Disquieted

Berry Botanic Garden is on the endangered list. I’d been wanting to go, and when a visiting friend asked about it, seized the opportunity. We went this morning and saw dozens of new-to-me plants, including the exquisite Agapetes serpens from the Himalayas (above) and a kiwi relative (below) called Actinidia kolomikta, which appeared to be suffering from a beguilingly lovely fungal blight, but is actually healthy and normal.

I’m nowhere near knowledgeable enough to qualify as a plant geek. You think I knew these names? Any civilized garden -- and Berry is certainly that -- like any civilized social gathering, offers name tags to its guests.

My friend and her husband are staying downtown, in the Park Blocks, and I asked her to drop me off there so I could check out the current exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. The show is called Disquieted, and it lives up to its name: skewed, often creepy, images involving the human body. This highly detailed and realistic sculpture of a boy, for instance, by Ron Mueck. For scale, the mirror behind him, which is part of the piece, is about 18” tall. It’s like some freakish taxidermy, and yet so realistic that you half expect him to turn his head and start talking. Deeply disturbing, yet I couldn’t turn away. It reminded me of that plastinated cadaver exhibit that toured a couple of years ago, only without the flaying.

The show was interesting, though off-balancing and ultimately kind of depressing. I knew I’d find a welcome counterpoint downstairs, in the permanent Asian collection. I spent a few minutes with Quanyin, strolled through the hall of Buddhas, and headed for the bus, quieted.

Reinhabiting

The glass shower door was installed on Tuesday. Take a good look; it’ll never be this clean again.

The double towel rack we ordered arrived yesterday and Jerry mounted that. He also did a neat job of encasing the cord for our electric toothbrush -- another small, why-didn’t-we-do-this-years-ago? adjustment.

Our towels are hanging, there’s a new rug on the floor. The skinny cabinet is loaded with our toiletries and sundries (there’s a word you don’t hear much anymore).

On the one hand it’s slightly depressing to clutter this pristine space with our funky old stuff; on the other, it’s fun to organize, shake things up, view objects in a different light.

Moving into a re-built environment involves a process of adjustment: Oops, the door opens that way now. Oh right, the mirror’s over here. Band-Aids are on the middle shelf of the upper cabinet. One must now place one’s front paws in the sink to get a drink of water.

When we completed our big Berkeley remodel, Stewart Brand came to the addition-warming party and asked us a lot of questions. He was writing a book called How Buildings Learn, and was interested in the adaptations that structures make, over time, to meet the needs of their inhabitants. At that point all I could tell him was that we’d most likely never close the pocket door on the walk-in closet and probably shouldn’t have spec’d it. What we didn’t know at the time was that the new flight of stairs would become magnificent loge seating at singthings, the magical musical gatherings that we would eventually host.

I don’t expect any profound social opportunities to unfold from this simple bathroom remodel. But we’re already starting to think about the next project. That’ll involve knocking down walls and dramatically altering spaces. Who knows what might happen then?

Fairy Condos, Hobbit Houses and Troll Sheds

We’re not the only ones involved in a construction project this spring. A developer named Emily just put up a condo complex for fairies on SE 36th Ave. It appears to be loaded with amenities. If you lived here, you’d be home by now.

Elsewhere in the ‘hood, a treehouse for hobbits appeared and, on the same lot, a funky troll shed sported a new coat of paint(s). This is infill housing I can live with.

The Hammered Glass Cannot Be Tempered

We’re just about done with this project. The tile backsplash is set. We thought at first we’d go with a single color but I’m glad we decided to mix it up, loosely echoing the tilework in the shower. Steve did a good job of transitioning from the slight curve required to fit flush with the ledge at the back of the sink to a straight line along the top. He also cut the end tiles so they’d line up with the edges of the sink; extra work, but it looks much better that way.

The upper door of the skinny cabinet now has its patterned glass panel. I love the ripply effect, even empty. The pattern is called “Hammered.” We’d considered another called “Rain,” as well as the vertical ribbed type I associate with cabinets in old-fashioned drugstores and medical offices. Originally we wanted glass in the lower door as well, but code dictates that glass installed close to the floor must be tempered so it doesn’t shatter into a million lethal shards if you accidentally kick it or something. Steve checked to see whether the pattern we wanted was available in a tempered version. The answer appeared as an email subject line: "The hammered glass cannot be tempered.” That sentence seems to resonate like a poem or proverb.

The shower has been user-tested and found delightful. We’re using our old shower rod and curtain until the glass door arrives next week. We spec’ed this fixture largely on the basis of its sleek design and apparent functionality. One of the plumbing showrooms had a spray booth set up, with a dozen or so shower heads and an external control for each one, so you could observe the jets in action and get a general sense of how they worked. But that’s not the same as taking off your clothes and getting in. This one is adjustable in four different directions, not just the spray but the height and angle of the shower head. Everything works smoothly and the spray options are optimal. The shower head is Grohe, by the way, and the control is Delta. We wanted independent temperature and volume settings integrated in the same control; Delta seems to be one of the few companies that still makes them.

I love the look and feel of the faucet, also by Grohe. It goes beautifully with the sink. As with the shower, we went by appearance and manufacturer reputation but with no guarantee that it would actually function the way we wanted. China Rose finds the arrangement satisfactory, too. That, of course, was the goal of this entire project.

Since I took these photos, we’ve begun settling in. Jerry remounted the medicine cabinet, now painted to match the trim, and the small glass shelves on both sides. We sacrificed one of the six shelves to make room for a hand towel holder. He fixed the funky electrical outlet and replaced the decorative switchplate, the colors of which go perfectly with the tile. My job was to load and organize the new storage cabinet. Other incidentals, like the bath towel bar and a wall-mounted swiveling mirror, normal on one side and merciless 8x magnifier on the other, will go up shortly. None of this is very exciting, but I’ll put up a few more pix later.

Steve came by this morning to install the grab bar and hooks in the shower. We wrote him an even larger check than the last one, reserving just enough to cover the cost of the door. Funny; that was the first item we spec’d, and it’s the last to be installed.

Flushed with Success

Saturday was our 28th wedding anniversary. We spent most of the day hanging out while the tile guy/floor guy installed the subfloor and then the Marmoleum flooring. It’s covered with protective paper at the moment, but I think the color will be fine. That evening we celebrated (marriage, not Marmoleum) with a lovely dinner at Iorio. Still adore you, Jer, after all these years. (Oh yeah; that’s a closeup of the recessed shampoo/soap shelf, above.)

Sunday was the warmest day of the year so far, with temps in the 70s. I’d committed to volunteering at the Hardy Plant Society spring sale, a huge event at the Expo Center. I spent three hours processing credit card payments: Swipe card, enter last four digits, enter amount, wait for approval, present merchant copy for signature, print customer copy, stamp register receipt “paid.” Lather, rinse, repeat. I got into the rhythm pretty quickly -- a good thing, since at times the traffic was non-stop. I hadn’t felt an adrenaline rush like that since my restaurant line-cooking days. Afterwards I connected with my friends Deb and Maureen, and got to relax with them for a while, snacking and schmoozing in the warm sun.

Early in my shift, I watched a customer proceeding toward the cash register in the midst of his forest of perennial picks; it looked like Birnam Wood creeping toward Dunsinane. His purchases added up to a mind-boggling $663.00. I will never again feel guilty about dropping a few dozen bucks at a nursery.

Some time later, I spotted a guy wearing a brown t-shirt that read “I take mine with cream, sugar, and the 2nd Amendment,” an obvious, if eye-rolling, reference to the recent Starbucks-gun rights controversy. I hadn’t been taking particular notice of the names on people’s credit cards, but I did on this one. It was Lars Larson, Portland’s home-grown equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. Ick.

We’re taking the prudent path and not talking politics with any of the tradesmen who’ve been swarming around our bathroom-to-be. This morning at 8 a crew of three arrived to install the custom cabinet next to the shower. We’re still waiting on the glass-fronted upper door, but the main structure is in (facing the toilet, above) and lookin’ good. Notice the magazine storage shelf midway; that was Jerry’s idea, which I fought at first but now concede is brilliant.

Steve had scheduled the plumber for noon. The cabinet guys were finished, cleaned up, and out the door at 11:57. The plumber is here as I type (a little after 2). We just heard the first flush from the new toilet. This is at least as exciting as the first robin of spring. (6:30 PM update: Followup user test flush: Successful)

So here’s the gorgeous designer (Philippe Starck via Duravit) sink. We did run into a glitch with the installation. Most pedestals, we learned today, are open in back so you can just slide them in around the fittings. This one? A hollow column, sealed most of the way up, with an opening too high to line up with the existing fittings. Solution? Either open the bathroom wall (argh) and re-plumb the piping by a few inches. Or, if you have nerves of steel, take your diamond-blade sword... I mean saw, and enlarge the opening on the back of the pedestal -- without, of course, shattering the custom-ordered item into a million pieces. Steve chose option #2, and succeeded. Whew.

Steve had hoped to set the tile for the backsplash this afternoon, but because of the sink issues, and the fact that the p-trap is still not tightly sealed, will hold off til tomorrow. Hopefully that and a few other incidentals will wrap up the active phase of this project.

It was a difficult day in some ways, especially for the plumber, who is experienced but new to this company, and wants to demonstrate his competence and unflappability. Sophie has great confidence in the outcome, and so do we.

Grout Expectations

I first encountered groufitti in a bathroom stall at the main library on Berkeley campus. It consisted of dozens of bad puns involving the word grout, written on the grout in every direction. Groutesque. Alexander the Grout. The Groutful Dead. You get the idea.

First thing upon arriving this morning, Steve assured us that last evening’s bucket spill would not have damaged the drywall in the guest room ceiling. Alright then. He then negotiated Greg into working tomorrow to keep on schedule. The floor has to go in before the toilet and sink are installed; the plumber’s due back on Monday.

Last night after Greg had tidied up and departed, I noticed a minor glitch in the tile pattern. If you look at the picture featuring China Rose from yesterday, you might be able to discern, in the right corner, a sliver of dark blue tile on the third course up from the floor, and a sliver of lighter tile on the second course. Most of the pattern is random-esque, but I really wanted a dark-to-light thing going on at the borders. This morning Steve and I discussed the concept of wabi sabi. Greg reversed the colors. A small error presents a dilemma: Will it fade in your consciousness over time, or will it annoy you forever? I’m glad we fixed this while we had the opportunity.

Today Greg finished tiling, including the intricate cutting involved in lining the recessed soap-and-shampoo shelf. Grouting and polishing was the final touch. I’m glad we chose clear glass, rather than patterned, for the shower door. A: We want to see the tile. B: There’s enough pattern going on already.

So the tile guy will be back tomorrow -- yes, Saturday and, as it happens, our 28th wedding anniversary -- to lay the subfloor and then the Marmorette (tm), Armstrong’s version of Marmoleum (tm). It’s been so long since we chose the color; I hope it works with what we’ve got going now.

Tea for the Tiler Man

I’m starting this post at 5 PM -- tea time -- because I couldn’t resist the pun, which fans of the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens will get. The tile guy is still here, mortaring the walls and talking to himself. The schedule calls for grouting tomorrow. The square hole in the wall (below) will be the recessed shelf for soap, shampoo, etcetera. Tiled on all surfaces, that’ll take a bit of what quilters call “fussy cutting."

The door guy showed up mid-afternoon to take final measurements for the glass door and panel that will form the front of the shower. At one point four of us plus one dog managed to fit in the bathroom. (I was going for five but Greg, the tile guy, demurred.)

Jer and I had originally spec’d a 20-inch-wide door, narrower than standard, thinking that would leave room on the (thus wider) stationary panel for a second towel rack. But Steve pointed out that we’d have to turn sideways to dodge the shower control. So we added four inches to the door width and will rethink the towel rack placement.

The glass will take a couple of weeks to fabricate, so we’ll be living with our old shower curtain and a temporary rod for a while. No biggie.

Two hours later, done for the day. There was a mishap involving a bucket of water, a stripped-bare subfloor and the guestroom directly below. Oops. But I’m happy with the tile pattern. It’s pretty much as I’d visualized it, solid borders gradually devolving into random floaty chaos. I can relate to that.