Month: February 2016

Saturday was beautiful and cold after the snow on Friday (more on the way potentially – a series of Alberta Clippers are on their way – which is normally moisture starved storms from Alberta but they appear to potentially be meeting up with wet low pressure fronts coming up from the Carolinas – but that is another future day!)

We went to Fitzgerald Tile in Woburn, and while they were large, their selection was all relatively the same, and they only do ceramic tiles.  We left feeling a bit underwhelmed.  So we tried Upstairs Downstairs in Acton –  they are pretty small, but have a very large selection and it is extremely varied.  Another thing I liked is that they are not afraid of color!  The owner helped us and she was very good.  Decisions were made on some fronts – though she insisted that I wait for the kitchen counter top be installed around the sink before I choose the back splash. She thinks it needs to pop – be an art statement just as our house vinyl flooring are which we got done by Glasgow floor specialists around the house in the same pattern.  I like this idea on one hand, but I also am leery – since I have a multi-decade history of not bothering to hang up my art work once I move into a place and I am afraid of losing momentum…

But decisions:

• Entry way flooring, flooring for the bathrooms is going to be a multi-colored (I think South African) slate in a 12″ x 24″ pattern
• Flooring for the walk in shower will be the same stone in a 2″ x 2″ pattern since there is a single center drain – this will assist in layou
• Bath wall tiles are a 2″ x 4″ cream color (with a light crazing of the glaze)(I am not entirely sure of the dimensions – but they were smaller than a subway tile).  Then we will have a pumpkin colored accent strip.  This pumpkin tile is slightly thicker than the other tile, so we specified a border/accent strip in stone.

My original plan was to have the kitchen back splash the same as the bathroom – but both the designer and my parent’s thought that was bad idea – so we are holding off.  This could lead to all sorts of mad ideas from me (like I woke up in the middle of the night and thought of a high density LED video wall, with rotating photos, behind a sealed glass cover).  More to come here

Below – some google.com grabbed generic pictures of African Slate to give you an idea of what this will look like.  We think it will go well with the planned Red Oak floor (a decision we made Friday while talking with Paul)

I took today off to meet with Paul and get the final plan for the aluminum I-Beam cantilever and to go and choose tiles for the entryway floor & bathroom floors, the kitchen back-splash and tile in the bathrooms.

My Dad and I went over and met with Paul (and his son Tim) and they were working away, toasty and warm.  We had a good back and forth discussion and came up with the following plan

1. Counter top will be 39″ by 101″ of quartz – London Fog
2. The full width of the I-Beam will be used – no cutouts.  This will necessitate building up the supporting wall under it from the current 2″ to 4″ wide
3. we will have Atlantic Industrial Models machine and add a 3/8ths thick aluminum plate that is 55.5″ by 20″ inches and bolts to the top of the I-Beam.  The will underlay the counter top on top of the cabinets to the cook top – adding rigidity
4. the “Aerospace lightening” holes will run the full length of the I-Beam.  Paul will add a maple or other wood surface to the back of the cabinets
5. to secure the I-Beam to the support wall, Atlantic will add holes through the outside, lower part of the I-Beam.  Ideally counter sunk so that wood screws can be used and be flush with the surface.  These holes will start 36″ from the cantilever end and will be about 12″ apart  (Paul requested sizes be sufficient for #10 or #12 wood screws – we need to bring samples to Atlantic)
6. the full length of the I-Beam will be used – not shortened
7. My dad suggested we do an angle relief of 60 degrees instead of my planned 45 – which sounds good.

Below is a picture of trial layout and the current drawings

So job #1 complete for the day

Job #2 was to go pick out tile for the entry floor, bathroom floors, kitchen back splash and bathroom walls/shower etc…

Unfortunately, Winter Storm Lexi has other plans.  It was only supposed to snow 1-3 inches but it has been snowing a lot more than that and it is very heavy wet snow and very slippery.  We had no problems getting over to see Paul at the site, but we saw several cars and trucks slipping and sliding and lot of tree limbs down on the way over.  It was even more slippery on the way back – including what was almost a 360 degree spin out of one of the Town of Carlisle snow plows coming out of South Street (by the This Old House feature house on South Street/Bedford Road intersection).  Going down South Street we had to stop and clear a tree limb that had fallen entirely across the road – two guys out for a walk got most of it before I had my mittens on but I helped clean up the broken bits and had a chance to talk with them – apparently they heard it come down only a minute or so before.  It was about 45′ feet long – so it was completely blocking the street from edge to edge.

We decided that going out onto Route 128 did not sound like a good plan – so we are going tomorrow morning instead

Pictures below!

 

UPDATE  at 2:00pm – just shoveled the front walk, pull cord on the snow blower partially snapped and needs replacement so it was manual tool time! – but is also wrapped up under the cover so we decided not to fall back on the electric starter since we were not sure what was trapped against what.  About 8-10″ of very heavy snow on the ground and about ever 15 minutes you can hear tree limbs breaking off in the woods

UPDATE2  – sunset photos and others here on Google+