New week in review

Sorry for the slow updates this week. I've had a nasty chest cold and haven't been at the house since Tuesday. The great news is that the tiling in the bathrooms is COMPLETE! John did a fantastic job. Here's the master shower nook:
John sitting in the guest bath tub grouting:

The finished guest bath window wall:

The finished wall where one day will roost a shower head and faucet:

Future home of two pedestal sinks:

A closer look at the shower bench:

Getting a feel for how it will look all put together:

Third verse, same as the first....

It goes something like this, "Eric stains,"

Three exterior doors times two or three coats of stain times two sides each...and let's not even talk about the door jambs that haven't been touched yet! Drying again:

"Mary continues tiling." This is the wine cellar room in the basement:Tonight I got most of the side cuts done and mortared and have about a row and a half to completion. Meanwhile with the paltry amount of leftover thinset I "played" with the first row in the way back of the room:
The "real" laborers had a productive day as well. Here's the main wall in the master bath:

Main wall towards where the pedestal sinks will sit:

Justen started on the railing between the hall and precipitous drop over the stairs:

Another view of the same, now with handrails:

The electricians also worked today. They had the final inspection Monday and had six areas they needed to address before we can pass. All seemed fairly nitpicky to us plebes, but hopefully we'll get the sign-off tomorrow! And the Blackburn Fireplace man paid us a visit to estimate how much it will cost to install some sort of fireplaces (they are both formerly gas) in our two fireboxes. Answer: likely too much at this juncture!

Monday progress

I like having Mondays off because it feels like a bonus day to work on the house. John from Bernon Tile rocked the guest bathroom today and made good use of the bullnose tile we picked up on Friday. Here's the completed window mortar drying:
Justen was a busy bee too. He framed out the French doors:

And the little window in our funny upstairs "den":

Here's the window in that same room that overlooks the living room:

And here's what I did: tiling the "wine cellar" floor. Or at least about 2/3 of it:

John also started on the master bath cove molding around the shower:

Stainmaster E!

Eric wielded his foam brush today and applied "red oak" to a variety of things. The doors all got a second coat of stain (on the first side):
The inside trim of the laundry closet got a first coat of stain (putting us that much closer to getting the washer and drier out of the hallway):

And the bathroom window got hit with the poly!

Meanwhile, I was the tiler. I cut the back row of tiles to fit (Travis' tile saw ROCKS) and mortared in the ledge of the wine cellar room. Next up....the walls:

It's the basement and a wine cellar, we're going for a rustic look. Hence, I freehanded it (no spacers):

Cutting terracotta tiles on Travis' monster saw turned the previously white/grey covered thing bloody red. It looked like someone lost an appendage. For penance I cleaned the thing. Note the blood red tray at the bottom of the picture:

You'll have to trust me that it is far cleaner now than when I found it.

The week in review....

So to recap.....Mary chooses a pattern for the wine cellar wall in random tiles acquired from Habitat for Humanity's Build it Again Center:
Eric returns on Wednesday night and on Thursday helps stain wine racks:

Tile guys start Thursday and complete first course in guest bath:

Tile guys return Friday to create the "running band" of tile mid-wall, the course of tile above it and begin to trim out the window. Eric second coats the window in the guest bath with stain:

An ant's view of Friday's progress in the guest bath:

Remember the dingey walls in the basement wine cellar?

They got a fresh coat of paint on Saturday that brightened them up a bit:

Carpenter Justen returns on Saturday and knocks out a lot of window trim like this one on the window overlooking the living room:

And the master bath window:

And the nifty little window next to the French doors in the master bedroom:

Eric starts staining the exterior doors on Saturday:

All three doors got their first coat of stain and are drying:

On Friday the tile guys let us know that they needed more bullnose tile in the guest bath so we made an emergency trip up to the Menard's in Marion and cleaned them out of the remaining stock of it. Just in the nick of time as they've changed the border and the new one will no longer match our existing bullnose tile. While there we picked up the last of some grey slate ceramic tile for the "wine cellar" floor. The M&R guys returned Friday to hang the glass doors in the kitchen too...except the 1 little one they broke (oops) so we'll see them one more time. And the electricians came to hook up the radiant heat in the master bath so the floors are nice and warm in there now. That's our week in a blog entry.

Mary's little secret part 2.

If you are reading back you'll notice a couple of new posts (if you haven't read anything in awhile then this seems in order). I put my "pet project" posts into drafts (ie., they don't show on the blog until I publish them) because Eric was out of town and (a) I didn't want to announce in a public forum that I was home alone for a couple days and (b) I wanted what I am accomplishing to be a little surprise for Eric when he gets home and he's been reading the blog while visiting his folks in Ft. Lauderdale. Lucky him- it was 80 and sunny. We had an event at the Market so I had to work. Our consolation prize was a couple of 60 degree rainy days. Anywho, tonight I returned to the house to finish painting the "wine cellar" ceiling. I was accompanied by the perfect painting companion for this job, our friend Suz. Now, Suz is an awesome painter to begin with, (witness our guest bath and front porch for proof) but she was perfect for this job because she's statuesque (aka tall) and has long arms. So while I was making frequent use of the 3-step stool to get in painting proximity, Suz could reach all quadrants of the ceiling on foot. We knocked this project out in an hour. All cobwebs were banished, electric wires camouflaged and funny unnecessary pipes rouged. Not much we could do about the pvc plumbing pipes and HVAC ducts:And the prettier part on the other side:
I've been contemplating how to "pretty up" this dungeon room in the basement which we aspire to call a "wine cellar." I picked up the moss green brick-shaped tiles on Saturday from the BIAC, but there weren't enough to do more than a couple square feet. After mulling it over I decided that I might be able to work with the random remaining stock they'd had and do something cool with the stretch of back wall/ledge (visible in the photo above at Suz's shoulder) that's above where the wine racks will likely stop. Since I closed the BIAC Saturday, I was there at opening on Monday and got 4 big boxes of the remaining rustic looking terracotta tiles for a mere $20!

I have inventoried the colrs and plotted the various designs and now have to figure out what will make the most appealing design. I played with patterning them a bit while I waited for Suz this evening. The back wall is 24" tall and 144" wide. Each big tile or smaller tile combo accounts for 8" so I know I'll need 18 "squares" across and 3 "squares" high. For the back wall and 8 squares across and 3 up for each of the end walls if I can stretch my tile supply that far. Here are a few of the combos I was playing with:

I think my current favorite is the very bottom 4 rows. A running pattern of light teal brick above and below two runs of alternating dark and light "squares." I'll have to review my inventory to see if I can pull that off!

Return of the cabinet contractors!

A couple of guys from M&R, our Lowe's-appointed cabinet installation contractor, came to the house today. Recap: there were 9 KraftMaid cabinet doors with assorted dings and damage that were to be replaced. They had all been delivered (oddly enough individually) over the past several weeks and we were ready for the damaged ones to be swapped out with the new ones. 5 of these doors had the glass inserts but the replacement doors sent were open-framed without the glass. The guys looked at the glass doors (scratched ones hanging) and determined that they couldn't remove the glass and put them in the new open frames because it looked like the glass had been siliconed in and they didn't want to mess with it. So 4 of our new solid (no glass) doors were installed and the knobs put on today, but there's further wrangling with Lowe's to be done over the glass insert cabinets. The cabinet contact at Lowe's says they (the contractor) should be able to change out the glass and she'll show the installation guys how it is to be done and they'll get back to me on installing the new ones. It was a tiny bit disappointing, but it's not like I was planning on using the kitchen immediately anyways and we've been thrilled with the work of M&R so far! No pics until those cabinets are DONE!

Mary's little secret...

Really, this is a little pet project I worked on (am working on) while Eric is out of town. So Eric, if you are looking at the draft of this STOP READING NOW! One of the other little sidelines of Saturday was a trip to the Tile Shop. I was going to buy self-levelling concrete and another bag of mortar and maybe work on the "wine cellar"....until the sales guy gave me the figure of $200+ (for six bags of leveller & 1 bag of thinset) and I decided to check and see exactly how uneven the "wine cellar" floor is before I went crazy with the concrete. Back at the house a little later with the 4-foot level I checked at both ends and everywhere in between and I'll be darned if that floor isn't almost perfectly level...it is certainly level enough to forego $200 in expenditure for the self-levelling concrete! So the last thing I did Saturday was pay a little visit to the Build it Again Center and hit the jackpot. A 50# bag of thinset is $5 (compared to $30+ at Tile Shop). I also got a box of a couple dozen mossy green terra cotta brick-shaped tiles that I thought were a good match for the green Mexican ones that I am contemplating using for an accent in wine cellar room if they don't go anywhere else in the house. And 2 bags of sanded grout in gray and terra cotta ($3 each) in case I got the wherewithal to move this thing along Sunday and they'd be closed. I'm thinking something in a terra-cotta color in 12" squares (with gray grout) for the floor since it will contrast nicely with the greens. There are 2 styles at Lowes that I like that are about $2 per tile, but I couldn't commit to that. And I might pop back over to BIAC on Monday and scout the remaining brick-shaped tiles (in a couple other assorted colors) after making a few calculations and seeing if they can fill the upper wall in a running brick pattern. What I DID come up with was a nice deep red paint color (that coordinated with both of the favored floor tiles). I am using it to finish off the wooden beams in that room and it reminded me of the color of old barn siding. It lightens up the room just a touch and disguises the rough nature of the beams. Here's a hint as you come in the room looking left:


Same shot but taken from across the room (and you can see one portion unpainted on the far left):

The electric wires seemed to paint up OK, but I'll have to come up with at solution for the bright blue light boxes! This is the view straight into the room from the door:

Me, myself....and Suz!

I grouted the master bathroom floor solo today. It went much better than I expected. I mixed up about 1/2 a container of non-sanded grout (2.5#) and managed to lay it all in about 20-25 minutes (exactly as prescribed by the container). Then I played the usual sponge the tiles a dozen times game. The grout color (Dove Grey) is a great match as you can barely see it: And the camera flash showed me the spots I still needed to de-haze! The most fabulous Suz showed up and helped me poly the other side of the shelves. It went crazy fast with the 2 of us and the whole project took all of 1/2 an hour! Later I went down to the funky "wine cellar" room and played with dry-lok quick patch cement and filled in the holes in the wall (the dark spots on the lower half):

The smell of polyurethane drying...

Looks like this:
That's all of the previously stained future closet shelves drying. That (there's another full table in the dining room) and a whole lotta vacuuming are what I got done today.