Peter’s Blog

May 10th, 2010
For those of you who can't make it to our showroom in Woodinville, we have just completed TruStone displays in Kirkland and Shoreline. In Kirkland, you can visit the Rosen Supply Showroom in the Totem Lake area featuring tub shower walls with trim in Elite Latteo. www.rosenplumbing.com. The Shoreline area display is at Ivy Kitchen and Bath and features a shower pan, walls and trim in Breccia Paradiso. www.ivybs.com. The sales personnel at both these locations will be happy to answer your questions.

April 22nd, 2010
We recently completed a Master Bath remodel in a fifth floor belltown condo with stunning views. The project involved a complete demo of the existing bathroom, enlargement of the existing shower to incorporate a bench seat, TruStone shower pan, walls (with mosiac tile TruStone accent trim) and vanity top in Breccia Paradiso. The existing tile fooring was replaced and under floor heating added. Since storage is always an issue in condos, we removed the existing and rarely used 72" jetted tub and installed custom floor-to-ceiling cabinetry in its place. While the logistical and parking challenges were a major issue, we were able to complete the project on schedule and on budget.

April 7th, 2010
Adding some bathroom humor....we recently completed a bathroom update for a retired couple that included replacing two old and "unreliable" toilets with the highly rated and our recommended Toto Drake toilets. The bewildered, but satisfied customer's wife called us a few days after the project was completed to say that her handyman husband had "spent hours" trying to figure out how the toilets could possibly work so well!

March 31st, 2010

Thought I'd get off the TruStone soapbox and offer a little humor with this gem from
the New York Times:

How to drive a contractor crazy

1 Avoid making decisions.
Change orders frequently, then become outraged by the additional costs and delays.
Ask a contractor to provide a solution to a difficult design problem, then use a different contractor for the job.
Challenge a contractor's expertise with sentences that include the words "my brother-in-law thinks," "my neighbor thinks" or "I took a shop course when I was in 10th-grade and this is what I think." If your brother-in-law was that good, why didn't you hire him?
Withhold final payment for months because of minor problems like missing fixtures that are on order.
Cling to the belief that contractors have X-ray vision that enables them to see into walls, and thus are aware of faulty wiring and plumbing or rot before the start of a job.
Attempt to poach the contractor's workers by taking them aside and asking them to come back when the job is finished to do another job.
Buy appliances or building materials online or from a discount house to save money, then expect the contractor to make everything work when the products are damaged or don't arrive on time.
Call the contractor in the middle of the night and on weekends about problems that can wait until Monday.
Hover about a job while murmuring tragically: "It doesn't look finished." It's a job site. It doesn't look finished because it's not finished.

- New York Times News Service

March 3rd, 2010
As part of a larger bath remodel, we replaced a 10 foot long vanity top that was too large to be brought into the home in one piece. The solution was to make it in three separate pieces with decorative 1/4" wide metal spacers in Oil Rubbed Bronze to match the plumbing fixtures. Not only was this a practical solution, but it created added design appeal for the homeowners. The vanity top is in our TruStone Vanilla Travertine.

January 21st , 2010
Just finished a complete remodel to a Master Bathroom and Powder Room in Snohomish County. The house is a unique log home and provided a number of challenges from both the design and construction standpoint. The existing sheetrock was removed and replaced with tongue in groove planking and stained to match the existing ceiling. The former toilet/bidet area was transformed into a large custom shower using our new TruStone Breccia Paradiso product and a distinctive heavy glass frameless shower enclosure. The area previously occupied by an enormous jetted tub was replaced with a double sink vanity and cabinetry providing lots of needed storage space. New heated tile flooring provided the finishing touch. The change from the Before photo is pretty dramatic. The homeowners were delighted with the transformation to their bathroom and the fact that we completed the project at a signicant cost savings compared to other bids they had received. They plan on having us remodel two more bathrooms this spring.

Dec 17th, 2009
Here are a couple of photos of a recently completed project from a long-time repeat customer. This was one of our first bathroom remodeling projects using the new TruStone product line which has just "wowed" everyone. The vanity and shower in the Master Bath are in TruStone Seafoam and the Powder Room Vanity top is in TruStone Breccia Paradiso.

August 18th, 2009
Custom Image on TruStone We've recently completed our first custom image in TruStone. On a Mocha Travertine background in matte finish we've photofused my black lab AKC Master Hunter "Jet" onto a cultured marble piece that is now serving as a conference table at a hunting lodge in Monroe.

August 10, 2009
We are just completing a major bath remodel in Bellevue. The homeowners were anxious to update their 60's bath with modern features, while gaining an elegant and far more functional space. We gutted the room and spent several days reframing for the new shower, bench, moved doorways, replumbed for a new vanity area, lighting, tile flooring, added an additional electrical circuit and switches, etc. However, once the walls were opened up it became obvious that the galvanized steel piping was in a sorry state. For a couple of hundred dollars, all the accessible plumbing pipes were replaced with copper. If this had not been addressed, the old corroded pipes would surely have failed , resulting in thousands of dollars in damage. The delighted homeowners are now enjoying a luxurious new bathroom suite...

July 30th, 2009
Our new product- TruStone is truly exciting. You need to visit the showroom to see the natural beauty of this material and to see how affordable this product is compared to natural stone. Take a few minutes to check out the TruStone website. Not only will you see the various images available but you can check out dozens of installations. I recently got a kick out of the beach scene shower surround, however, I would have incorporated the sand and water into the shower pan as well.

This is amazing stuff.

July 7th, 2009
I am no economist, but I feel confident that we have likely bottomed out and we'll see our local economy start to rebound by the end of summer. It's been a challenging year for the construction industry and unfortunately we've seen some of our long-time construction customers unable to survive in these challenging times. But... finally the phones are beginning to ring again and I'm optimist about our economic recovery. There is no better time to remodel: bank financed interest rates have lowered, labor rates are slightly down and we've recently lowered our cultured marble pricing to mid-'90s levels due to the reduction in some raw material costs. Some of our other product suppliers have also lowered costs, for example some cabinet lines have announced price reductions as well as lower fuel surcharges on shower doors.

There really is no better time to start your bath remodel projects.