Replacing the Kitchen Faucet

The problem with the kitchen faucet isn't that it's old and ugly.  No, the problem with the faucet is that it's leaking!  Also, in order to put up the air gap for the dishwasher and garbage disposal, I needed an open slot in order to not cut a new one.  I removed the sink sprayer, so I could put the air gap there.

The old sink proved to be a bit of a pain.  The bolts and washers were so rusted that I had to resort to some pretty extreme measures to remove it!

I tried to pull the entire piece upwards with the back end of the hammer.  Pulling it put enough pressure on the left side, that the washer snapped, and that side freed up.  I used the electric saw to cut the bottom plate of the faucet.  With the washers and bolts exposed, I decided to knock them into the holes to remove them.  I drilled holes around the washer to weaken it.  I put the chisel onto the right bolt and started hammering at it. It took about 10 swings, but the piece finally bent through!

New faucet from Home Depot!

Fan Shopping

Here's another random fan we looked at.  It's hard to make a decision on a fan when you can't actually hear it while in motion.

Late Night Home Depot Run

We made a late night Home Depot run to exchange some of the water lines.  Apparently they're not stocked well.  It's more my fault for just grabbing them out of the correctly marked box and assuming that what was in the box would match what the box said.  How odd that I should expect that...

Anywho, after exchanging the water supply lines, we decided to run to grab a few other things.  It turned out that we ran out of time, and the store was shutting down.  Here's what we did look at...

Door Frames:

Ceiling Fans:

Looking for Ceiling Fans

We went to Home Depot to price out some ceiling fans.  This one seems to be the fav so far.

Installing the Toilet!

Nothing really completes a bathroom like a toilet!  I was pretty excited to get this thing installed today.  We have the Toto Drake II.  It's a 1.28 gallons per flush low flow toilet.  It's a two piece, rounded bowl, model.

Toilet in a box.

I don't know why this is so small, but it's the toilet seat... in a box.

Hole in the floor for the toilet.

Toilet next to the tub.

Toilet next to the hole.

Another Toilet and Tub picture.

Toilet in it's new home!

Grout... It's Gggggrrrrrrrreat!

HAHAHAHAHAH!  Yeah, it's pretty fun.  I met up with Chuy at the house this morning to grout the walls.  It's not as easy as grouting the floors.

The best thing to do is make sure you don't have too much grout on the tool, and press really, really hard as you slide it perpendicular to the spaces on the walls.  This will push a whole lot of grout into the space between the tiles relatively fast.  You've got to let it settle for a little bit before you wipe it off with a sponge, otherwise, you'll end up removing too much grout (and you'll have to redo it).

It made a HUGE difference in the walls, and really puts a finished look to them.

Paint, Paint, Paint...

Two of the Neos from SF (Matt and JT) came through to help paint today.  They primered the dining room.  Geez, they were fast.  I was working on the edges in the living room, and they pretty much finished the dining room when I finished the living room!  Pretty awesome!

Here's Sandra supervising...

My messy table...

Sherwin Williams...

Sherwin Williams really does have the best selection of paint colors and types I've seen out there.  I've heard of Benjamin Moore, but I've never been in the store, nor have I tried their paints.  SW is just... too good to leave!

Plus, they have sales like this a lot!  25% off paint?!  Not even Home Depot does that!

We've tried a few different brushes, and the cheap ones are quite the pain in the ass.  We've gone through so many, that we could have just bought some of these Purdy brushes.  Now YOU know.  Don't make the same mistake!

Replaced the Light Switch in the Bathroom

Got rid of that annoying touch plate dimmer switch and replaced it with a normal rocker.

What A Mess...

This is what the front bedroom looks like right now.  We moved a lot of the stuff from the dining room into the rest of the house, so we could get to painting it.

Painting the Bathroom

We did the tile on the side wall up to a curve in the wall.  The remaining drywall had to be painted.  

Painting the Front Bedroom

I peeled the paint off the doors in the front bedroom.  It looks pretty nice as it stands.

Originally, I was going to fill in the areas on the door up to the beveled edge so the white interior border would be smaller, but I like it how it is.  I'm keeping it!

More WTF...

I was outside washing some of the tools off when I noticed the upstairs light was on AGAIN.

Not my electrical bill, I know, but I loosened the bulb so it wouldn't be on.

Various House Stuff

We were at Home Depot the other day, and I wanted to get the bulbs for the vanity light.  I knew it needed candelabras, but I couldn't remember what size!  I honestly thought there was only one size.  Here's my picture for reference.

I also needed to get all the stuff for the toilet, so we could put that in.  Things are moving up at a really good pace!

Grrrrrout!

Grouting a floor isn't actually too hard. The hardest part about it seems to be mixing it. It's gotta to be really thick, because you don't want it to collapse when it's drying. Also, I found out that like cement, this stuff absorbs water - from anywhere it can get it, even your hands! I was using my hand to scoop it out of the bucket. It's pretty dry now. Fun times. The floor looks great though.

It's also better to have two sponges - one to wipe off the excess, and another to clean the tiles with.

Crunch Time!

And I don't mean sit-ups!

The bathroom's coming along really well now.  Me, Gil, Beto, and Chuy finished putting up the tiles on the walls. It looks GREAT.  I love how the wall tiles reflect everything in the bathroom.  It ended up being a nice height, too.  Kevin was again wrong about how much tile I needed, and just like the flooring, I have an extra box of tiles.  Two, I think.

So many spaces were used for the top part!

My and Beto tiling and spacing.. without Gil trying to put glue on us...

Looking pretty sweet.

The wall curved right here, so we ended the tile right before the curve.  It would have been a pain in the but to keep cutting little pieces to go through the curve in the wall.  I don't know why it's just not flat.

This one shows how well everything blends together.  The white from the bath tub goes well with the white tiles, and the marble slabs blend with the floor and tile trim.

The corner area where the toilet will be.  Yes, that's a copper pipe sticking out of the wall.

The light switch plate would have been uneven since the bottom would have been over the top row of tiles.  Chuy cut some of the tile to make a surround for the light switch.  I think it looks something kind of awesome.

I think Beto got pissed cuz me n Gil kept fucking around (mostly Gil).  He kicked us out so he could grout the floor.

Trip to Home Depot

Another rainy day in SF means we cannot paint!  We're skipping the house altogether, and heading straight to Home Depot.  The President's in SF, and traffic is miserable.  It took us way too long to get anywhere.

Items on the list from Home Depot were light switches (rockers) for all the rooms, a light switch for the bathroom vanity, a GFI for the vanity, light bulbs for the vanity, and faceplates for all of these.

The electricians changed the box to a dual gang box, so I needed a dual outlet GFI and a stand alone switch.  There were switches with night lights in them which would've looked cool, but it could also be really annoying down the line.  In looking at the light switches here, we noticed just how many there were!  I mean, crap, different colors, different uses, different configurations, timers, button timers, light sensitive, dimmers, rockers with dimmers, switches with dimmers, knobs, etc!  Nothing these days is simple!  All I wanted were white rocker switches.  A single one was $2.49.  We needed one for the front bedroom, the kitchen, the laundry room, the back bedroom needed two, and two for the bathroom - 7 total.  At $2.49, that would've costed a little over $17!  For light switches!  I noticed the "Contractor Pack" of switches for $12 for ten of the same switches.  We got ten instead of just seven.  Maybe we can even swap out the living room switch, too!  The faceplates were the same deal.  Ten was cheaper than 7 individually, even with the separate dual gang one.

GFI's were just as complicated.  There were 15 amp ones, 20 amp ones, red and black switches, all white switches, safety GFI's, etc.  We got the 15 amp all white safety GFI.

Next was the light bulb.  The fixture needs 40 watt candelabra's.  Simple, right?  Wrong.  What size bottom did I need for the bulb?!  Aren't they all the same?

Nope!  There are the small bases and the big bases, frosted and unfrosted, too!  Great.  Time to get what I can and head out.  I have to remember to look at the fixture to see what size I need.

We also looked at ceiling fans for the front bedroom.  Nothing really impressed us.  I want to ask Chris which one he got.  I remember him doing quite a bit of research before purchasing his.