ( P ) Pronunciation Key (môrgj)n. 1. A temporary, conditional pledge of property to a creditor as security for performance of an obligation or repayment of a debt. 2. A contract or deed specifying the terms of a mortgage. 3. The claim of a mortgagee upon mortgaged property [Middle English morgage, from Old French : mort, dead (from Vulgar Latin *mortus, from Latin mortuus, past participle of mor, to die. See mer- in Indo-European Roots) + gage, pledge (of Germanic origin).] Word History: The great jurist Sir Edward Coke, who lived from 1552 to 1634, has explained why the term mortgage comes from the Old French words mort, “dead,” and gage, “pledge.” It seemed to him that it had to do with the doubtfulness of whether or not the mortgagor will pay the debt. If the mortgagor does not, then the land pledged t...

Laundry Area... Kitchen with all of the counters in. Guest bath.. Laundry Area Our counter top guys came back today and finished installing the countertops in the kitchen and the laundry room and on top of the little shelves in all 4 bathrooms....They have to finish buffing out some etched areas but the installation is complete and it looks great.