Vegetarian Paradise II: Also for Carnivores

I took my 16-years old son to Vegetarian Paradise II restaurant on 144 West 4th Street in Manhattan last weekend. He is a voracious carnivore. Based on recommendations that I collected from the web, we ordered the following:

• a large bowl of Chicken Udon noodle soup which we split among us.
  
• Siu Mai appetizer.
  
• my son had Kung Pao Chicken with rice.
  
• I had coconut chicken.
  
• my son had blueberry pie for desert.
  
• I had a banana/mango/orange juice for desert.
  

Comments:

• The Udon noodle soup was very good. They only serve it in large bowls. It was enough for two hungry men.
• We had four pieces of the Siu Mai appetizer. It was tasty and soft. Highly recommended.
• The Kung Pao Chicken tasted and had the consistency of spicy beef. My son likes spicy food, so he enjoyed it much.
• The coconut chicken tasted like chicken. It just shows how bland regular chicken is.
• The blueberry pie heated with a microwave oven. Some parts of it were boiling, and others were cold. It was probably not made in the restaurant. We will not order it next time.
• The juice was very good.
• The service was prompt.
• Total price, including a regular coke and a diet coke was $46.44, excluding tip. My son would like to return to this restaurant, which is the highest compliment.
  

The Container Store

The Container Store may be a strong contender for "a shopper heaven". I visited two of their stores several times in the last few months, and the associates there were super friendly and helpful. I ordered Elfa shelves for several rooms in my house at their Paramus NJ store. The person who took our order and designed the shelves configuration was patient, helpful, and cheerful. I made several smaller purchases at their 6th Avenue store in Manhattan. In the last visit one of the associates noticed that I was carrying an overfull shopping basket, and he suggested to bring me a cart to make my purchase easier. What a service!

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when you shop at the Container Store:

• The Elfa shelving system is especially good for kid closets, because you can reconfigure the shelves as the kids grow and their storage needs change. For example, you can make more room for hanging longer clothes. You can also move components from one closet to another.
• The Elfa shelving system is about as expensive as a traditional built-in closet system. We got both a traditional design and an Elfa system design for a master walk-in closet and two regular closets. The prices are similar if you use Elfa's ventilated shelves.
  
• The Container Store owns the Swedish manufacturer of Elfa systems. Thus there are a few components that are only available at the Container Store and not at other retailers. For example, the mesh drawers without the decorative frames.
• The designers in the store have much experience in configuring an Elfa system to fit your particular needs. You just have to measure your closet or wall precisely and read the catalog to have some idea of the possibilities. Expect to spend about 25 minutes to design each and every closet.
• If you place a large order in the store, you can ask them to deliver the order to your home for a flat fee (I think it was $75). It is much cheaper than ordering the same items on-line and paying UPS shipping for individual items.
• You can place an order 0n-line and pick it up at any store. You do not pay shipping or handling for this option. Your order will wait for you at the agreed time.
  
• If you make a large order of an Elfa shelving system, it may make sense to ask for a professional installation. I think that most homeowners can install the Elfa system by themselves, but a professional installer will save you much time. You pay 30% of the component price for the installation.
• The Container Store has a yearly 25% off month-long sales event in September/October for all Elfa system items.
• Do not order long (top racks, standards) from their web site. These items are shipped by UPS from Texas. I found in two cases that they do not pack long items well. They placed the long items loosely in a tall box. The items rub against each other during shipment, and the epoxy coating was damaged a little.
  

Lights and Switches

Recommendations

This section was updated on June 2013, five years after the completion of the project.

Sturdy large mailbox: We have the Mail Boss mailbox. We love it. It will protect your mail and it cannot be opened easily by a person with a screwdriver or a hammer. It can contain a few days worth of junk mail. Just attach it to an outside wall of your house.

Faucets: We have a total of 6 Hansgrohe Metro single hole lavatory faucets which are in constant use. Only one of these facets began leaking after 5 years of use. I replaced the cartridge and it works like new.

Shower/bath valves: We have 3 Hansgrohe Thermo II shower and bath valves. They keep a constant output temperature by mixing incoming hot and cold water using a mechanical device. Still works like new after 5 years of constant use.

Kitchen sink: We have a Rohl 6307 single bowl undermount fireclay sink with a 10" deep bowl. We protect it with a matching sink grid. We love the sink. The sink is so heavy that it could not be held just by clips. The cabinet maker added extra support for the sink.

We have two Rohl LS750L soap dispensers on both sides of the kitchen sink. One for dish detergent and the other for hand soap. We have a single hand soap dispenser mounted in all other sinks.

Toilets: We have Toto toilets with elongated bowl (model CST744SL). They have a wide 3" flush valve, which prevents clogs. We used to have clogged toilets once a week before we changed our toilets. Note that the flapper has a limited lifetime (about 2 years). You need to replace it with a genuine Toto flapper (color blue).

Grab bars: we installed grab bars in all showers and the bathtub. Note that you will need to install plywood behind the drywall in order to mount the grab bars securely.

LED lights: we have a total 40 Cree LLF LR6 light bulbs at our home. They are installed in recessed fixtures in the ceilings of many rooms. None of the LED bulbs burnt after 5 years of use. Their expected lifetime is about 20 years of daily use. Many (cheaper) LED light bulbs are not designed to be installed in recessed fixtures without ventilation. You need specific dimmers to work with LED lights.

Molded sinks: We have 3 molded Corian sinks (sink attached to the top surface without a seam). They still look like new after 5 years of constant use in the girls bathroom (a double sink) and in the powder room.

Kitchen counter: We considered IceStone (a surface made from recycled glass and concrete), but we picked granite at the end.

Smoke detectors: we have wired smoke/carbon monoxide alarms with battery backup.

Walk-in closet: we used ventilated Elfa shelves in the walk-in closet. It was about the same price as a traditional closet system. We also used Elfa components in the office, laundry room and the library. We used the Elfa installation service to assemble it.

Contact me for negative recommendations.

Home Renovation Part 15: Lessons Learnt

The previous Blog entries list the obvious things you should do (pick a good architect and a capable general contractor, work with the recommended suppliers and subcontractors, avoid surprises, etc). I would like to mention the non-obvious lessons here.

• Treat the home renovation as your temporary part-time job if you want the project to end quickly. In my experience, you and your spouse may spend about two days a week for the entire duration of the project to ensure that it is done right and on time.
• If you and your spouse plan to keep working full time during the project, it is essential that your architect will supervise the work a few times a week. The architect should also verify that you got the correct items you ordered before they are installed (tiles, wallpaper, carpets, etc). You will pay more to avoid many problems down the road.
  
• Never template a cabinet that is not fully installed. Otherwise the countertop may not match the installed cabinet or the overhang will be incorrect.
• If a supplier promises that something will be done by a certain day of the week (like "next Monday"), ask him to confirm the calendar date ("So it is going to be ready by September 8th?"). In this way the supplier cannot claim that you did not understand him when it is not ready by Monday.
• You should verify that all of the items that you ordered for the house (tiles, carpets, wallpaper, borders, sinks, faucets, accessories, light fixtures, etc.) are correct as early as possible, and definitely before they are installed. If you find a discrepancy, you should replace the items promptly so they will not cause a delay.
  
• Read about my experience with forwarding mail before you consider it.
• If you order pre-assembled furniture, you must always ask for delivery to the room where it will stay. Some companies will deliver furniture across your threshold, but will not carry it across any steps. Some pre-assembled pieces of furniture are extremely heavy (200 lbs).
  
• Always support a heavy sink from below in addition to the clips that hold it to the countertop above.

Home Renovation Part 14: Surprises

We encountered many surprises during the project. I listed the major ones below.

1. Once we started fixing known water damage in the bathrooms, we found much more water damage in the external walls. The bottom edge of the external walls had to be replaced, as well as whole sections of exterior siding.
   
2. The Corian people templated the bathroom vanity before it was completely installed. They planned for a 3/4" overhang of the Corian countertop in front of the drawers. The reason why the vanity was not full installed at the templating time was that the tile work was not complete in that bathroom. The vanity was later installed with a little spacer in the back, which eliminated the overhang. This is unfortunately hard to fix. You should never template any cabinet if it is not fully installed.
3. We ordered certain bullnose tiles, which should have been in stock. After we got the wrong items from the warehouse two times in a row, the salesperson visited the warehouse, where she found that the wrong items were placed on the shelf. We had to order the tiles from Europe, which should have added 6-8 weeks to the order. It was too late, so we did without them.
4. The stone yard manager probably forgot to work on our order after we picked the granite slabs and the templates were made. He verbally promised a certain delivery date. When that date passed, he claimed that we misunderstood him. His delay caused a cascade of other delays, including the backsplash tiles and installing the top kitchen cabinets.
5. We ordered custom kitchen cabinets from a medium-sized cabinet maker. This factory has sales people, but because we had a specific requirements for our order, so we dealt with the owner instead. Every change to the order or scheduling the installation took extra time, which could have been avoided by dealing with a sales person instead. The owner confessed that he is a good carpenter but not a good manager (his words).
6. The plumber installed the wrong shower valve in one of the bathrooms (a shower valve that he bought), instead of the shower valve that I ordered for that bathroom. The problem was that his shower valve required a round cutout, whereas my valve required an oblong cutout. The result was that the acrylic shower enclosure had a large hole above the shower valve. The plumber did not replace the shower enclosure, but instead patched the hole. Since it was late in the project, I agreed to this shortcut.
7. I paid with checks drawn on my money market account. When my account was frozen, I had to call the suppliers that got checks that bounced.
8. I ordered a refrigerator that I saw in the store, but I ordered a freezer based on its data sheet without seeing it first. The freezer was fine, except that its front door was curved instead of flat. I never knew that freezer doors could be curved. The curved door is hidden by the kitchen cabinets, so it is not a big deal. You should see every major item you order before placing the order.
   
9. We got a different border for one of the rooms then the one we ordered. It had the correct design but the wrong color. The catalog number in the order was different by one digit than the correct catalog number in the book. Fortunately, our architect was at the house just before the painter was about to hang the border. The paint store replaced the border promptly without any problem. Just another good reason to work with a local supplier and have someone check everything that is delivered to the house.
10. We got an incorrect tiles for the master bathroom floor. Fortunately, the job manager realized that the floor tiles do not match the walls and asked the architect. The tiles we got simply did not match the order. The tiles store replaced them without a problem.
    
11. The electrician run the wires of the new phone jacks to the phone company's wiring block in the electrical panel, but he did not connect the new phone jacks. I had to call Verizon on the day we moved to the house to connect the phones. Fortunately, the phone technician arrived the next business day. If your phone is being forwarded to a rented apartment, and your home phone does not work, you can ask your phone company to forward your home phone to your cell phone.
12. The new coax jack in the living room did not work when we moved in. Of all coax jacks, it was the only one that we actually needed to watch TV. The electrician routed the coax cable of the new jack to the electrical panel instead of to the coax splitter.
13. The painters did not know how to remove the LED light bulbs from the ceiling cans. They pulled them straight down instead of twisting then pulling. The result was that the spring retaining clips were permanently bent out of shape. I had to buy replacement bulbs at $92 a piece. Being a trailblazer is not cheap.
14. The plumber threw away the instructions for setting and maintaining the Hansgrohe shower valves and the special tool for removing the shower handle. Fortunately, he did not have the correct cartridge for the last shower valve, so I had an opportunity to save the last remaining manual and tool. He threw away the other two.
15. I ordered a nice-looking solid wood TV stand from the importer instead from a furniture shop. I thought that I was smart to take advantage of the monthly special $350 discount this way. The problem was that the importer offered only threshold delivery (deliver across the threshold of your home but do not carry it across any steps). The result was that I had to pay the painters who worked at my home to carry it inside. They removed a small package containing the TV stand's hardware and placed on a shelf in the garage and promptly forgot about it. The result was that I could not assemble the TV stand, so I had to call the importer. This was a major hassle. In retrospect, it would have been best to order it from a furniture shop and pay for "white glove" delivery to the ultimate room.
16. The kitchen counter was not perfectly square. We found out that the range was not completely straight when pushed all the way in. It is noticeable when you compared the distance of the range's back panel from the wall. The granite overhang on one side of the range was slightly larger than the other side. The granite people showed me that the kitchen wall was curved and not straight, so they had to do the best to accommodate this situation. Since this wall was torn down and rebuilt by the contractor, there is no excuse for building a wall that is not straight.
17. The kitchen countertop developed two cracks on both sides of the sink, which extend from the sink to the backsplash. There were the result of hanging the heavy sink below the countertop without additional support. The problem was solved by asking the cabinet people to add support below the sink (for a nominal charge) and asking the granite people to fill the cracks in the countertop (no charge). This problem should have been avoided at the kitchen design time. Always support a heavy sink from below in addition to the clips that hold it to the countertop above.
18. We used cheap Ikea office chairs with hard plastic wheels (not rubber wheels) in the dining room area and in the new office/sun room. These chairs made deep scratches in the office's hard oak floor, whereas they made only minor scratches on the existing hard oak floor in the dining room. Using these chairs was our mistake, but the office's floor should have been as hard as old dining room floor, and it was not. The contractor said that the hardwood today is softer than the hardwood 20 years ago. In any case he asked the flooring person to refinish the office floor free of charge. You should always use chairs with thick rubber feet or thick rubber wheels on wood floors. 
19. A positive surprise for a change: in the first really hot day of May 2009 the outside temperature was 110 Fahrenheit and the inside was a comfortable 70 Fahrenheit. Hurray to the central air condition people!

There are a few precautions you can take to avoid turning minor surprises to major ones:

• Always follow up promptly if something is not done by the date it was promised.
• If a subcontractor does not return your calls after you paid him half of money, it is a very bad sign. Ask your general contractor to intervene if it is a person he recommended. If you found the subcontractor by yourself, prepare for a lot of trouble.
• Before signing on any order containing catalog numbers, verify that the catalog number matches the sample you used to make the order. This is most applicable to wallpaper, borders, tiles, and carpet orders.
  
• Verify that you got the correct wallpaper, borders, tiles, and carpets before they are installed.

Home Renovation Part 13: Your Time

My experience is that a large renovation project that ends in time requires at least two days a week of your time, which can be split between you and your spouse. You need to spend this time for the entire duration of the project, from the time you picked your architect until the project is done. Much of the time you spend will be on regular weekdays (not weekends). You need to pick myriad items, meet with your architect and contractor, meet with subcontractors, and supervise specific important tasks (like installing counter tops).

You can do some of the work on weekends, but often you need to decide or pick an item with a close deadline, which require weekday work. The alternative is that the project will be delayed, or you pick a default item that is not exactly what you want.

You should visit your home at least weekly to verify that the work is done as you expected. You need to pay attention to all details, even if they were written explicitly in the contract. For example, the electrician installed the correct number of recessed ceiling light fixtures in our kitchen's ceiling, but the Sheetrock people forgot to cut openings for all of the recessed lights. The problem was solved easily, but it could have gone undetected.