Eyes on the Prize – Glass Wall, Front Doors

You need sight in order to blog, so now that I can see again I'm back, and this time with a bunch of house related updates!

First off, we had our electrical inspection Wednesday morning which, as expected, we failed. It was expected because at literally every turn we've had issues and problems so I knew there was no way would we get let off easy enough to pass the inspection the first time around. The inspector was an ass from the second he walked in the door, making our electrician cut sheetrock and take apart lighting fixtures so he could see connections. He checked every outlet! He made us take apart our entire under-cabinet kitchen light system just so he could see the transformers. He insisted that the lights that Alex designed for the guest bathroom were not grounded, even though they most certainly were. He was essentially just being a dick because he could be. In the end he gave us four things that need correcting (three of which are already complete and one that we need to schedule with our 3^rd floor tenant), failed us and told us to make another appointment for a second inspection. That will probably take 3-4 weeks to get but at least we know if we fix those 4 things he will pass us.

On the plumbing front we got our sprinkler test submitted and approved by the building department and are now just waiting on an appointment for the final plumbing inspection. Hopefully that inspector is less of an ass.

For the CO inspection we don't actually need the plumbing or electrical inspections done, but we need the two remaining big items completed. So we are busting our asses to finish the front doors and the glass wall ASAP.

Alex is working on the front doors right now. We purchased a super high security metal door with 5 bolts that come out of the door and lock into the frame. We will be using that for our private entrance below the stoop. Alex is cutting a hole in the door to put blue glass into and having the door wrapped in stainless steel. Once the bottom door is complete he will tackle the front door, which involves more framing, four blue windows and a transom. The bottom door is his warm-up door. I can't wait to use it! Our current door doesn't open from the outside and in general just looks like crap.

Tim and he guys were here all day today working on the glass wall, which inevitable took a lot longer and went a lot less smoothly as we hoped. First off, we picked up the spacers for the wall and the three remaining pieces of glass during the week only to find out that one of the pieces was the wrong size. Our glass supplier was closed for the Jewish holidays so Tim and I ran around trying to get a replacement piece. After busting our asses we were able to get one (albeit for a ton more money) so we thought we had all the right sizes. That was until the two larger frosted glass pieces we got to go behind the blue and green pieces in the bathroom to make the wall not see through thwarted us. They too were both to cut too big—a full two inches two big! Tim bought some glass cutting tools and we prayed for the best. One piece went smoothly, but the other cracked a lot. Luckily we were able to configure the glass so that you will never see this. Hurrah! But then another piece was cut too big (what it is with these glass places not cutting pieces correctly?!?) so we decided to use the Tea Tree 3-Form that Tim got us at a steep discount instead of the laminated glass.

The Tea-Tree is very nice—with a slight greenish tinge and the appearance of tea leaves in the glass, but for some reason up on the wall it looks brown and doesn't fit with the rest of our aesthetic. We think this is because you can get away with mixing textures, in this case smooth and textured and you can get away with mixing colors, in this case cool colors and warm colors, but you can't get away with mixing both.

By the end of the day the glass was in but the wall was not fully secured yet. Eric and I decided that we will hold off on finishing the wall until we can replace the Tea Tree panes with Frosted glass. Once the frame front goes in there is no changing the panes, so if we want to do it right we have to do it now. I'll be making calls next week to get replacement glass ordered so hopefully that won't take too long to procedure. But all these damn Jewish holidays keep messing with our flow! And then there is Columbus Day—argh!

All in all, Tim and his guys worked major miracles getting the wall to where it is now with all the issues we ran into, so we are very happy. The wall is looking great now and has already cut down on the noise coming upstairs a ton. Plus it's really nice to be able to use that downstairs bathroom without everyone seeing and hearing exactly what you are doing—big strides!

You can pee in private behind this wall!

Here you can see the how the Tea Tree doesn't work. The bottom left and top middle panes will get replaced with a frosted glass that is more of a greenish white. It will fit much better

Here is the non-see through glass from inside the bathroom, where you see the white laminate side. Each pane has a slight blue or green hue to it from the colored 3-form in front, but this is pretty much what the replacement panes will look like.

Comments

[Bill Goble]

From Gram's email to your front door: Yet another random email from my Grandmother led me on a Google image search for more anti-inspirational posters(kudos to yours'), bringing me here.

WAY more satisfying!!!

I have been sucked in for the last hour and a half straight, reading the entirety of your blog from Jan. I absolutely love(and covet) what you're doing. From concept to the rock-my-face excecution... you've topped off my day! When this low man on the NPO totem pole has his day, I hope to follow your lead.

Best wishes to you and your INCREDIBLE home
-Bill Goble

[dana]

thanks for those rockin words of encouragement Bill!