If you are a follower of our Instagram, you may have seen a recent picture of the state of our kitchen. Our contractor finished demolishing the kitchen, and as part of it, we decided to move the two beams into the ceiling, allowing for the light from the skylight to actually throw light into the kitchen. We had a structural engineer come out to do load testing and the like, and finally, everything was put into place this week. The nearest beam was moved over about 2 inches to allow for a proper amount of space between the electrical lines (which provide most of the power for the house) and the beam. Also note that there is very little insulation in the kitchen, and there was no firewall. Both of those issues will be addressed before new drywall and cabinets are installed. But look at the skylight! There is so much more light in this kitchen now. It will look great, I'm sure of it.
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Last week, Rachel's dad came into town for a visit. Of course, with dads, there is always physical labor to be done (despite Rachel's insistence that he relax). So, we removed the framing for the Arizona room, removed the rest of the lantanas and the original dog fencing around the east side of the house. The way the original screened porch was set up cut across the planters that wrapped around the house. We are going to see if there is another way to do it. All done. And yes, that's a toilet for the half bath that is hanging out on the patio. Our happy grapefruit tree in full bloom. This tree had been neglected for a while, and as soon as we closed on the house, Nathan went to work feeding and watering it to see if it would come back, and for the most part, it has. The smell off of this tree is heavy and intoxicating - you can smell it when you pull up to the house. Just about done back here, for now. We have not decided what else (aside from a dog run) to do with this space. Any ideas?
So, the guys from Tile Renaissance have finished the overlay in the guest suite and the grind/polish in the bar room. Just look at that salt and pepper shine. And yes, the tiki and palm tree were the first things brought over to this room. It looks like there is texture, but it is completely smooth. Notice there is less shine in this room, because it gets so much light during the day. I am glad that the folks at Tile Renaissance understood the room and what we were looking for.
A lot has happened in the past week or so. Things are finally at a turning point, as rooms are finally starting to become close to finished. First, we start with the bar room/den. One of the major changes that is being done to the Gist Restoration is the flooring. Originally, this house was meant to have carpet, and white carpet lined most of the house (and even over places where there should not have been carpet). Therefore, there are a lot of places where there are holes and cracked concrete are, thanks to tack strips that were in place. So, the guys at Tile Renaissance had to patch up with concrete. Since this is the first room that they are doing, they tried a color match (which is not perfect, but it's the den, so it's okay if it does not match perfectly) before the final grind and polish. Next, paint. The sheer number of colors borderlines on batshit crazy, doesn't it. And we didn't choose a single one of these colors. I caught the paint perpetrator in the act. We have spent well over $100 on samples alone, but we have what we are looking for, so that's good. But man, it's SO HARD to find the right mid century appropriate paint. We ended up finding a color that was originally in the house way back when, and color-matching thanks to the folks at Dunn-Edwards.
As we mentioned in the previous post, we are having the flooring done by the folks at Tile Renaissance. While the majority of the house is going to be ground concrete, brick, and tile (bathrooms), the non-original part of the house (ie, the guest suite) we settled on concrete overlay. Here are pictures of the first layer. Obviously, this is not finished as of yet, but it was neat to see the beginning. They first ground down the black mastic that was left from the tile, then set the first layer of concrete. This is a vast improvement - remember, the entire room (bathroom included!) was white carpet. This type of surface will be much easier to clean (and less stinky!) than white carpet.
So, finally, we were able to get the guys from Tile Renaissance to start working on the flooring in the house. And yes, they have quite a bit to do - there is a ton of places where there was tile over, plus everywhere else that had white carpet. While yes, carpet was originally in the house, we do live in the desert, and a lot of Gist's newer homes had ground concrete as the flooring. Therefore, we are not doing a disservice by having concrete flooring. The workers from Tile Renaissance decided to do a test area to see how many grindings it will take to expose the aggregate to what is called in the industry as 'salt and pepper' aggregate. This is after four grindings: Not bad. Here is another shot, closer up. I really love it. It is going to play off of the adobe and mahogany in the rooms nicely. We will see how much more grinding they are intending to do before polishing and sealing.
Right off of the family room and kitchen area, and next to the sliding doors that lead out to the patio/Arizona room lies a half bath. In the original plans for the house, the half bath was the laundry room, complete with extra toilet. The current laundry room was a storage space off of the car port (turned into the guest suite). When the Gumbin family created the addition, they moved around a few things so that it would be better for the live-in butler to do laundry and the like. That being said, the way the half bath is done makes no sense. A door leads into the half bath from the family room, and another door leads into the laundry room. However, there is no separation, so if you are in the laundry room and someone is using the half bath, one could walk in on someone using the toilet. Makes no sense. Not to mention the giant double window to the left.
So, I am standing in the doorway to the family room, and to the immediate right (next to the towel out of frame) is the door to the laundry room. As you can see, there was a closet next to the toilet - but the wall was made with cheap plywood, and a door was cut out of it, so it never closed properly. Not to mention the fact that the toilet sat about 3 inches from the closet wall. Nathan and I decided to take it out and put some storage there instead. While this will not be cheap to do, we need to move the window and add a wall/door. The other question we have is, should we turn part of the closet into a shower? The plumbing is there, and since this is the closest bathroom to the pool, it may be nice to have. Thoughts? Our beloved cat Princess left us on Thursday, March 2.
Although she did not live long enough to see the Gist Restoration, we know she would have loved the house - the big picture windows for her to stare out of, an Arizona room to sun herself in, and plenty of room in the backyard for her to roll all over. She will be greatly missed. The original mailbox to the house is long gone. What had replaced it did not exactly demonstrate how cool our house is. If you look at the bottom of the box posts, they are rusted pretty badly. When Nathan removed the mailbox, the bottom posts snapped. Of course, it was hollow inside, and likely made in China. Here's what we got to replace it... A beautiful, American made, thick gauge steel mailbox from Modbox. No, their mailboxes are not cheap, but wow, they are extremely well made. The blue contrasts the adobe of the house nicely.
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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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