So, when we bought the Gist Restoration and decided on having the paint removed from the glorious wood built ins around the house, there was one thing that we did not realize until after the paint was removed... The built in right off the entry to the house (and at the start of the hall) was cut and partially removed. We get why the previous owners did this - it allows more light into the hall, but that was not what Gist originally had there. As you can see in the photo above, they cut the built-in, then slapped a piece of something on the end, painted everything white and called it a day. The original built in, on the right of the above photo, was supposed to go to the edge of the brick entry. Now, in order to find a suitable replacement, rebuilding the original was likely not an option, as it would have been wildly expensive and hard to do, as one side is the original Philippine Mahogany and the other is another material. So, we talked to our contractor to come up with a suitable solution... Although not the original type of adobe used on the house (this is Baboquivari adobe from Northern Mexico), it is a close enough match to the rest of the adobe that it makes sense to use here. It's probably the best fix we could have asked for, considering.
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Pool bath. Guest suite bath. Laundry room with the tankless water heater and a temporary laundry sink.
We showed you how we installed the terrazzo tiles in the master and hall bath. Now, we will show you how the installation went in the pool bath, guest bath and the laundry room. Here is what the Level Quick looks like before setting the tile. You can see the pops of red from the Red Guard in the center left of the photo. Then, lay out tiles to find out how many you need, and to see where you need to grind down some of the Level Quick. Lay lines if you need to, then put down adhesive, and start laying tile. Lay more adhesive, lay tile, and press. No grout needed. Use a linoleum roller to make sure the corners and the tile itself adheres properly. Cut whatever else you need to fit, adhere, wait, then seal. Some of the easiest tile to work with.
As we mentioned in the last post, the concrete floors have been ground and polished. So, before we can finish up in the main part of the house, we need to do some painting. With the finished floors and the beautiful wood on the ceiling, painting the entry, hall and living room was NOT an easy job. We decided on Dunn Edwards Berry Mojito for the entry, hall and living room, as it is a mid-century-esque color that worked well with all of the wood in those areas. For some reason, when the previous owners painted everything white, they did not bother to remove the grates for the vents, and many had the screws painted over. It made for some difficult grate removal. Oh, hello there, Sputnik. The hardest part to get was the area above the soffet, but it all turned out okay. We have a beautiful door chime and a fun, mid-century appropriate door that we are waiting on, but we are happy with how this color turned out. It works very well with the two different stains in the house.
Since things are starting to head to the finish line, we had Tile Renaissance finish grinding and sealing the concrete in the main part of the house. Needless to say, we were pleased with the result. From the hall bedroom to the office... And the master. What really looks the best are the cracks within the concrete (all part of natural settling of the foundation). Here's a close up of the salt and pepper grind that we went with. Beats the hell out of plain white carpet any day.
So, yes, it's been a while for us - Rachel started a new job at the end of August, and since she's the main blogger, things slowed down for us a bit here on the blog. If you follow our Instagram account, you may have seen some posts there showing Nathan installing the terrazzo in the bathrooms and the laundry room. For today's post, I'm going to walk you through how we installed it. Part of our delivery from Fritztile. Now, in order to obtain Fritztile, you cannot just call them up and place an order. You need to decide on what you want, then call the nearest sales representative (which, for Tucson, is in Santa Fe) to get them to order your tile. Now, Fritztile requires you to use their own brand of floor adhesive and sealer, which you need to buy for your order. Once you get your order (and if you want to install yourself), you need to make sure that the floor that you are adhering the tile to is as close to even as possible. If you are installing in a wet area (bathrooms, laundry, kitchen), odds are you will need to put down Red Guard first. Then, you can pour the leveling concrete. Fritztile recommends Level Quick. I'll be frank here - Level Quick is a huge pain in the ass if you are not a professional who uses it regularly. We got our floors relatively even, then used a small floor grinder (looks like a pumice stone) to get things as close as possible. Then, you lay out the tile in the room and figure out how much you need and where you need to cut. Laying down the tile ahead of time allows you to see if any tiles are warped, or if you have any areas that need to be ground even. Once you are satisfied with the level of the floor, then you can start putting down the adhesive. Use a serrated trowel. In order to install Fritztile, your floor and air temperature MUST be above 70°F (not a problem most of the year here in Tucson). Also, they recommend for difficult surfaces to set the tiles out in the sun for 5-10 minutes before installing - it makes the tile a bit flexible and easier to install and adhere to the adhesive. Once installed and before the adhesive dries, take a linoleum roller (you can rent them from Home Depot) and roll over to make sure the corners adhere properly. Any tiles that you need to cut can be cut with a wet saw. Then, after 24 hours, you need to clean off any extra adhesive that came up through the tiles. Then, you take the sealant and put on several coats, allowing for drying time between each. Once your sealant is dried, caulk the edges, and once that is dry, you are all done. It takes 2 to 3 days to lay the tile yourself. Sure, it is a lot of work - but we saved approximately $20 per square foot on installation costs (here in Tucson, the only people that know how to install this stuff is commercial installers, so the prices were astronomical).
Fritztile is a gorgeous product and worth hunting it out if you are interested in putting terrazzo in your mid-century restoration. More on our installation of Fritztile soon. Recently, Steve and Donna from Harwood's finished working on a few of the built-ins. The tall doors are for the storage at the end of the hall, the short doors are for the buffet in the dining room. This is the original Philippine mahogany. These doors are to the hall storage, where the step ladder is in this photo. The original stain on this was much lighter, but with the age of this wood, it was decided that this color stain would work out much better. Set in place. Excuse the piss poor lighting - everything was open due to the strong smell from the stain and sealer. Sealed and ready to go. Once again, the grain on this wood is just stunning, and although it took several months for Harwood's to complete this project, we could not be happier with the results.
So recently, we had the folks from Conway Tile come by the house to measure our counters for the quartz that we decided on for our counters. I also thought it would be a good way for you faithful readers to have another look at our kitchen cabinets. After you order your counter from Conway, they send one of their reps out to take measurements based on the design you (or your contractor) provides. They create templates, then take the templates back to their shop to do the custom cutting. Mmm, African Tiger Stripe Mahogany. Ahem. Anyway, Conway Tile is the place that most contractors in Tucson use for counters, and it's easy to see why - they are reasonably priced, they are extremely detailed, and they do great work. Not only that, but they recycle the water they use to do the cutting of materials, something that makes a ton of sense here in the desert. It's fascinating to see this take form, as we are getting close to having everything installed and ready to go.
One of the issues that Tucsonans have during this time of the year is the North American Monsoon. From roughly July 4 to mid-September (officially June 15 to September 30), short yet intense thunderstorms provide much of Southern Arizona's rain for the year. One can almost set a clock to the summer storms, as they hit nearly every afternoon in the Tucson area. If you have seen any desert southwest photo of a cactus with lightning, odds are that photo was taken during monsoon season. The problem is, they are extremely dangerous, and folks often get trapped in flash floods or lose power due to errant lightning strikes. Therefore, any outdoor work ends up slowing down. That's just how it is. In our previous post, we showed you the progress that we've done painting parts of the patio and guest suite. Ultimately, we needed to finish the backyard exterior doors before they were installed. With the nearly daily rains, properly priming and painting exterior doors is vital. Several of the exterior doors when we bought the house had not been properly primed or repainted, so the doors had rotted. And yes, some were mahogany. Oh well. We thought, since the pool bath door and kitchen door were both part of the patio that we could get away with painting them a different color than the guest suite and master bedroom doors. Nathan was obsessed with this lime green color. I figured it couldn't hurt, since it is just paint. I like the crazy pop of color. Surprisingly, it works.
...can be endless. Since we are still waiting for a few things to be finished inside, Nathan and I decided to work on the exterior areas of the house. Since we closed one door to the guest suite, and changed a window to a door for the pool bath, we had to prime and repaint the exterior parts of the back of the house. Our contractor did an excellent job of matching the exterior fascia on the side of the house, but honestly, we were not too crazy about the matching color of the exterior anyway. So, we decided to try a new color under the patio area, since the color there was a little lighter anyway, and it was a good place to test a color. We were settled on the gray, but were not too sure on the door colors. We went with Dunn Edwards' Tarnished Silver, and so far we are pretty pleased with the color. With a pop of color on the doors. The darker color makes the adobe really stand out, which is part of why we decided to change the color. We are thinking about changing the roof fascia color as well. Thoughts?
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About Us
In October 2016, Nathan & Rachel bought a 1958 Tom Gist custom home in the Mid-Century filled Wilshire Heights neighborhood in Tucson, AZ. This is our blog documenting the restoration! Archives
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