California 2 Puerto Rico » FIxtures

Electrical Work Downstairs

Stefan — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:47:19 +0000

Are you afraid of electricity? Probably not, especially if you have only flipped light switches and plugged in blenders. Well, when I decided to tackle the task of finishing up the bathroom downstairs, I suddenly got a little nervous. I guess 110 volts isn’t going to take me out, but I learned my lesson about electricity the hard way as a kid shortly after I started peeing on an electric fence in Vermont at Shearer Hill Farm (now a Vermont Bed and Breakfast AND I didn’t see the fence through all the tall grass).

So, with some traumatizing childhood memories creeping around the back of my mind, I turned on the existing light in the downstairs bathroom and double checked that our Circuit Breaker Legend was correct in saying that breaker 18 would cut off power to that entire room. Indeed, it was correct and I started the task of installing a switch, an outlet and the vanity light over the mirror.

I have to say, DIY Projects (Do It Yourself – For those of you who aren’t in the know, I am glad we could be of assistance) have been made much easier by big box stores like Home Depot. As much as I hate going into that place, they have people that can help you with basic questions AND the light we bought for the vanity came with things called “speed clips”. Instead of splicing and dicing the wires, you simply take the wires that are hanging out of the wall and slide them in these little plastic clips until they CLICK and they are locked in. Put up your level, make sure your fixture is lined up with the sink, screw it in, put the bulb covers on (those were a pain because of the material they are made out of…righty tighty lefty loosey) and TA-DAAAA! Your vanity light is installed and operational.

Downstairs Bathroom Vanity Light Installed!

Dual Sinks for Master Bathroom

Summer — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 17:24:01 +0000

It’s time to get the sinks for the master bathroom, since we are getting close to finishing up the master bedroom and bathroom. We decided that we want vessel sinks, like we put in the guest bathroom, BUT we want the master bath sinks to be porcelain as opposed to glass. The glass vessel sink looks pretty in our guest bathroom, but it’s virtually impossible to keep clean. For whatever reason, the hard water spots and sticks to the glass like crazy.

Faucet.com is having a sale, so I figure it’s a good time to purchase the sinks. Here are the styles that I have it narrowed down to:

Installing a Pedestal Sink

Summer — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:07:47 +0000

Our sexy techno bathroom now has a sink. And it even works!

Stefan decided that he wanted to try his hand at plumbing and installed a pedestal sink in our downstairs bathroom, so we picked out a Kohler sink from Home Depot and a Pegasus faucet in brushed nickel.

Installing a sink seems like an easy task, but it’s pretty involved and can be difficult if you don’t follow the instructions exactly. The 1st bummer was that we realized that we had to knock a hole in the new drywall in order to install a 2×4 to attach the sink to. Something that you would have done before installing drywall, if you know what you are doing. Us, not so much…

Stefan showing off his plumbers crack as he knocks out drywall to install the stud to attach the sink to:

Kuta inspecting the pipes and planning the sink installation:

Stefan installing the valves/hose thingies that will eventually bring water to the sink faucet:

Stefan having a stand off with the sink and faucet…:

Summer checking for drips:

I should be a plumber…:

The finished product…A Kohler pedestal sink with Pegasus faucet:

Let there be water!:

All in all, it was a good learning experience and I think we did a great job!

We Have Hot Water!

Summer — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 21:09:43 +0000

My dad hooked up the tankless hot water heater he brought down and it is SO nice to have a hot shower again! It’s easy to think, “Why do you even need hot water? Puerto Rico is already so hot, it probably is nice to take a cold shower!” Well, cold showers got old real quick. Our showers had pretty much come down to this:

Jump in shower. Turn on water. EEEEKKKKK. Scrubscrubscrubscrub. Jump out of shower. Sigh.

The tankless water heater is pretty cool from what I’ve experianced so far. Plus, you never run out of hot water since it’s heated on demand. The only thing that is slightly negative is that I love to take SCALDING hot showers and while the on demand tankless water heater does heat up the water to a nice hot temp, it’s not scalding enough for me at times .

When my dad built the piping, etc. for the hot water heater, I learned how to turn off the hot water to the house, where the hot and cold water bibs are and I learned about P/T valves (pressure/temperature values). Essentually a P/T value will release the water if it gets too much pressure or heat. So we can go away and not worry about the house exploding (at least not due to the hot water).

Thank F*&^ing God My Dad is Here

Summer — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 05:08:53 +0000

My Dad arrived in Puerto Rico yesterday and he has already gotten SO much shit done on the house. First of all, he showed up with a tankless water heater for us (and guys thought girls liked flowers…)!

Stefan and I couldn’t find the type of waterheater we wanted here in Puerto Rico and we couldn’t find anyone in the states that would ship one to Puerto Rico, so my Dad tracked one down, lugged it to the airport and drug it all the way down here for us. Of course he got searched profusely at the airport, since security was baffled at why anyone would travel with a waterheater, but hey, that’s what Dads are for, right? haha.

Today, I played plummers assistant to my Dad and he set our sink for the guest bathroom. FINALLY!!!!!

Yes, we not only have a sink, but it also has a faucet that water comes out of. Oh the simple joys of life!

I have been wanting to get the guest bathroom complete for several weeks now and for whatever reasons, it just was never happening (welcome to Puerto Rico ). I was totally content with having a working sink in the bathroom, but when I turned my back for a second Super Fix It Dad installed the above sink lighting and fan as well. Then he made some seriously positive changes to the kitchen cabinetry, covered the marble flooring in the kitchen to avoid scratches AND even cleaned the disgusting toilet downstairs (that the construction guys have been using. Gross.) because he knew I wouldn’t go near the thing.

It’s nice having someone around that knows what he’s doing…My Dad is awesome !

Vanity and Sink for Guest Bathroom

Summer — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:03:05 +0000

The blue DecoLav sink arrived while we were playing poker the other night (The UPS guy showed up after 9pm. Weird.), so Stefan and I were excited to find a vanity so we could get it installed. We went to way too many bath stores, that we have already been to multiple time and still couldn’t find anything that we liked even a little bit. Just so happens that we found the perfect thing at Rooms to Go (which is a furniture store)! Here is a picture of the table we got and the Decolav sink in our bathroom:

Looks good with the walnut travertine, doesn’t it?!

It’s actually a table that is supposed to go behind a couch, but it fits the space in our guest bathroom perfectly. Now we just need to get everything hooked up. Faucet.com forgot to send our drain and mounting ring, but it should be here tomorrow.

Cheap, Wobbly Ceiling Fans

Summer — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 18:57:13 +0000

When we purchased ceiling fans for our house, Brian gave us some recommendations on good fans and good fan brands. He is very diligent when it comes to installing fans and wants no wobble whatsoever. His ceiling fan schpeal all came back to me when i was sitting in my office in California, listening to this annoying wobbly ass fan…

I was just waiting for it to come flying out of the ceiling at any second.

Cheap fans + bad installation = no bueno!

DecoLav Sink Has Been Ordered

Summer — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 01:19:24 +0000

I order the DecoLav sink for our guest bathroom! I purchased it from FaucetDirect.com and it should be delivered to our house is Puerto Rico. Which should be interesting, since we’ve never used our physical address for shipments yet, so we’ll see if the UPS guy can find:

Summer Hogan/Stefan Rest
Carr. 414 Km 0.5
Sector Vargas
Rincon PR 00677

Stefan and I are trying to curb our spending a bit, so we went with a cheaper sink for the guest bath. The DecoLav sink was only $178.75…well, that’s without the “accessories” that you need for the sink. After it was all said and done I just spent $451.76 on the sink for the guest bathroom (sink, mounting ring, drain assembly and lavatory faucet). Sigh. So much for trying to be cheap…haha.

Edit: 9/25 – It turns out that FaucetDirect.com is retarded and won’t ship to Puerto Rico, even though they give you the option when you check out. SO I ordered the exact same shit (sink, faucet, accessories) from Faucet.com and it was delivered via UPS 2-day air for $70.

Bathroom Sink for Guest Bathroom

Summer — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 21:51:30 +0000

Stefan and I have been searching for a sink for the stupid guest bathroom for at least 2 months now, and it’s getting ridiculous. We just want to finish the bathroom, damn it! The big problem is that everytime we find a sink we like, it only comes in white, which won’t work since the toilet and tub are almond (light beige).

So, I’ve decided that we need to make this decision now. I’ve narrowed it down to three choices and we will let the guest audience (that’s you) decide which sink will be purchase for/installed in our guest bathroom:

Here is a DecoLav brand vessel sink in blue (it is also available in clear, violet, green, cobalt, amber, silver, copper and gold). It’s simple, stylish and only $184. I think this sink would look good since the bold blue will break up all the brown in the guest bathroom (walnut colored tile and almond colored fixtures). Plus, it will compliment the blue paint on the walls, without being too matchy-matchy.

This Porcher “Zen” sink is kind of cool, no? It’s pretty modern without trying to hard to be modern. It’s available in “biscuit”, which I think would match fine with our “almond” fixtures. This Porcher sink is $360, which is getting kind of expensive for the guest bath, but it is a pretty cool vessel sink.
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This American Standard “Morning” sink is available in white, bone, linen, daydream (blue), beige and black. I would consider this sink in linen or daydream for our bathroom. But would a light blue sink be cute? Or ugly? Will the linen color be to much brown with the brown tile and light brown fixtures? The American Standard “Morning” sink is $255.
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Here is a picture of the bathroom that the sink is going to be installed in. Walnut colored travertine tile, almond colored fixtures and brightish blue paint:

Armadietto Store in San Juan

Summer — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:19:21 +0000

Before Stefan left for Oklahoma, we went shopping for a sink for the guest bathroom. Gino (our tile guy) told us about this somewhat high end bath and kitchen store in San Juan, called Armadietto. He wasn’t kidding when he said it looked like part of the cemetary. It WAS part of the cemetary. Kind of an odd place to have a kitchen and bath store, but okayyyyyy.

We didn’t find anything at Armadietto, but this grave is for sale.

Let us know if you’re interested in some eternal rest in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We’ll put in an offer for you…