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Showing posts with label Tiles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tiles. Show all posts

Monday, October 6, 2008

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a… taxi???

Helloooo, Our Shiputzim fans!

The girls and I took a taxi home from the ברית yesterday.

Later that afternoon, ENG said to me, “A taxi is really a car. Right, Imma?”

I agreed that a taxi is, indeed, a car.

She then confided that when I had told her that we were going to be taking a taxi home, she didn’t really know what that meant.

“I thought it was maybe like an airplane. Like a kind of helicopter or something like that…”

Previous examples of ENG-isms can be found here and here.

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And in renovation news, the carpenter put up the tiles on the baseboard of the new cabinet in the upstairs bathroom yesterday. He still has to return to add the grout (i.e. rubba for the Hebraically-oriented among you) and the two inside shelves. As you may have guessed, he told us that he’ll be back tomorrow

Meanwhile, all the new hardware has been installed. I’ve submitted a request for suitable pictures to the Photography Department and will try and post them as soon as they become available.

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And on that note, good evening from the entire Our Shiputzim staff.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Time to vent

The kablan finished doing the grout on the tiles (note the diamonds):

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And:

IMG_0732

Meanwhile, the A/C guy said that since he had to spend so much time on the electricity today, he didn't accomplish as much as he wanted to. In any event, he won't be coming tomorrow, as he has to get the plaster ready.

Anyway, here's what the inside unit looks like now:

IMG_0708

Here's the vent over AMG's door:

IMG_0695

And ASG's door:

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See y'all here tomorrow - same Our Shiputzim time; same Our Shiputzim channel.

Legions of laborers

Legions of laborers. Myriads of workmen. Crowds of construction workers.
Pick your image, but the bottom line is that there's B"H a lot of activity going on today.

Please join us as we survey the current status on each front:

Bathroom: They finished putting up all the tiles and are now working on the grout. Here are two pictures from earlier today (before they finished). This is the wall above the sink:




And here, you can see two diamonds on the wall:



Roof: The roofer is outside now sanding and staining/varnishing/painting (whichever expression works for you) the wood:




And:


A/C: (Disclaimer: Here I am decidedly out of my element. Please feel free to consult with the non-blogging yet more technically proficient member of our staff.) Due to assorted electricity-related issues, the A/C guy ended up making numerous holes in the walls and the roof.
Here's the inside unit (that's the kablan on the left):
And here's the outside unit (together with a bonus roof view):
Finally, here's the new channel where the wire leads up to the attic.
That's it for now. More to come.

Friday, May 9, 2008

Shabbat Shalom

WARNING: Sadly (or not), this entry has no - I repeat, no - roof views. Please see yesterday's post if you need your daily fix.


And here's today's news:


The kablan arrived at 7:30 this morning together with the tile guy. They did all the bathroom floor tiles as well as a good number of the wall tiles - including two "diamonds":



And:



And here's a diamond:



Once again, you probably can't get an exact feel for the colors.



Now, those of you who are familiar with the construction process are probably saying to yourselves, "But wait a second! Aren't tiles supposed to soak in water before they are cemented into place? I hope your kablan knew to do that. But even if he did know, where would he get water from upstairs?"


To which we respond: Good call by you! But you don't have to worry. First of all, the kablan knows about soaking the tiles. And second of all - as far as water goes - he went with the old "just stick it on and that should be good enough" method. (Confused? Allow me to refer you to a certain thermostat in the basement of a certain house in a certain Washington, DC, suburb. If this means nothing to you, you can also think about how we used to attach reset buttons to Macs way back in the late 1980's.)


In any event, here's a picture of the tiles soaking as well as the faucet that the kablan stuck on to the wall. Surprisingly, water actually came out! smile_regular




Finally, the kablan worked on the hole:



Shabbat Shalom from the entire Our Shiputzim staff.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Our own private beach

After the plumber left today, the kablan cleaned out the bathroom:
And:

Then, this evening, he came back and poured sand into the bathroom:

Meanwhile, there's still some wood in the front yard, but everything else is either on the roof, the mirpesset or in the playroom.
For example, here are the bathroom tiles and the toilet sitting in the playroom:




Good night to all.
P.S. Although we really do appreciate the offers of building sandcastles in our bathroom, we're pretty much set right now. But thanks anyway. :-)

And we have liftoff...

The kablan and the roof guy came this morning and brought all the roofing materials, as well as the bathroom tiles. A big truck with a crane came as well:



They then proceeded to lift everything up:



And meanwhile remove the three blocks formerly known as our roof (the roofing guy is the one on the left; the kablan is on the right):

The roofing guy is supposed to come back on Sunday I"YH - the same day that the A/C guys are scheduled to come.

The kablan also covered the hole with a screen. Here's a view from on top:


And here's the view of the sky through the screen from below:

More to come....

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

What are YOU missing?

As is customary in the post-Pesach period (that's the PPP, for short), several kitchen implements seem to be missing. This year, we can't find our milk opener or the cover to our Tupperware flour container. (We have the canister itself; it's just the lid that's off in PPP-limbo.)

So, what are you missing? Points to the commenter who leaves the most exotic item.

Now, I can just hear some of our dear readers saying, "Yes. That's all very interesting. But isn't it a bit off-topic? Shouldn't you have put an 'OT' in the title?"

Extra credit points go to the first commenter who figures out what missing kitchen implements have to do with this blog.

Meanwhile, in other news, we decided that six of the roof tiles will be glass tiles. As some of you may recall, we currently have glass bricks over the stairs, and we don't want to block the light that shines through them.

Mystery solved

The kablan just arrived and brought tile samples. He said he picked out what he thought were the nicest they had, but we could think about it. As it so happens, I really like what he picked, and so we're going with it.

Here are some pictures. Please note that you probably can't really see the color correctly. (You're all invited to come see in person.)

Here's the floor:


And here's the wall tile:


In this next picture, the floor tile is on the left, and the wall tile is on right. There will be about five of the little diamonds scattered throughout the bathroom:

Meanwhile, he confirmed that he was the one who left the toilet in the front yard. I told him that it's good he told us that, because we were getting ready to post to the community email list, "Whoever left their toilet in front of our house is asked to please come and pick it up." :-)
He said that these days, no one really uses white fixtures anymore. "Off-vite" ("Mah?! Zeh gam milah b'Anglit?!") is the new white, and so he really wanted to give us off-vite fixtures. However, since the tub is white, the other fixtures have to be white as well. He said that's why he picked out off-vite tiles that also match white.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Up to the wild blue yonder

The kablan came at around 10 am and sealed off the two bedrooms.


Here's AMG's room:


And here's ASG's room:



He also put plastic down on the playroom floor:



He then proceeded to drill several small holes in the ceiling so they'll know where to cut tomorrow morning:



In fact, if you look closely, you can see up to the sky:


The workers are supposed to I"YH arrive at around 7:15 am tomorrow and hope to start cutting by 8:00. (The kablan - who lives two doors away from us - will be davening with YZG at the 6:30 am minyan. :-) )
In other news, the toilet is going to be right under the window in the bathroom - i.e. in the middle of that wall (unlike where it is in the downstairs bathroom). Meanwhile, the kablan asked if we wanted to go with him today to look at tiles, but since the kids were going to be coming home soon, we couldn't leave then. So, he said he'll bring some samples for us to look at.