A whirlwind weekend of activity

Two extra pairs of hands certainly made for much lighter work and more progress this weekend thanks to the help of my parents. Although dad would likely argue about the "lighter work" assertion given the obnoxiously heavy things he helped haul. First he and Eric retrieved our future dining room mantle from a neighbors garage (and it is just as heavy as it looks):
Then it took all 4 of us to unload and maneuver the exterior doors we fetched from the custom door shopt. We hauled them from the van to their current resting place in the living room (carefully past the new granite on the island now):

Funny, but it only took 2 guys at the door place to load em up! We made some proress on tiling too. I cut the baseboard tiles for the guest bath and Eric and I mortared them into place:

Mom and I played mosaic with the river rock to put them up the sides of the shower basin:
We got a consult with Travis with Bernon Tile who we may have take over the wall and shower portion of that project. He had some great suggestions for future courses of action whether we use his expertise or not. Mom got a little color on by filling in the white space where we hope to someday build in a China cabinet, but in the meantime thought we may as well have color there:

Dad was a painting maniac, he's an expert at it after all. First he coated the guest bedroom closet with the kilim beige from the living room ceiling (mom gave an assist by washing the filthy shelves to prep them for painting):

Then he steel-wooled and urethaned the back portion of the floor. We chided him for going overboard and he reminded us that it's "his" (and mom's) closet when they come to visit:

At Travis' suggestion we painted all of the raw joint compound spots on the bathroom walls to assist with tile application (the compound absorbs the water from the thinset mortar more quickly than the concrete board and that's BAD). So dad hit the guest (pictured) and master bathrooms:

And for good measure he filled in all of the white space on the walls in the kitchen to give us a finished look until we someday get around to tiling the backsplash:

Mom and I did some serious design work on the upstairs closets. We took the measurements and formulated the plan for the master and linen closets. Then we got most of 2 shelving units constructed and cut. It took all 4 of us to rip the 4'x8' hardwood plywood that we used to create Eric's shelving system and you can tell we created a little dust in the process:

My parents were priceless in their help and advice this weekend. We're going to miss them (even more) when they go back to Cleveland today!