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Live...from
my P-trap...with a bunch of studs!
I can't
travel and just get a t-shirt. I wish I could. When Bruce and I leave
home, we come back changed...In Fiji, we learned about the benefits of
kava (in moderation)...After New Zealand, we became snobs about Kiwi red
wines...Most of you know what happened after I went to Spain as a
teenager: I came back bilingual and with a pronounced Castilian lithp.
So, of course, on Via Banchi
Nuovi in Rome last month, instead of matching "Sono con lo
stupido!" Ft-shirts, we wandered into Mario Prili's Antichitá store
and brought back six
200-yr-old, 1.25"-thick tiles depicting a palazzo
from the 15th C. What in the hell do we do with that? Well, adding
insult to an already injured bank account, of course we had to renovate
our master bath! Duh! Who's with "stupido" now?
Here's
what we were living with: A boring, dim bath with counter
space and cabinets we never used, a funky
shower that mysteriously grew mushrooms and smelled like Spanish
moss in Baton Rouge in August, and a leaking toilet. Fearing any
face-to-face meetings with contractors like one would a visit from
Paulie Walnuts, we decided to let the internet help us in our search. We
were sent several potential candidates through ImproveNet,
and then decided on International Services, a company co-owned by
contractor/architect Shon
McKytan (818-262-8050). With the Roman tiles driving our budget chariot, the existing bath was
demolished to reveal galvanized
pipes (seemingly from Roman times!) and the bubbling crude of a rotten
subfloor (the mushroom mystery is solved!). Cha-ching! To really
make a Roman Bath work satisfactorily in 2001, we were told it would be
best to replumb the entire house. So suddenly, instead of just tearing
up a bathroom, we had holes in my office closet, in the guest room
closet, under the kitchen sink, and in the laundry
room, thanks to Nir and his extremely capable crew from Aqua,
Inc. It was actually fun to see, though, that this old house (c.1925) is
made of redwood studs braced with slats. They don't make'em like that
anymore! Then, the design called for a new pocket door to
"maximize" our space (and our bill). Isn't this a nice
size hole for seeing if your guests are having sex in your
house? Actually, the most frequent guests are my parents, so let's close
that, please.
Other
parts of the room started to come together slowly but surely when the
appliances showed up. The jacuzzi tub
was first. Then, the room was rebuilt with wonderboard,
in preparation for tiling. A shelf was built by the carpenter, Asher,
to support the new Kohler glass
bowl sink. Then, the tilers, Dani
and Ben,
led by Avital,
arrived and set up their camp. When they were done,
we were wowed.
Even Nir’s crewman said “¡Guow!”
when he came to install the faucets and
toilet and to hook up the jacuzzi
the next day.
One
loooonngg week (and one lazy, ornery painter firing) later, we got a new
painter from Guatemala
named Rodrigo. Muy
bonito, ¿no?
Well,
we still need a reducer (threshold) between the bathroom and the
hallway, and a plastic service door for the jacuzzi motor, but for all practical purposes...the bathroom
nightmare...ahem...I mean, "renovation", is complete!
And
now...drum roll, please! Before
and...after...Before
and after...Ooh!
Aah!
And
finally, la piece de
resistance! (Allora, poveri, si, siamo, ma stupidi,
non crediamo! Vero? Eccole!)
(But,
wouldn't it be so much easier if we could just do our house renovation
like the garden
spider?)
Showering
praise on our vendors: (we
get no kickbacks, but in case you were wondering where we got our stuff)
Bradco
Kitchens & Baths, 6011 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035 brcoinc@aol.com
(where we got our faucets, toilet, and glass bowl sink)
RSSA
Home Improvement Center, 481 S. Brookhurst St., Anaheim, CA
92804 (where we ordered our towel racks and paper holder)
Boris
Artistry in Framing, 305 N. Robertson, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(where we had the Roman tiles framed)
Beverly
Hills Glass, 6004 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035 (where we got our
shower partition)
Rio
Marble, 13449 Sherman Way, North Hollywood, CA (where we got the wall tiles and the pebbles)
International
Carpet & Floor Covering, 1289 S. La Brea, Los Angeles, CA 90019,
818-262-8050
(where we got the floor tiles)
More
Mini Poop:
In
"Mini Driver Project" news...Ol' Mini hit the big, panoramic
screen at Temple
Bar in Santa Monica on July 30th, thanks to IFP/West's Cinema
Lounge. I got to answer questions afterwards with other producer/writer
and director-types James Napoli, Christopher Paperniak, Ashley Scott
Meyers, Nicole Bettauer & Peggy Bruen...My first filmmaker
Q&A panel! It was thrilling to be able to publicly thank my
ingenious editor Dave
Rock, too!
Fade
to August...
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