Yes! There has been some progress in the bathrooms. Well, the master and hall bathrooms, anyway. Thursday's post will be on the master bath, but today we are focusing on the hall bath. Sheetrock for the hall bath. We purchased fixtures from Hansgrohe that do self-temperature regulation, so that you never burn yourself. Hence the large blue piece hanging out. Partway done. Grouted, ready to seal and install fixtures. I love the contrast of the gray - thanks again to B & W Tile for having the right mid-century tile that we needed!
Plenty of stuff coming up this week and next week. We are very excited about the progress being made over the past few weeks, and are excited to share it with you, so keep watching the blog!
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So, as we mentioned in our last post on the kitchen, we moved the beams up into the ceiling structure to allow for more light into the kitchen area. There's a better view of the kitchen space. Beams up, old wiring throughout, old vent, old water/sewer/sewer vent system. At this point, we had to make a decision - pull a permit, stop work for a few weeks...or not pull one. We decided better safe than sorry, so we pulled permits for the kitchen, bath plumbing, and electrical. We are glad we did, we had to be sure if we sold the home that we had all of the right paperwork and approval from the county. Unfortunately, we had to cut some of the brick out to replace the water and sewer lines. That said, all of this will be under the new peninsula, so it will not be seen either way. New electrical, plus pot lighting for the kitchen. The two small circle junctions in the right of the photo are where the pendant lights we bought are going to go. Originally, the kitchen was on two 30 ampere circuits. Now, the kitchen has four 20 ampere circuits - plenty of power split properly so that we can run modern appliances. Also, the wiring for the rest of the house (upper right) was originally too close to the beam, so we moved it over a few inches. New gas line from the roof for the range. Outlets and switches at the same height across the kitchen.
Everything passed inspection with no problems. But, then again, that's what happens when you have a structural engineer, an architect, and a licensed and bonded contractor working on your place. Next...firewall, drywall, and cabinets. Since we have been posting a bit about the renovation of the bathrooms, one really cannot have a conversation about mid-century bathrooms without talking tile. If you pop into a Big Box store, or even a specialty Big Box tile store, odds are you will be extremely limited in the options offered that fit the mid-century mold. You will likely find white, white, and white. Perhaps some penny tile, if you are lucky, but also in boring, neutral colors. However, not all is lost, because if you need the brightly colored tile that was in mid-century homes... B & W Tile has you covered. Random side note: Rachel grew up a city over from Gardena, so the fact that the tile in the Gist Restoration came from that area makes her very happy. Nathan decided to mess with grout colors, since there are so many options. Anyway, the blue (and blue penny tile, which is not from B & W) is for the Roman tub in the master bath, the gray is for the hall bath with the pink tub, and the green tile is for the new pool bath. This is the tile for the base of pool bath shower (green wall tile). Ultimately, we went with lighter colored grout than what Nathan toyed with, and we are happy with the results. Stay tuned for more on our bathroom saga.
Yes, it's been a while. Family visits, end of the academic year for Rachel, a few deaths in the family...it's been rough. But the work continues. Here is what the half bath looked like without the closet. Big enough to turn it into a pool (3/4) bath. Midway through the pipe replacement. Nathan wondered if this would be suitable for a toilet. As of this morning. The pipe sticking straight up is where the drain for the shower will be, and the other set of piping is the vent for the plumbing in this bathroom. We are putting built-ins to cover the vent pipe - a perfect place to store pool accessories.
Stay tuned to the blog this week - there are a lot of posts coming up in the next few weeks, a lot of stuff is happening at a quick clip. Also, if you are not following us on Instagram, you should! The link is at the top of the blog. Lastly, we want to say hi to Steve and Susan Willis, who recently purchased the Dewhirst house (also a GIst) and Victor Pisciotta, who also purchased a Gist recently. Good luck to both on your restorations (if you are restoring, that is). 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.
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.
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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
October 2017
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