Where's Nate?

living large in the four-oh-eight. wicked large.

2.10.2008

project management.

Moving into a new house means there's no shortage of projects. Some are big and visible; our new laminate floors, for example. Others are big and invisible, like our fancy new windows. Since Paige and I moved in right after Christmas, we've completely altered key features of our Eichler without (we hope) ruining the essence of the place.

Here's a quick rundown:

Double pane windows. With floor to ceiling windows throughout the house, not to mention a larger open-air atrium in the middle, Eichlers are notoriously inefficient. One of the big factors is 1960s single pane windows that seem to let in as much air as they keep out. We decided to take a bit of the cash from the sale of our Campbell house and replace every single window with Milgard aluminum blah blah blah windows. And they are fantastic. The house is warmer and quieter and we're still fooling birds who think they can through the windows. Ouch.

Laminate floors. Radiant heat is a treat if you take advantage of it. For some reason, the previous owners had wall-to-wall carpet in the bedrooms, which effectively made it impossible to conduct the heat. We installed maple laminate floors a few weeks ago. Welcome back, warm toes!

Automatic garage door. Eichler two-car garages slide horizontally and don't open vertically. This is a very cool feature. Unfortunately, a cool feature can also be a giant pain-in-the-ass feature when you need to get out of your car in a rainstorm to manually slide a large garage door. We found a custom garage door shop and had them install two openers so we can open and close the doors from the comfort of our car. Who knew it would be so satisfying?!?

Painting. Perhaps the cheapest and most dramatic change. We quickly painted over a green bedroom (seriously) and an Asian-themed mural on the wall of our living room. We're talking about three or four coats of primer before slopping on a few rounds of the chose paint color. Of course, now I need to go back and paint the trim. A slow and tedious process.

Upcoming projects include new plants for our atrium and backyard, new bathroom fans, window blinds, and fixing the work bench in the garage. We'll keep everyone posted on our progress.