Pre-Move-In

Thanks to the help of our good friends Fabian, Malcolm, and Rik, yesterday we hauled 6 SUV-loads of boxes from our apartment up to the new house. Movers will be coming later today to bring the furniture.

We have a walkthrough at noon today with the architect to make a punchlist of things to fix up.

Also supposedly happening today: finishing the baseboards, installing doors, sealing the bathroom floor and wall grout, the bathroom ceiling trim, and some other general clean-up.

Hardwood Floors

This weekend, while we are busy packing up our apartment to move, our hardwood floors are being sealed.

In order for us to be able to move in so soon, the floor is being done in two phases. In the front of the house we are able to re-use all of the existing, original red oak hardwood, so it's been patched and sanded down. In the back of the house we have to put down new flooring - the kitchen never had hardwood, and some of the dining room floor suffered water damage during construction - so our guy is going to match everything when he can come back and do the rear of the house.

During this process, we discovered there are many layers to the floor sandwich - stain, sealer, and finish - and there are choices to make for each.

Stain

We decided to stick with an oil-based stain, because from what we could tell the colors tend to be better, and they are what our flooring guy has the most experience with. Any smells or toxins they contain will be encapsulated by the lower-VOC sealer and topcoat.

We wanted a very brown walnut-like color, without too much yellow or red, so that it wouldn't clash with the other woods we will have throughout the house. In addition, we didn't want it to be too rich or dark. We opted for a nice rustic-looking Dura Seal Medium Brown #128 - pictured on the lower right.

Finish

We're pretty adamant about using more eco-friendly and less toxic construction materials in our home where practical. Traditional oil-based finishes for hardwood are notoriously vile and the smell often lingers for months, so we opted for a water-based finish. In addition to being far less smelly and lower-VOC, it dries in a matter of hours, not days.

AFM makes a great line of low-VOC water-based sealers and topcoats but they are very expensive. We decided instead to go with BonaKemi, another reputable brand with green offerings that doesn't command such a premium. We don't want a thick, high-gloss, high-school gym floor look, but want something a little more natural so we are using a satin finish.

Sealer

The stain we chose is actually a sealing stain, so a separate sealer ordinarily wouldn't be necessary. But since we are using a water-based topcoat, we were advised to use a sealer since the topcoat and stain wouldn't blend properly otherwise (oil and water). There was definitely a lot of disagreement and confusion around this topic, but we went with the sources we trusted.

Again, we're sensitive to toxicity so we chose the BonaKemi BonaSeal product which has a lower VOC content than most other sealers.

Here's the breakdown:
•Dura Seal QuickCoat Medium Brown #128 included by contractor
•BonaKemi BonaSeal, 1 gallon $38.51
•BonaKemi BonaMega Satin, 3 gallons $150 or $50/gallon

Move-in!!

We’re moving into the house on Wednesday, March 31st!
(just in time for the census!)

Our lives and stuff will be in the front three “bedrooms” of the house and the Bathroom for a little while. Guest Bedroom=Bedroom, Studio=Living Room, Office=Office/Guest Bedroom/Dining Room.

Through the month of April, our contractor will be finishing the Laundry Room, Kitchen, and doors on the back of the house. It will be an interesting month... and no home-cooked meals for my husband!

Paint

We have paint on our walls! Well, we have primer on our walls and paint on our trim and ceilings.

We’ve decided to take our time selecting wall paint colors as it will also save us some money and time up front for move-in. Selecting the ceiling/trim color was quite a task as there are thousands of whites to choose from. There were three factors in choosing the line of paint: brand quality (especially in color choices), price (15 gallons of primer for the first round!!), and no VOCs. The winner was: Benjamin Moore Eco Spec! When we start to use deeper or more saturated colors on the walls, a more premium line might be more appropriate.

In looking for a bright white with a tiny bit of warmth, we started with about 100 selections, narrowed it down to ten and then put three on the trim to see how they would look. The final decision was between Benjamin Moore Super White and Benjamin Moore Simply White. Super White is pure white with four parts gray added. Simply White is pure white with three parts gray and one part yellow. Simply White it is.

Here’s the cost breakdown for the paint:
•15 gallons Benjamin Moore Eco Spec Primer $358.20 or $23.88/gallon
•5 gallons Benjamin Moore Eco Spec Semi-Gloss in Simply White (trim and doors) $131.46 or $26.29/gallon
•5 gallons Benjamin Moore Eco Spec Flat in Simply White (ceilings) $111.91 or $22.38/gallon

Marble

I’ve been out of town for a little while and missed posting on my marble adventures.

Our bathroom windows are recessed into the wall so the panes are pretty even with the exterior of the house. Because of this, we have three 4"x24"x24" openings in the bathroom that need to be finished. Wood isn’t really an option as the tile is floor-to-ceiling and one of the ledges will be in the shower. Tile is an option but with all of the edge pieces required, it will run about $50/window. Our architect and contractor suggested marble slabs similar to the floor tile... sure, why not? Oh, also, we had been planning on using a marble slab under the door for the threshold between the wood floors in the hallway and the marble mosaic in the bathroom. Score.

Finding inexpensive 4"x24" Carrara marble slabs isn’t easy. Stone yards usually have the marble in stock but have no way to cut it and only sell by the $800 slab. Fabricators will cut to most sizes but only have remnants and most don't have what we need. We want marble that is 3/4" thick (important for the threshold), honed and with similar veining to the floor tile.

After driving/calling around to almost every stone yard/fabricator in San Francisco, I found a stone yard that owns a fabrication facility a few blocks away. The owner drove me over to look at the actual piece of marble (I know, not the safest, but it was raining and he claimed it wasn’t walkable). I talked the fabricator into squeezing our small project into the afternoon and bargained the price down almost $80. Here’s the breakdown:

•Six 4"x48" 3/4" Honed Carrara Marble $190 or $63/window
•One 4"x30" 3/4" Honed Carrara Marble $30