California 2 Puerto Rico

Trying to make decisions when building a house, is very progressive. Take for example, the closet doors that we just installed in the master bedroom. At first, Stefan figured that we were just going to install those cheap mirrored sliding doors. That was not at all what I envisioned, so we decided to go with french doors, so we could completely open up the closet and walk in. With that on our minds, Stefan was asking a friend that has door/building experience where we could find french doors for our closet and he advised that we should definately get louvered doors for the closet, in order to encourage airflow and avoid moisture/mildew issues in the closet (something that is very important when living in a humid tropical climate).

Great. So not only do we need to figure out where to get french doors for the closet, now they have to be louvered….

So Stefan and I wandered aimlessly trying to find closet doors for quite a few weeks. Finally, we decided that we had enough and that we would just go to Home Depot and get whatever the hell they had in stock, so we could move on. After pulling out, inspecting and discussing every door we could find in Home Depot, I happened upon an endcap display that had these super cheesy fake wood (plastic) bi-fold louvered doors. I called Stefan over and told him that these would be PERFECT if they were made out of wood. Instead of having big french door opening into the master bedroom (which, in hindsight, would have been space consuming and annoying), the bi-fold doors, simply fold neatly to the side, saving space. Long story short…We found louvered bi-fold doors for the closet that were made out of mahogany!

Mahogany louvered closet doors:

We stained the doors and had Jerry help us install them, since we didn’t really know what we were doing.

How many Puerto Ricans does it take to install closet doors?

Just one! Thanks Jerry!

Something as simple as closet doors, makes a huge difference in the master bedroom.

Going…

Going…

Gone!

Yay for progress!

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Summer and I have really hit a road block on this one. We finished all the brown marble in the master bedrooms wet room (toilet/shower) except for the trim. It looks great. Now, we were going to use the remaining brown marble around our master jacuzi and two sinks (on the left and right side of the tub)…but after laying out all of the tiles and looking at it, we decided that we didn’t like it.

So, here we are, trying to figure out what to do in there. A different color marble? A slab instead of tiles? Perhaps we should get Granite or something along those lines? Summer and I are both brainstorming, so I decided it would be a great idea to get input from all of you guys. How should we finish the sinks and jaccuzzi in the master bedroom? If you want to post pictures, just put the link in your comment and I will post the pictures.

Here are some pictures of the jacuzzi corner, sink area and of the rest of the bedroom. Put your thinking caps on!

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We have so many projects going on in this house, that it seems like nothing ever gets done. It’s way too easy to get side tracked, which is proving to be very counter-productive. Stefan and I talked about this and we have decided to focus on one room at a time, in order to stay on track. So, with this in mind, these are the things that we will be working on in order to finish the master bedroom and bath:

Master Bedroom:

- Pick out and install ceiling fan.
- Pick out and install lighting.
- Find/buy/install french doors for the closet. (Done!)
- Install closet light fixture. Done!
- Lay hardwood flooring above closet (storage area).
- Purchase mahogany and finish window trim.
- Purchase bedroom furniture (Done!)

Master Bathroom (Shower/Wetroom):

- Find/install final trim.
- Purchase small storage cabinet. Done!
- Purchase/install light fixture.
- Purchase/install towel bar or hooks.
- Paint.
- Cut/install corner shelves for shower.
- Screw on the drain cover.

Master Bathroom (Jacuzzi Tub):

- Finish building vanities.
- Purchase/install sinks.
- Purchase/install mirrors.
- Purchase/install light fixtures.
- Install marble around tub and top of vanities.
- Install/hook up jacuzzi tub.
- Trim out the windows.

So. There you have it. This is our “To Do” list, so let’s see how long it takes to get the master bedroom/bathroom finished!

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Stefan and I have been shopping for our master bedroom furniture for a few weeks. We have stopped at every furniture store that we could find from Rincon to Mayaguez (Sears, Pitusa, Berrios, Rooms to Go, Seduca, etc) and have been highly unsuccessful in our mission for a nice bedroom set. The handful of times that we have found something decent, we come to find that they don’t carry what we want in king size. As a matter of fact, most furnitures stores carry so few king size bed options, that we started asking off the bat, “Just show us what you have in king size beds”. The sales guys then leads us over to the two ugliest beds in the store and tries his darnedest to sell it to us.

Today, we set off on our final mission. We went to 5 furniture stores before deciding that we would just go to Sears and get the bedroom set that we thought was “okay”, last time we were there. In a last ditch effort to avoid settling on something we didn’t really want, we went to the Pier One that is located in the Sear store, first. Low and behold, we found the PERFECT king sized headboard, dresser, night stand and bench, for our master bedroom! It’s from the Shanghai collection (which just happened to be on sale this week) and is pretty much exactly what we wanted. We also purchased a king sized Simmons Beautyrest mattress, and everything should be delivered next week.

YAY!

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Stefan and I have been trying to take a break from working on the house, while Conner and Dianne are in town visiting, but I wanted to finished the closet really bad. So, Conner and Dianne decided to help us out and finish up the last of the master closet.

They helped build the last shelf and hang the last dowel. Our closet is finally complete and I love it!

Conner and Dianne helping build our closet.

Our completed closet!

Left side of the closet.

Right side of the closet.

Fill ‘er up! Can you guess which side is Summer’s?!

We love organization!

To make this closet, we used the following materials:

~ 3/4″ cedar plywood (4 or 5 4′x8′ sheets)
~ 6 wood dowels
~ 6 sets of dowel flanges
~ Belt hooks
~ Wood glue

Tools used:

~ Circular saw
~ Nail gun and nails
~ Electric sander
~ Level
~ Squaring ruler
~ Tape Measure/ruler

The total cost to build this closet was around $300 (since we already owned all the tools) and it took us about 6 - 8 hours of labor. Although, we can probably do it a lot quicker now that we have the kinks worked out :).

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Connor and Dianne are coming to visit today, so Stefan and I threw the bed back into the loft and (finally) moved ourselves into the master bedroom. The guest bed was taken out of the loft when Jamie and Brian laid some of the flooring we had left over up there. Unfortunately, Stefan and I have been so busy we havn’t taken the time to put the loft back together and we’ve been sleeping on the floor instead. Well, today (Christmas), while everyone was doing all that sappy family stuff (just kidding ;)…) I cleaned the entire upstairs and put the loft back together again. Exciting, eh?

Here is a picture of the loft so you can see the new flooring. Wooo!

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Stefan and I layed out the design for our master bedroom closet and purchased 3/4″ cedar plywood a couple of weeks ago. We finally started building a couple of days ago and it’s starting to come together!

The plywood that will be built.

Day 1 - Building floor to ceiling center shelf

Since the center shelf is floor to ceiling, we had to construct most of it inside the closet.

We measured wrong, as you can see on the top rear of the shelf. So we cut some additional pieces and fixed it. Luckly for me, Stefan is as big of a perfectionist as I am.

Day 2: Pieces for the sides have been carefully measured and cut and I am sanding the edges.

Right side has been successfully built (on the 1st try this time!).

Sides installed!

So far, I am so excited about what we’ve built! There was a bit of bickering in the beginning since neither of us has any experience building furniture and both of us are “A” personalities, but we’ve found our niches and we’re moving right along. I draw what we visualize, we work together to get the measurements right on paper, I measure and mark where the wood is to be cut, Stefan cuts the wood, I sand the edges on the cuts and we both put the pieces together with wood glue, a squaring ruler and a nail gun.

When building a closet (or furniture) it’s SO important to get your measurements 100% correct before you start cutting up all the expensive wood. All of my fashion design classes are all coming back to me now…Furniture design and fashion design are very similar when it comes to putting the design on paper, measuring, cutting and building. Who would’ve thought…:)

Today we are going to hang the dowels and build the side shelves. Off to Home Depot!

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Damn you, westelm.com! I found the perfect day bed for our guest bedroom and they won’t ship to Puerto Rico.

A day bed seems like the perfect solution for our guest bedroom. Since there is a queen size bed in the loft area, we’ve been going back and forth on if we were going to get another bed or perhaps a pull out couch or something along those lines.

Cool daybed = bueno, West Elm’s shipping policy = no bueno!

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Summer and I have been looking around Puerto Rico for furniture since we moved down here. We weren’t necessarily planning on buying anything at the time, but we were getting an idea of what was going to be available to us. Just like in California, there are a lot of junky furniture store that sell poor quality particle wood furniture. Keep in mind, particle wood does not last in the islands. It gets attacked instantly by the high humidity and the ravenous termites.

We found a really cool couch at Rooms to Go as well as the vanity in our bathroom…but I didn’t see any bedroom sets that I liked. I really am convinced that buying a bedroom set from a big furniture company is the wrong path to take. I would love to slowly furnish the house with killer furniture from our travels and explorations of the world. We can scoop up antique mail desks in Rome, hand woven Tibetan rugs from Nepal, authentic statues of Buddha in Thailand and teak furniture from Bali!

POP

That was the little dream bubble popping over my head. There is no way Summer and I will live in a half furnished house for the next 5 years especially since my world travel so far this year has been limited to a 5 day trip to Oklahoma City and a 10 day visit to San Diego for some legal stuff.

OK, with all this said, Summer and I still need to furnish our house. I found a bed online that I like that is hand made out of teak in Bali. It isn’t expensive, but the shipping costs more than our new truck. I don’t necessarily like the head board, but I really like the simplicity of the frame and legs. I think I could build this King Size Platform Bed. Maybe I could find some “How To” instructions online as far as recommendations go on how to fasten the corners and legs on so it is super sturdy.

Teak King Size Platform Bed

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Puerto Rico got hit by a freak storm (tropical storm Olga) last night and our power was out for the majority of today. So, since we couldn’t work (no power = no internet), we decided to design our closet. It took us a little over an hour, but here is the rough sketch.

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