Happy Mother's Day.

You better tell your moms that you loves her. Shit. So I've been really tired when I update the blog and have not been able to really type much. I will start next week's postings [tomorrow's update] with a nice juicy story...I hope. [Please drama occur tomorrow] Enjoy the progress:

My Bathroom, tell me the small tiles aren't fly?

My floor.

Tum's Bathroom [smaller > bigger tiles]

Thomas' floor.

Microcuts.

Same.

Happy Mother's Day.

Less Is More.

Before

Before

After

After

These two guys took yesterday off so they are still working on the bathrooms. They asked for some money for Mother's Day. I will see the progress tomorrow and see if we can front them any money. Anyone seen Iron Man? Good?

Oops, TODAY was Thursday. TGIAF [ Thank God I Am Fresh

TGIAF = Thank God It's Almost Friday.

Holla at a dolla. So these fools have decided to take a break on our bathrooms. Well at least the upstairs one. I had to call today and make sure it was done on time. Jesus.

My floor tile is in though:

Need some grout and we are in business.

Thomas' is getting there. But you can see. It needs a lot more work. =(

No more updates. Have a great night.

TGIF | Thank God I'm Fresh

Hardie Backer boards are in. That is my little cubby for shampoo and soap. Notice it can fit more than 1 bottle. Wink Wink. ;)

Where my 1.28 GPF toilet is going. I wish I got a black one. =(

Last time you will see those ugly things. We are going behind the wall.

Tiling started tonight and should be done by tomorrow night. Then the rest will be in Friday. ARE YOU EXCITED? Cause this mother fcker sure is. After this weekend, if both bathrooms are put in I will introduce you to the two brothers doing the work and maybe even put out a recommendation. But I swear I want to video tape them and submit it for a show idea to MTV. I could be rich [I mean...richer] bitch! Chow is taking his GMAT tomorrow, so you know what that means. Vacation day for me and party time for US!

Anti-Ballers.

These are coming to a beer pong table near you...soon. Keep you posted. I love the suspense.

I'm Calm I'm Cool Everything Brand New

Today was day 1 of demolition and day 2 of shopping. The bathroom project is coming together and almost everything is purchased and ready to go. Here are some photos of the empty bathrooms:

The new tub and hardiback boards should be in tomorrow. They are doing a great job. I worked on a couple of things today, but I did not complete either one of the projects, so those pics will come later. I did however make it to BURLINGAME to check out my vessel vanity. I had a couple to choose from but none of them were "PERFECT." But I spent a good 45 minutes driving on the shittiest freeway alive, 101 and was determined to go home with a god damn sink. I found the prettiest one out of all of them and realized the price tag said 399 without faucet and 499 with faucet. I only had 180 bucks in my wallet. That wasn't going to happen. So I tried to sweet talk her in Chinese and see what I could do, I mentioned her Craigslist ad [http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/hsh/1713550136.html] had sinks at 99-199 and how come that one was so expensive. So she said, ok fine 199. I said BOO YAH. So then the Indian side of me came out [I only used Indian because one time I low balled someone on CL and they replied with: "This isn't a mother fcking bazaar you towel head"] and said how about 160. She did some whining and some selling and said oh come on add $10, I said $170 you got a deal. Then I realized I needed a drain stopper and she sold that me for $10, so she might have gotten me. Here she is in her glory:

Cannot wait for this bad boy to be installed. This required me to get a medicine cabinet.

Thomas' Faucet, My Shower Stuff, Our Vents and My Cabinet!

I had to share this. This made me laugh so bad. So I met Mark through my friend, Jenn [Howrey Lawyer in the house], as he did some work on her house. He has been a blast to work with and him and his brother remind me of Brennen and Dale from Step-Brothers [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0838283/]. They are freakin awesome. So he asked me for my last name so he could check on the delivery from THD and I told him it was Lam, then I turn around and he wrote that onto my bathroom wall. He said "Do not tell Jenn." Haha. That is all.

Taking Chris to Kim Tar for lunch tomorrow and will pick up 600 tiles and 2 shower doors during that feast. Should be a nice truckload, hopefully his Nissan can handle that HEAT! Goodnight.

Say Goodbye & Farewell...

Tonight is the last time these bathrooms will look like this.

My Bathroom

My Bathtub

My Floor & Toilet & Vanity

Thomas' Bathroom

Thomas' Tub & Toilet & Floor

Thomas' Dirty Vanity

Mark & Steve start demolition in less than 10 hours! Goodnight.

Exhausted...From Shopping?

Spent all day looking at bathroom stuff. First half of the day just on tiles alone. These are ones we liked. I am pretty sure we are going with the last one, let me know what you think:

We are going with the one on the right...I think.

Looked at 3 main bath tubs and have that picked out too. Ultra deep [18" holla]. Toilets...that is another story. I could care less as long as it is high and my TP flushes through and we are under 1.28 gallons per flush. I will decide on this one tomororw. I truly want a black Kohler toilet, but Tum thinks its gay.

Tell me that ain't boss? With this:

We will see how much energy I have to search for this. I would like a glass sink though. Have a great night. I am tired.

Stage 2...

I would say we are about 33% of the way there. [There = Habitable]. The house has all of the fixture installed it is time to get through the next two stages [walls/paint and flooring.] Bathroom also needs to be completed but I see that as a parallel with the other items. We will be spending today and some of tomorrow cleaning up the house and prepping for patching/re-texturing. Should be a good week and a huge transformation should occur as the hole ridden walls will look like a brand new KB Home. =)

Update on lighting, everything is in. I saved some money yesterday by doing a little more work. I don't know if others would have done the same thing but I believe if you are going to do something you should just do it right the first time so you do not have to worry about it later. I learned this from the car days.

Here was the situation, I have been buying Insulation Compatible Recessed Lighting Housings, so when it came to do the stairs I figured that was the only way to go. I went to Lowe's and they did not have any 4" ones geared for insulation. So I headed over to THD [The Home Depot for you home improvement challenged] and saw that they had some 4" ones on clearance, but they were CFL prong only! I was like, 20.24 a light, shit son that is a huge saving from the original price tag of 30.xx. I picked up 4 and brought them back and installed them with J. Pretty easy job as I had access to the top of the stair case. Then it was time to drop by Lowe's before Isabel's Birthday Lunch [6.99 all you can eat Round Table, yep we do it big], J and I looked at the bulbs and realized in order to install CFL prong bulbs, they all look like this:

No homo and I love being green, but I am not having that shit showing through my god damn lights I spent 80 bucks on [another 40 for trim but I won't add that in just yet]. So I walk around Lowe's and talk to the electrical guy [shout out to Brian, he reminds me of the guy from Grandma's Boy, I swear they are twins] and realized there is no substitute. So J and I rethink this and and notice that if we want a covering for this bulb it will be $32 a piece [which is more than the light itself!] At this point I know that this was not reasonable [even though costs usually don't play a big part, but this was a jacking and plus I wanted our house to look uniform]. I decided, fck it, we just buy 4 new lights [@ $15 each] that are made for NON-INSULATED areas and I will just cut back the insulation and worry about it later. So I saved ~5 per light, ~2 on each bulb and ~15 on the cover/trim. Multiply that by 4, I almost saved a C-Note. Albeit it is a lot more work as I had to uninstall the lights and reinstall new ones, cut the insulation and build 2x4 boxes around the lights to ENSURE my house does not catch on fire, it was worth it because the look of a nice CFL screw in bulb is fcking priceless:

 

Here are some pics of the completed lights so far:

Before

Still Before

After w/ Lights [no paint or texture yet]

Before

After

Before

After

Don't want to waste all of my good pictures in 1 post, I am heading out to http://www.terico.biz/ right now to get my tile picking on. Will update with options. Have a great weekend.

So Close...Yet So Far...

Or should I have titled it So Far So Gone? Of course after the sickest performer right now. Shopping Bag Drizzy. So now I am about three weeks into this new line of work [slavery]. We closed April 7th and today is the last day of April, so about three weeks. I have learned a lot. I have learned that people in the contractor business are usually really good salesmen, never on time, always rescheduling and the list goes on. I have used 3 different people/companies and have had the same experience with two thirds of them. No big deal, I guess that is how the industry works.

Onto the home, I spent a second complete day on The Lamsion today. Met J at 8, headed to Lowe's and looked at lights for our stairs. We were about to buy these:

We got to the register and realized, if we were to ghetto rig these onto the stair case it would look wack. So we put them back and headed to the competition: The Home Depot. What do I love about THD? There is a sign outside that reads "We Will Not Be Undersold" and then a Lowe's logo crossed out. That makes me smile every time. Walk in and look at lights again and realize, all of these lights are for bitches and none will make The Lamsion stand out. We went back to what we know best...Recessed Lightning. I purchased a bunch of 6" housings last week but they are too big for the stair case. So we looked at smaller ones and found  sweet looking 4" housings and they were on CLEARANCE! For 20.24...what the fck? A 6" housing costs 8.66, why does something 1/3 smaller cost three times as much? Whatever, major bullshit. We had to buy them. Then we had to buy a 4" bit for our drill to cut perfect circles, cause you know our shit be right. After all of these purchase, we spend about a buck fifty to light the staircase. What is sad about this? 150 to light an area that is used twice a day for less than 1 minute. 100 dollars to light the kitchen which will be used 100x more, I don't understand how my mind works. We should just be green and carry rechargeable flashlights. 

Got home and we started fishing the wire from the attic to the switch for the living room, about an hour passed and J had to go meet his ex-coworkers for lunch in RWC. This is where I am going to go on a RANT. I fcking hate running wire behind the wall. Once I get good at sheet rock I am just going to rip a hole in every wall so the wire runs perfectly. I can't explain to you how big of a fcking frustrating ordeal it is. Argh, ok anyways. After 2 hours I get the wire behind the wall, then I hook up the wires for 6 cans in the living, no power. What the fck. I hate life at this point. I wanted to just throw a hammer at the window [since it was getting replaced, which btw Lowe's is pretty sick about. They have an automated thing that calls you and sounds like a god damn robot to tell you your special order has arrived.] Long story short, they are in now, I only got electrocuted twice today and screamed in the attic on the top of my lungs reciting one of the best scenes from The Wire twice.

It feels good to finish something. Played some basketball with Peter tonight and he mentioned that I should do my own prep [sheet rock and puttying] for the texturing next week. So I guess I am giving it a shot? I am going to pick up the tools tomorrow. I got a guy [Jenn's neighbor, who comes HIGHLY recommended] coming by tomorrow to give me some quotes on some of the stuff in the upcoming weeks. If is he is who he is said to be, I will for sure pass on the good savings and craftsmanship. Which reminds me, I need to write an Yelp review for Ron The Garage Door Guys. Fck it, he was late. I will do it when I feel like it.

Hopefully tomorrow is the last day of lighting [stairs and two hallways] and this weekend we can start masking EVERYTHING and getting ready for Texture and Paint. Quick Go Sharks and Durant [Thunder too, but as long as KD plays well I am Happy]!

Peace out.