The Haiti Poster Project

Image by andymangold via Flickr

There is a fantastic way to help the people of Haiti who are still suffering in the aftermath of the massive January quake. Called The Haiti Poster Project, many talented artists have donated signed and numbered editions with sales benefitting the good work of Doctors Without Borders. Prices for each edition start at $25 and as each edition sells out, the price for each piece increases to a maximum of around $2,000 for the final work…”supply and demand” in action.

The need for the people of Haiti is still great and will be for some years to come. The Haiti Poster Project is a great way to help people and be rewarded with a work of art in the process. They can be found here as well as on Facebook.

New Direction in Cabinets

After months of waiting for custom cabinets that never arrived, we decided it was time to cut our losses and move forward with cabinets from another source. It was a difficult decision since our cabinetmaker is family and has had a string of bad luck and personal challenges. We decided that removing this burden from him can enable him to focus on more important concerns. Seriously, whether or not we get cabinets is not that important.

It feels like we're off to a new start and we're anxious to get this project done and the budget is getting tight, so we’ll need in stock “off the rack” cabinets. My first stop was Ikea. They have very good cabinets at a great price in an array of styles and the drawers have excellent glides. The down side is that everything needs to be put together. The deciding factor was that none of the wood stains would work with our existing laminate floor, so on to the next source.

Next stop, Lowes. Small selection of basic, but attractive cabinets at a good price by Kitchen Classics. The drawer glides can’t beat Ikea’s, but you don’t have to put them together…a huge bonus!

Home Depot came next, and the winner is their stock American Classics in cognac. Constructed out of solid wood for the raised panel doors and drawers, not only is the color a near perfect match for the floor, but they are 20% off! I grabbed a tear sheet with all of the selections and sizes and went home to lay them out in AutoCAD.  

These cabinets will be fine for our little rental. They look good and seem to be solidly constructed. In my head I had envisioned something a little simpler, a little more “mid-century”, but I won’t be living there. If I was living there, I probably wouldn't match the cabinets to the floor either. They're a little nicer than some other stock cabinets I’ve seen and certainly a step up from the usual white apartment cabinets I’m sure we’ve all had to live with at one time or another. 

Paint Drama and Bathroom Lath

I'm about done with painting the interior. We're saving a lot of cash by  providing this "sweat equity", but naturally there have been challenges along the way.

I primed all of the new textured drywall as well as all of the existing walls with Kilz. I've always had really good success with Kilz, and all was great until I pulled a tiny bit of blue painters tape off a wall and discovered that the primer wasn't sticking. Further investigation showed that paint was coming off in large patches on two walls in a bedroom as well as a hallway wall. Joy. I ended up borrowing an electric sander and grinding down all of the new primer and old paint. These areas had to be re-textured, repainted with primer and then the final coat. A lot of extra work because I didn't bother to prepare the existing surface. Bad designer! Believe me, I learned my lesson. ALWAYS take the extra time to do the prep work! You'll save yourself a lot of time as well as headache in the process. And besides, you won't look (and feel) like an idiot!

The paint I selected was Behr "Swiss Coffee". Yes, it's a standard color, but it's readily available at any Home Depot; its good quality as well as budget friendly. (I was able to buy five-gallon buckets and go through the contractor check out line and save an extra 10%). This yellowy off-white is actually really nice in this tiny house. The trim and doors will be Behr's "Ultra Pure White', giving a slight contrast to the walls. Since the house will be a rental, the goal is to have a basic color that will appeal to as many people as possible.

The other challenge was the paint finish. Again, since the house will be rented out, I thought it would be a good idea to use a paint that had a sheen to make the walls easier to keep clean, so I went with an eggshell finish (except for the bathrooms and kitchen, which are semi-gloss). I decided to use it on the ceiling as well, again for cleaning reasons as well as making everything easier to paint. Unfortunately, the scraped ceiling didn't cooperate. Even though the ceiling had been textured to match the walls, there were still areas that were far from perfect, and the sheen of the eggshell finish brought much attention to these imperfections. The best solution short of major work on the ceiling was to repaint the entire ceiling of the house in a flat finish. More joy. The imperfections are much less visible now.

I have also learned that I could have used a flat enamel which would have given me the look of a flat paint (which I prefer) with the cleanability of a paint with a higher sheen. Live and learn. I'll be using a flat enamel in my own place after this project is done.

The bathrooms are moving along as well. The shower areas in both bathrooms have been lathed, inspected and approved. The only issue was that some lath had bent and some concrete had oozed into the pocket door space. This area had to be re-lathed and new concrete applied and now all is good. There are always problems that come up and you just have to go with it. There is very little that can't be fixed or adjusted.

Work has started on the electrical as well as the tile. Doors are going in as well. It's finally starting to look like a home!

Public Toilets as Billboards

If you can't get enough advertising wherever you go (do we really need full-color ads on grocery store floors?), another method has been invented to continue this endless bombardment with the "Wow Toilet". It consists of an inner tank with an exterior clear component into which advertisements are inserted. I wonder who thought it might be a brilliant idea to associate a consumable product other than toilet paper with going to the bathroom, but apparently this is starting to catch on.

To me this raises a few questions:

How intrusive has advertising become?
Should a public toilet double as a billboard?
Can't a toilet just be a toilet?

I fear that this might catch on as a "clever" way to decorate in the residential world. I can see it now...little girl bathrooms with an inserted unicorn. Fratboy toilets with centerfolds. American flags hugging the tank (if you've seen flags masquerading as bandannas on sweaty heads, trust me, you'll see them as a patriotic statement on a toilet tank). You get the picture.

The good news is that the water tank has a dual flush option...score one for the planet.

Drywall is Up

Drywall is finally up, inspected and approved...another milestone in this very long marathon! Corner bead is being added to the window openings and the new drywall is being taped and mudded before its final inspection.

It is always amazing to me the difference drywall makes in the process. Its often difficult to get a feel for a space while it is in the framing stage, but once the drywall is in place the rooms become real and space can be visually recognized. In the room below I created a larger closet and moved back the original wall about 12". In the framing stage visitors weren't able to see much of a difference, but now the room feels much larger now that the drywall is up defining the new space.

With any luck, I can start paint next week. This will be the one "sweat equity" project that I will be attempting and at just the right time. The budget is getting thin and with my labor we should save a substantial sum of money (that has already been spent anyway!)

I was really unhappy to find a crack on the top of the low stucco wall close to the front door. Its been an especially rainy couple of months, and unfortunately, water has leaked into the wall structure swelling the studs, causing the top of the wall to crack. We could re-stucco at an additional cost, but my concern is that it may not be a permanent fix. Plan B is to seal the crack and cap the wall with a simple piece of exterior paint grade wood. Certainly not my first choice, but it is the most practical at this point in the project as well as the budget. You can't always get what you want, but to get to the end sometimes you have to compromise to find a solution that will work with the visuals as well as the budget.

"A Single Man" Home For Sale

An LA modernist gem is for sale...the home that served as a background for Colin Firth's character in "A Single Man". Nestled among the oaks in Glendale at the foot of the Verdugo Mountains, the building, designed by architect John Lautner, was ahead of its time with large expanses of glass and a decidedly indoor/outdoor feel. Constructed of redwood, concrete and glass, the two bedroom, one and a half bath residence can be yours for $1,495,000.

Habitat Homes

Habitat for Humanity will be building three new homes in the Washington neighborhood of Long Beach, as well as refurbishing a nearby residence. This and other neighborhoods in the city have recently received new attention from the City Council now that downtown is well underway in its revitalization. This is a very positive development. For many years it has appeared that the focus of attention was only on downtown at the expense of the majority of residents in other less affluent areas of the city.

When I first moved to Long Beach I lived in a tiny studio apartment not far from the habitat location by Drake Park, so I know first hand that the area can be a little rough. But it is rich in architecture. Many craftsman bungalows, Spanish and colonial revival homes grace the area, but that's for another post.

The groundbreaking was on a very stormy Saturday morning and was attended by Mayor Foster, Councilman Robert Garcia as well as Congressperson Laura Richardson of the 37th Congressional District.

According to the speakers, there will be approximately 100 foreclosed homes in the area that will be purchased with grant money by the city, fixed up and sold to low income city residents. This is a great idea. Empty houses encourage blight and crime. Taking this existing housing resource, fixing them up and returning them to the people who live there will encourage these new homeowners to have more of a steak in their own neighborhoods. This can only benefit the neighborhood and city as a whole.

Currently the site is a muddy vacant lot, but in a few months there will be three new homes for some lucky Long Beach residents!