http://ourorangeoasis.com Under Construction: Our Apt (not the blog) Sun, 05 Apr 2009 13:44:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I'm posting this a month later, but we had a housewarming to distract ourselves from legal and collection irritations;  and to thank all of our patient friends, neighbors, and co-workers for listening to renovation-related babble for two years. We managed to fit 40 people in at the height of it! Pre-party ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=528 The end of 2007 marked some semi-resolutions of the various problems we'd been dealing with, and a huge surge of DIY improvements, motivated in large part by my parents coming to visit for Christmas. We also navigated small claims court on December 19th, and won a judgement against Paul Martinez of ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=521 As I suspected, we have to take Paul Martinez of Phase Out Mechanical to small claims court, since he walked off with our deposit without doing any work; and he has refused to return it despite much encouragement to do so. Court date is set: December 19. He's truly a ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=507 After living so long without the bulk of our belongings--over a year--it was simultaneously overwhelming, depressing and tiring to get everything back from storage. We determined that financially we needed to stop paying for storage, but now I wonder if my peace of mind is actually worth more than being ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=506 Karyn conceived of a beautiful chandelier for our dining room, inspired by similar ones she had seen, and dedicatedly fashioned it at her studio over the past few months. Last week it was ready for hanging and is unquestionably the most beautiful and dramatic element in our entire apartment. K ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=496 Phase Out electricians, whom we signed a contract with in August, has spent 8 weeks doing absolutely nothing for our job. They did not get the permit they needed to do work on our apartment, nor did they procure the specified light fixtures. We fired them yesterday, and asked them ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=493 Kristof Pogorzelski of K-Construction has put a lien on our co-op. Despite their lack of communication, not completing their work, and doing electrical work that is not up to code, they feel they are owed money. We've hired a lawyer and we're in the process of obtaining a bond ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=492 So our former dining room is now a bedroom. We removed the radiator and put a tall, narrow interior sandblasted window in its place, installed a wall-through air conditioner, bamboo floors, new halogen lighting, and a ceiling fan. Skim coated the walls and ceiling. As far as decor, ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=487 (click on thumbnails for larger pix) So, the kitchen. The cabinets and major appliances are in place, the counters installed. We spent some time last weekend installing some of the cabinet hardware. Unfortunately, we cannot install the backsplash until the electrical is completed. To ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=482 When we designed the kitchen, we incorporated an ikea cabinet called the "avsikt". What we liked about it is the fact that it has a nifty, roll-top door. It seemed to be a useful sort of place to house small appliances. So we got it, it was installed, and ... http://ourorangeoasis.com/?p=476