Hello everyone,
My wife and I are the proud owners of an Eichler in Cupertino. The location is incredible and we will be doing an extensive remodel. Our beams and ceiling are painted white, and not well or even. I want to paint the ceiling over (easy, but tedious), but I want to strip the beams back to the wood grain.
I saw the beams stripped online on someones blog using the Paintshaver, but its kind of a costly tool for just one project. Does anyone in the Bay Area rent these, or how have other owners stipped the paint off their beams?
Thanks in advance for any assistance, I am sure I will be in here lots with questions as we remodel.
Brendan
The start of our blog....http://ollieeichlerredux.blogspot.com/
Hi Brendan-
Saw your post on your "new" Eichler and checked out your blog. I thought my wife and I were the newest Eichler owners, but now you have us beat by a month.
I had a couple questions based on the content of your blog I was hoping you'd have time to answer. What "modifications" did you do to your boiler to increase it's efficiency? I was under the impression it was an all-or-none approach. Also, can you let me know which model of thermostat you chose? I dug through the archives here for a model available through ACE but couldn't find it locally. So I got one a programmable/line voltage one at Home Depot that worked for a couple weeks and then crapped out by cycling several times a minute. Replaced it with another (albeit an HD open box/return) that did exactly the same thing. Now I'm back to the original which works as designed. But I want to get a programmable one and try to minimize heating the house for the spiders.
I checked out your tile choice and I'm intrigued. I don't think I can pull the trigger on hardwood or bamboo and take the radiant hit, but the tiles look really good in the marketing hype. Do you know if you'll have grout lines? I can't really tell from the page.
Sorry to bombard you with questions in response to your completely unrelated post. Godspeed with the remodeling--I agree with the blog poster that said you need to do everything before your child is born (and preferably a week or two before!) because it's unlikely you'll have the time, inclination or money for a while after.
66 Mustang,
No problem, the original question is pretty much moot now because the time and expnse to strip the beams has proved too much for our schedule and budget. For now our painter is just prepping them as he caulks and repaints the ceiling and when we move in and choose colors, we'll probably just paint them a complementary wood tone.
As far as the boiler goes, Lipp installed a hot water bypass, which he said will help efficiency by not reheating already hot water...or something like that. He said that they were the only ones that do this type of bypass. He also fixed a dripping leak on a water feed valve.
As far as the thermometer goes, I don't know the brand offhand, as I had Lipp install the one they recommended. I'll check when I am back down there on Saturday delivering the tiles.
On the tiles, I am sure we will have some grout lines, but we are going to go as thin as we can and with a color that matches exactly. I'll take some pictures of the tile over the weekend and post on the blog so you can see the "real-life" view of the tile.
Brendan
66Mustang,
I checked the thermometer and is a Lux brand thermometer. Hope that helps.
I had searched a while back and ran across a thread that mentioned a Lux thermostat and listed a part number. I'll track that down and maybe append this thread in case anyone's currently trying to research it. Unfortunately my #1 priority has become repairing the furnace pump which appears to have frozen two nights ago. RRrrrr.
How's the floor turning out?