Christmas in September!?!?!?!!?

Okay, following up on my Halloween in August post....here's a little something I like to call....

Christmas in September!?!?!? Seriously??? WTF!!!

Went out to my local Costco on Sept 1st to do some shopping....here's what I found.

They had one isle of Halloween Merch out.

One side of an isle of kids costumes.

One side of an isle of adult costumes.

Now, these weren't even full isles..like half isles with candy and flashlights on the other half. No Halloween decorations....

But right next to the Halloween stuff was.... you guess it....

Six fricken full isles of Christmas Stuff...

In September?!?!?!?

Who is excited about buying nativity scenes in September???

I stood around by the nativity scenes for like 10 min...EVERY single person who walked by ~20, had the exact same reaction... ' Christmas Already?!?!' shaking their heads in disbelief...

What about Halloween?

What about Thanksgiving?

There Outta Be A Law!!!!!!!

They can make laws about, just about any darn thing...well there outta be law on holiday decorations and merchandise!

I say, no decorations up and no merchandise out until 30days before the actual Holiday!

That would mean no Halloween stuff out until Oct 1st.

That would mean no Christmas stuff out until the day after Thanksgiving. What ever happened to Thanksgiving anyways?

City Council Members can pass laws right? Or boards of supervisors? I say, everybody emails their local representative and tells them that they are SICK to death of merchants putting out merchandise MONTHS ahead of the holiday.

I'll start, here's a link to the Alameda City Councils contact info. Click on their names to email them.

Contact your local elected official and tell them,

There Outta Be A Law!

Heck, if we can't get the elected officials to get off their duffs and do the right thing we'll make our own law. A referendum or something!

If you feel as I do please pass this on to anyone who might be interested in the message.

Who's with me??? Anyone??? Beullar...? Beullar???

One Fancy Pants Closet....DONE!!!

Put a big red DONE stamp on one Closet.

The back finally healed up enough to get what was supposed to be a simple chore done...putting in the closet organization system in the master closet.

Here's what the closet looked like when we bought the house. Just one long shelf and one long closet rod.

Well, its what it looked like filled with my crap...

After much researching on closet systems we decided to go with a custom closet from a place called www.easyclosets.com. They had the best online tool and their prices included shipping which I imagined would be quite substantial for the particle board that their systems are made from.

I signed up with them, did my best to think up a usable design on their website then contacted them so they could tweak my design (free closet design is included with the price). I talked to a Tracey who actually had a couple important points and I feel that she actually added value to the transaction. There factory is all computer controlled and they had my closet pieces cut and shipped out to me via UPS the next day.  The closet is 8' by 4', so not huge, but there is 10' ceilings and I wanted to make sure to take advantage of the height...I choose the nice drawer slides and drawer pulls and the grand total was close to $1400!!! Still at this point I felt like I was getting my moneys worth....(foreshadowing).

The boxes arrived about a week later..VERY heavy-dense packages all at about the limit UPS allows of 60#. Like a sucker I helped the UPS guy carry them in off the truck...and by help I mean I did 80% of it while he twiddled with his hand held computer thingy they always carry. Sure glad my back wasn't hurt when I was doing that...

Somehow I managed to not take a picture of all eight million of the boxes stacked in the entryway...

 But here's a shot of the aftermath...I do have to say the stuff was packed extremely well and there was a LOT of left over cardboard.  I was able to entice a cardboard burglar to come and take all the cardboard off my hand.

Here's the entire closet stacked and ready to be installed.  Once you remove all the packaging it doesn't take up all that much space does it? 

I removed the existing closet stuff...they painted the shelf and wall after they installed the closet stuff...so removing it revealed old paint colors and lots of drywall damage. I also discovered that at one time there was a door way into the area. You can just make out the ghost of it on the left side corner.

I even made some of my own...

Love that granite floor though...
Another awesome thing the PO did was put the baseboard down first and then tile right up against it!! The base was literally entombed in tile and grout...of course I had to remove all of it so that the closet system would fit....

Next I did the worlds worst patch and mud job on the walls...followed by the worlds worst paint job...I know that 90% of the walls are going to be covered but I just couldn't leave them looking like crap...

Speaking of looking like crap..here's my super lame patch job...this was pre paint.

I decided to start on the short wall of the closet...then I noticed this...

Hurray, the broken steam unit is in the way..and there's an outlet there that needs to be accessible...I removed the broken steam unit and carved up the drywall and framing so that that black flex line would run inside the wall and not interfere with the closet vertical on that side.

And Then A Miracle Occurred and the entire closet system was installed without a single hitch...

You have to install these metal tracks that the verticals hook into. You have to make sure they are level and straight even if the wall is wavy. On this short wall here the wall bulges out considerably where they slopped mud over the old door framing...so much so that I could not get the unit to fit on that wall.. Out came the multi master and I shaved down the wall and the shelves in that corner to get it to fit...that was a HUGE PITA!!! I shoulda just spec'd the width as 1" less....live and learn.

Skipping A LOT of steps...here's the drawer unit installed. Looks fine..see how you can still open the drawers with the door open? That was a VERY important design criteria that I had..I didn't want to have to close the door to open the drawers.

Here's a shot of the rest of the closet...

Okay, notice the hanger there...that blue hanger? Notice how it sticks out past the shoe unit? Yep, that's right...the designer didn't leave enough space to make the left side of the unit usable!!!
Arrrrrgh!!! I was super pissed off and couldn't understand how easyclosets.com could let this happen...I talked to the designer who admitted it was her mistake and said they would make it right...well..the only way to make it right is to squeeze down the middle hanging section by 6" to give me the clearance I needed to hang clothes there...that means I would be losing a foot of hanging space...not super happy about that...especially for nearly $1400....

I decided to just move the entire long wall unit down 6"... as you can see here that means that I can't have the door open and open the drawers at the same time...we'll see how annoying that is. The easy closet folks are sending me the parts to shorten the hanging section and I can always do that if having to close the door to open the drawers gets unbearable...

And Now Some Shots Of The Finished Closet

Boy, for a straight, male science nerd I sure do have a lot of clothes don't I??

Hooks!

I put up a ton of 'robe hooks' cause I have the weird habit of wanting to hang up the clothes I'm wearing to air out...like my work out gear and PJ's and what not...

Mirror!

Yep, it doesn't even cover the wall patch...my secret shame...

We've taken to calling it the Bat Closet cause I go in dressed one way and emerge dressed another! Ya, we're dorks...

Break Down on EasyClosets.Com

I don't know how I feel about them...it seems like a lot of money to spend on particle board and melamine stuff...they had good before and after sale service and fixed their F up quickly and at their own cost...but still.... I'm not convinced I got good value from them...

And Now The Hard Work Begins Part 2

Okay when last we left we talked about the work that had to happen in the basement.

Now lets talk about the work that has to happen on the 2nd floor.

Converting Two Studio Apartments Into A Single One Bedroom

Here is the approved plan for the conversion.

You can see that maybe its a weird lay out but it fulfills our requirements for the least amount of work required. And I believe I can do this without having to have the tenant that currently occupies the C unit move out.

Here are some shots of the interior of Unit B.

The super sweet bathroom

The water heater is in a closet in the bathroom. Its an electric model.

Here's a shot of the kitchen. That's the bathroom door on the right.

Kitchen from the doorway looking in.

This unit does have a working gas range, old fridge and a dishwasher!

 The main living area of the unit.

 Here is the closet that I am going to shorten to make the hallway.

The main living area as viewed from the front door.

What Has To Be Done

Windows:

Nothing!!! Hurray!!!!

Bathrooms:

Nothing!!! Hurray!!!!

Electrical:

I need to tie both subpanels back together at the meter base and make sure the main cut off at the meter base can handle the load.

Gots to add the wired smoke and CO detectors.

Need to add more outlets to comply with current codes-AFCI protected.

Need to add switched over head lights and exterior lights for the doors.

Framing:

I'm going to have to shorten the back to back closets and create a hallway.

Kitchen:

Remove it completely and turn it into a regular room.

Plumbing:

I have to cap all the plumbing for the kitchen in the walls.

I have to cap the gas line to the kitchen as its meter will be servicing the new unit in the basement. 

I'm going to keep the two electric water heaters for now. I figure this way the tenant and a guest and both shower at the same time!

HVAC:

There is an electric wall mount heater that works... I might change it out for a newer one or go with the super hideous electric baseboard heat... I don't think it makes sense to add a furnace to this little unit....does it? Or maybe a mini-split system? It does get pretty darn hot up in these little back units...that might be getting a little fancy though?

How does that sound to everyone?

Course I haven't even thought about if I need to do things like freshen the bath? It appears to be in good working order it just looks a little dated.

And Now The Hard Work Begins...Advice Requested.

Okay sooo, got the permits to start the work....cept I just seriously threw my back out and I'm not doing any kind of anything for a while....Actually I've got a full plate of 'computer stuff' to do right now so I'll be busy but still, I wanna get this work started!!!

Except I'm not entirely sure how exactly to go about doing the work.

Here's what we have to do for the bottom floor.

I've got to turn this illegal set-up

Sorry about the lack of detail on this existing drawing, doesn't show the existing electrical or kitchens.

Into this legal set-up.

But what does that mean exactly?
Windows:
I don't have to change out any of the windows, thank god.


Bathrooms:

The bathrooms are staying put as-is. Except that I will have to convince the inspector that they were installed correctly. This is probably going to entail cutting into the walls in various places so he can have a look around...I also have to redo the fan-light switch wiring because the fan and light has to be able to be switched separately. I am also adding an on the wall vanity light to both baths.

Electrical:
I'm going to have to add AFCI protected outlets to all the rooms as they only have one per now. Should I cut in new boxes and fish wire or just remove drywall?

Switched over head lights need to be added in most of the rooms and  hallways.

I need to add powered smoke and CO detectors to the ceilings as shown.

I'm moving the location of the units electrical panel to a different wall and probably adding several circuits to it.

Framing:
I'll need to add and remove some non-load bearing walls. Biggest thing I'm going to do is remove the wall in the kitchen to open it up to the family room to have a single 'great room'.

The PO also installed bamboo floor in the one bedroom apartment that I will have to pull up as its buckled, ugly and installed incorrectly.

Plumbing:
God, where to start.
The baths and kitchens are all plumbed already and I'm not anticipating having to do anything with the DWV stuff (lord I hope so as its all in concrete...).
But the water supply piping? Somehow, the hot water to these two basement kitchens and bathrooms is piped to the one, single lone water heater in the 3rd floor attic!!! I believe all the plumbing is in the ceiling of the basement. I wonder if I'm going to have to remove most of the drywall on the ceiling just to figure out the water supply piping?

I will have to run new gas lines to the new mechanical room for the new furnace and tankless water heater that will be servicing the unit.

I will install a tankless water heater in the mechanical room also.


HVAC:

Right now there is a single furnace that is ducted to heat this basement unit and the main floor of the house above. I'm going to have to untangle the ducts and separate the ducts for the two different units with two different furnaces. I've also got to fix the heating for the bottom unit which means adding registers and returns in many places..work I've never really done before.

So that's two new correctly sized furnaces and a tankless water heater all installed in the mechanical room. All of them are of the condensing type and all of them will be vented horizontally with PVC pipe through the North wall of the house. I'll also have to figure out what to do with the condensate.

Kitchens:
I'm going to have to 'un-build' these two kitchens

and then re-install the cabinets in the new single bigger kitchen.

Whats the best way to un-build a kitchen? Can I save the granite countertops to re-use them?
I'm going to have to add a ton of outlets to the new kitchen for the counter top, the frig, the dishwasher, range, MW, hood...at what point does it just make more sense to completely remove the drywall and start from a clean plate?

I Need A Plan:
I think I need to decide just how much drywall needs to be demo'd. All the drywall? Just the ceilings? The ceilings and the kitchen?? Would love some advice on that. Seems like all the ceilings are going to have to come down..between running new heating ducts in the ceiling, gas piping, the water piping, the smoke and CO detectors...

Here's my vague sketch of a plan.
Unbuild the kitchens myself. So they don't get F'd up.
Pay somone to come in and remove all the drywall that needs it and clean up after themselves.
Then I come in and do the expensive stuff to hire out. The wiring, plumbing.
Then pay someone else to drywall the place.
I hang the kitchen cabinets.
Then I paint and finish the floors. There is brand new carpet on the south side of the apartment. I would live to save it and keep it as is...does that make any sense? Can it be reasonably protected from the destruction-construction process?

How does that sound? Not sure about how much of a budget I'm going to have to hire any of this out after I pay for the materials...
Help!

And this is just the bottom unit work, still have the two units to deal with on the second floor!

text

We Got Our Permits!!!

Well, we got half of them anyways! Hurray!!!

The super nice folks at the Alameda Building Dept (obvious ass kissing) called me recently to tell me that my permits were ready and that I could come pick them up!

Hurray!! Now we can get started on converting the illegal work in the basement into a single 3-2 apartment and converting the two studio apartments into a single one bedroom two bath apartment. All legal and above board!

We also got the plan check comments for the code enforcement work, back from the city!

These are the permits to legalize the back deck, stairway, and 2nd story landing, and to legalize the kitchen remodel all work illegally done by the PO.

I've read through the comments and there do not seem to be any real 'we're going to get screwed' comments. Most of them are about the deck and are questions the engineer will have to answer.

One question I don't know how to answer is this.

The engineer says that there needs to be a outlet for this length of counter top at the breakfast bar.

I mean, I can draw an outlet on the plans no problem but how to actually get an outlet into that counter area. All the options seem bad to me.

Besides the joy of cutting through the granite for the box I'm pretty sure that, that back splash is solid wood behind the granite...I don't know about cutting out the granite and then cutting into the wood framing for clearance for the outlet box? I'd probably have to open up the wall on the other side of the backsplash to check and see what the situation is. If I'm wrong about it being solid wood then putting an outlet in the backsplash will probably make the most sense.

I guess I could do a flush with the counter top outlet? But having a horizontal outlet there seems like a really, really bad idea.

Could I put an outlet on top of the breakfast bar in some kind of enclosure? Man, would that look ugly...

How can I get an outlet to service this counter?

Any suggestions?

Halloween in August!?!?!?!

Okay I admit that this has nothing to do with old houses.

Rant Mode On

I am FREAKING SICK of stores putting out decorations for holidays MONTHS in advance!

I was just at the local SafeWay and they already have Halloween decorations out! Its the freaking middle of August for Pete's sake! Now everyone who's spent anytime reading this blog knows that Chez Neumansky LOVES Halloween....but jeez, in the middle of August???

I was sorta standing there stupefied looking at the decorations and at least 4 people walked by and they all did the same thing... 'Halloween??? in August!?!?!?!?' shaking their heads in disbelief as they walked away...

I can't be the only person who feels this way?

Who else is sick of seeing Christmas decorations on sale before Halloween??

How many times has this happened to you. Its about the middle of October (when 'normal' people start thinking of decorating for Halloween) and you head out to your local big box store for some fun Halloween decorations...AND THERE IS NONE!!! All they have out is Christmas stuff!!!

I have nothing against Christmas...but who wants to be assaulted by Christmas stuff starting in October? Can anybody actually handle hearing Christmas carols for that long?

Don't y'all think it makes the holiday LESS special when its in your face for like three months?

There Outta Be A Law!!!!!!!

They can make laws about, just about any darn thing...well there outta be law on holiday decorations and merchandise!

I say, no decorations up and no merchandise out until 30days before the actual Holiday!

That would mean no Halloween stuff out until Oct 1st.

That would mean no Christmas stuff out until the day after Thanksgiving. What ever happened to Thanksgiving anyways?

City Council Members can pass laws right? Or boards of supervisors? I say, everybody emails there local representative and tells them that they are SICK to death of merchants putting out merchandise MONTHS ahead of the holiday.

I'll start, here's a link to the Alameda City Councils contact info. Click on their names to email them.

Contact your local elected official and tell them,

There Outta Be A Law!

Heck, if we can't get the elected officials to get off their duffs and do the right thing we'll make our own law. A referendum or something!

 If you feel as I do please pass this on to anyone who might be interested in the message.

Who's with me??? Anyone??? Beullar...? Beullar???

Rant Mode Off

I feel better now....

Update 08-29-11
Not a single Alameda city elected politician even bothered to reply to my email. I sent them a link to this blog post with the subject heading of 'They're outta be a law'...
Guess they're too busy to answer an internet crack pot...

Stupid Freaking Kitchen Cabinets.....

Holy Fricken Moly....

Wow, if you REALLY want to screw with the next owner of your house take the door off the kitchen sink cabinet, the one with the cabinet info, with you when you leave...

Turns out it is NEARLY im-freaking-possible to find out where your cabinets came from.

No Identifying Marks

I've been over every inch of the cabinets looking for a manufacturers mark. I've looked inside all the cabinets, the drawers, the tops of the cabinets...nothing...Arrrrrrrrrrrgh!

The Search For Matching Cabinets

As a commenter suggested I also thought that the cabinets MUST be from one of the local Chinese cabinet shops.

I set out one morning recently (carrying one of the cabinet doors with me) heading to the biggest and well known cabinet shop Sincere Plumbing. This is probably the biggest and nicest shop in the area. I was sure that this is where the PO got the cabinets, this was going to be a quick trip where I could get the replacement cabinets I needed no muss, no fuss.... No joy, they have a ton of cabinets but no one there could remember then ever carrying a style or color exactly like what I have.

Craaaaaaap!

Next I headed out to Granite Expo, a place similar to Sincere in style. There they did not have the cabinet style or color...dang...

That exhausted my knowledge of 'nice' Chinese cabinet shops...

Since they are across the street from each other I stopped into the Home Despot to see if I could find a match...Checked out the in stock cabinets...no joy. I actually got a kitchen cabinet specialist to help me. Schockingly enough she was helpful and knowledgeable. Home Despot did not carry the exact door design in any of their lines nor did they have a color that was a match. Kraftmaid cabinets has a color called cranberry that was close...

Right down the street from Home Despot is a cabinet place (I think its called AAA Cabinet or something like that that works out of a warehouse with a hand lettered sign they set out...what the heck, might as well try them.... No joy, no color that was close and no door style that matched exactly.

I headed off to a place in East Oakland next. This place only had a couple of different styles and again no joy...

I stopped at two other places in East Oakland that appeared to be selling cabinets...no sign, nothing written in English, stores in weird back alleys....shady....no joy...

To the InterWebs! After doing a search it looked like Lowe's in stock cabinets in a color called Merlot might be an exact match! Either that it looked like one of the lines they carried (that home despot doesn't might be a match) I was stoked, it made sense that the PO would of used an in stock cabinet. The PO seemed to of bought just about everything in the house from Home Despot...

Combining a run out to Harbor Fright I stopped at a Lowe's....no joy on the in stock cabinet..not raised panels and the color was not exactly right.

After MUCH waiting I got a Lowe's kitchen specialist to take a look a the door I'd been carrying around. No joy either! They had a finish in their Diamond Reflections line that was close but not exactly correct... But they had no matching door style. Online it looked like the Halston door in their Burgundy finish was a complete match... No joy.

Arrrrrgh! I think I've blown through all my easy options...I would of sworn the PO would not of paid real money to have a real cabinet shop make him cabinets...but what other choice is there?

What I Learned About Chinese Cabinet Shops

They all seem to carry the same stuff pretty much. Like there is one or two factories churning out the stuff.

Unless you speak fluent Chinese and love to haggle stick to the two bigger shops that actually have the prices for cabinets listed.

Everyone tells you that the doors are made out of Maple!

The hinges are bad copies of quality units...the hinges look like they won't last very long.

Cabinet quality was somewhere between in stock at one of the big box stores and semi-custom cabinets ordered from the same big box store.

They don't make right angle corner wall cabinets!! None of em! They just make the angled corner cabinet.
They only come in 36" high versions.

If I could be convinced that they wouldn't sell destruct they are probably a good value.

LIMITED choice of options in cabinet types.

Help Me Find My Cabinets!

I think what I'm left to do now is to go around to every single cabinet shop in the area and show them the door and say, 'does this look like something you make?'

There's got to be a better way! Somebody help me figure this out please! A super fabulous Chez Neumansky 3.0 themed prize to the person who comes through.

Look at this shot. The Chinese place don't seem to have options like the glass doors our the open shelves shown here.

 One thing that was throwing people off was the quality of the hinges used in the cabinets. The hinges are Ferrari Brand (made in Italy). Which is apparently much nicer than any of the hinges you'd get at one of the Chinese cabinet shops.

 But seriously, if these are semi-custom cabinets why in gods name would the PO of used these dead end cabinets?

 The color is another thing throwing people off. Its really, uh, wine colored..like the end of a cork after you pull it out of a bottle of Merlot or something.

Here is a close up of the door.

The doors are also heavier-denser than the doors of similar size that the Chinese cabinet shop folks kept saying was Maple.

Here's a close up of the door edge profile.

What seems to be throwing the most people is the edge profile of the door. Its got like a tapered edge that I have literally not seen ANYWHERE else so far....

If we can't figure this out then I don't know what else to do. We really want to put in the 6" wider stove...but we can't do that without replacing the base cabinet to the right and the two upper cabinets above the stove...

Dang, its not like we have to money to redo the kitchen now anyways....

Arrrrgh!

I'd really love any suggestions as to how to solve this mystery.

UPDATE:
One, I forgot to say that the cabinets are 42" tall...which means none of the big box in store cabinets or the Chinese cabinet shops will have a matching cabinet. They all top out at 36"

Two, I think Tish may be onto something.
Costco sells a brand of cabinets called 'All Wood Cabinetry' that is looking promising.
They sell them in 42" heights they have a style that looks like its the same.
But not a color....maybe I have a discontinued color?
I sent them an email with a link to this post begging them to take a look...hopefully they will and I will get some good news!

UPDATE 8-16-11:
Daaaaang, just heard back from the costco cabinets people and they say nope, cabinets aren't ours!