Another day of...you guessed it...TILING!

It's a weekend, so we must be working on tiling the bathrooms. First we laid out all of the tiles in the guest bathroom and did that aesthetic arranging that we like to do so they look like they've got a pattern, while remaining somewhat random (does that even make sense?!) Eric mixes up the last of our platinum (white) thinset:
Next we set the remaining tiles in the master bath that did not need tricky cuts. We've decided to consult the Tile Shop on those after spending much effort and cracking 2 tiles attempting to drill holes for that copper pipe you see sticking out. So that leaves 2 tiles to set in this room:

Then we made our way to the guest bathroom. We managed to set all of the whole tiles and many of the cuts around the edges. We did much thinking about how to orient these guys. Normally, we'd start in the center and work our way to the walls. That would have resulted in nice, even 1/2 tiles on either end (left to right), but that also means we'd have awkward, not necessarily even cut edges next to the bathtub and that just wouldn't do. So we started laying the full tiles at the tub itself. That will leave us with a silly little 2.5" edge on the left, but much of that will be covered by a vanity and stuff anyways.

Tomorrow Eric will visit the Tile Shop to get their aid in cutting about 7 tricky curve cuts and holes. I'll be working.

Tired of tiling yet?

We best not be as we have a whole lot of it to go! Tonight we made good progress in the master bath.Eric mortared and laid the tiles while I cut them to fit along the walls. We performed a miracle on Justen's tile saw with the aid of a "feng shui zen fountain" from Lowes. See, we went to Lowes to get a small pond pump, but apparently they don't stock them out of season. Even though you can SEE the whole range of them there, you can't actually buy one. Hmmmm...hey, they sell fountains, those have to have pumps, let's check that out! Better yet, the fountains are on post-Christmas clearance so we bought a floor model, dissected it to remove the pump, attached it to the hose where the non-functioning one had been and voila! we have water on the blade! Standing on the shower pan looking at where there will one day be pedestal sinks:

We got to the back corner where the toilet will be and decided to save the tricky cuts for another day. The dogs were happy with that decision as we'd brought them along but quarantined them to the master bedroom to keep them out of trouble and they were getting restless. Cuts to be made another day:Nifty disovery of the day: Justen got the first door crown up. And the framing on the first floor for a whole lot more!

Tile Wednesday

We got a whole 7 tiles laid in the master bath this evening. Granted, they are 18" tiles that we have to very carefully lay as we're doing a straightforward grid pattern. We're trying to keep the lines very even and the mortar bed built up slightly to accomodate for the radiant heat mats. And the mister learned that he's not as infallible as when he used to play soccer (age 13) and severely "tweaked" his knee in a late night indoor intramural game, so he's walking about ala Frankenstein and has a hard time getting into and outta "mortar postition"! So we got most of the main no-cuts-required tiles laid (2 to go). We're calling it 1/3 of the room. Brian and Suz stopped by and played audience. AND we promised to babysit for a neighbor at 8PM so our work time was abbreviated. On the trim front it looks like Justen started building out the window frames and put up the side moldings. He got most of the first floor done today. And nobody remembered the camera so you're just going to have to envision it in your head until we do!

OK, here's the shot.

From mundane to oooohhhh...ahhhhhh!

The absurdly mundane...I know it doesn't look like much, but this little control holds the key to our warm footsies in the kitchen. It is wired up and making our tile floor toasty. And apparently I took the photo upside down, but you get the idea:

These undermount cabinet puck lights don't look like much either:

But they add a lot of light to our slightly dark kitchen (now that we've filled it with cabinets and tile and stuff):

Finally, an oooh shot, the long-awaited living room ceiling light and fan:

And back to the barely-interesting...Eric laying out more underfloor heating mats in the master bath:

Eric surveys the new living room fixture from the birds-eye view. We declare it a lovely match to the Rookwood Amber paint:

Stuff gettin' done on a Monday...

First, today we shall call Justen the Miracle Worker as he managed to single-handedly (unless he has a cadre of helper elves we are unaware of) install our behemoth farmhouse sink. The guys from L&E Stone will now return tomorrow afternoon to re-measure for this set-up:

The empty cabinet to the left of the sink is for the dishwasher. And maybe the cabinet installation guys were allowing extra room for our sink when they misplaced the island farther from the wall cabinets! Electrician Brandon installed our kitchen pendants lights (yes, the cords need some straightening):

And now with lightbulb (we need one more of the small base bulbs for this to be truly impressive):

For "kicks" Eric and I whipped up the last bag of pro-level concrete and poured it over the guest bath floor. It went on smooth as silk and without any of the drama (the deluge) that accompanied yesterday's application. When it dries we are ready to tile:
We removed the curb mold from the shower basin and are fairly impressed with ourselves as the thing is drying as solid as, well, concrete!

Gratuitous extra shot of the front doorbell Brandon installed on Thursday. Now you can let us know you have arrived at either entrance. Stop on by and give it a ring!

"It's just like playing in the sandbox"

So said one of our tile reps about the prospect of building our own shower pan on top of which we will install river rock. We had a good headstart as our plumber had built the basic box, framed the curb with 2x4s and installed the waterproof liner. Our task was to create the "Michigan mud" sloped basin (and you know how much we Columbus-folk want anything to do with "Michigan" anything!) We purchased pre-formed curb molds from the Tile Shop, alas they were too short for our plumber-made curb. So we "winged it" and created our own form from some excess lumber in the backyard that Eric sawed down to size. Here's the pre-lined basin with our curb form:
Another important detail (perhaps the most) was to ensure that we got a 1/4" slope per foot down toward the drain- to ensure future shower water goes straight OUT of the place through the drain rather than pooling about in the shower. Based on our measurements that meant we needed a depth of 2" of mud around the perimeter which would end up about 1 1/2" deep at the drain leaving room for the depth of our tile plus future mortar. So I drew a line in Sharpie at the 2" mark around the entire liner. From there we mixed an 80# bag of mud with 3litres of water and 1 litre of "admix" per the instructions of our experts (and the bag). With the aid of a shovel and gloved hands this mix came to resemble beach-castle-worthy ball-able sand. As soon as we hit this consistency and all of the dry mix was incorporated, we shovelled the stuff into the shower liner and began spreading it out. In all we ended up using 3 bags of mud. Once we had the interior floor set, we filled in our curb form then went up the walls to the base of the cement backer board. We're amateurs at best but we were pretty content with the final product:

Time will tell how successful we were on this one when we check on it tomorrow. On a bright note, we were able to stop the self-leveling concrete from hemorraging into the basement and when last checked, the floor was solidifying nicely. We'll probably mix up a fourth bag of self-leveller once this batch has set and pour it over the low spot where we sprung a leak as it has now presumably self-sealed (with the aid of ample plumber's putty...the best $5 we might have spent to date!)

It all started out so well...

So we started today pouring the pro-level in the bathroom. This product is self-leveling mortar which gives you a smooth, level bed to tile upon. We had sealed and puttied the edges of the room and all the holes in the 100 year old floor yesterday, so upon arrival we dove right in. Below is the floor as we added our 2nd bag of pro-level. You can see the dam we built at the doorway to the study.
After 3 bags applied, the mesh and radiant heat mat were covered, we checked the basement for leaks, and seeing none, we began the clean-up. That's when the sh!t started to unravel. We sprung a leak, resulting in a nice stream of pro-level draining into our basement. Below you can see where it is sinking in at the far right of the photo.
Here's a closer shot of the shallow area:
Well, it turns out the leak is behind an old tin plate nailed to the old cold air return when the furnace was updated from gravity to forced air. The tin plate, of course, is behind 2 air ducts and the AC feed, so reaching it is a pain in the... lets say challenging. So, working above my head and under an active concrete drip, Mary and I tore off the old tin, found the 2 leaks, and got crazy with the plumber's putty trying to contain it. And it appears, at least for the time being, we were successful. Below is a picture of me after my concrete bath. Thankfully, none in the eyes.

Since I had a mandatory clean-up, we are taking a break to find some door hardware for our vintage doors before returning to continue the tile prep.

Bathroom tile prep work

Say hi to the MacDonald family. My mom, dad and little brother endured the whole kitchen countertop measurement ordeal yesterday as well as added drama when the door to Eric's office blew off its hinges when we went to pick up the sink to bring to the house for measurement. Here we are looking very much happier this morning:
Eric and I put down the cement backerboard (Denshield) today in the master bathroom. This is the view in the door towards where the toilet & shower will be:

View in the door towards where the matching pedestal sinks will be:

Later, we prepared the downstairs guest bath for the pouring of the pro-level concrete tomorrow. We had to fill in every last gap and pinhole in the floor to keep the stuff in the room. We created dams at both of the doors with old floor planks and plumbers' putty:

Then we stapled down a plastic lath or green mesh that's supposed to help reinforce it. On top of that we carefully stretched and stapled our Suntouch radiant heat pads:

So, hopefully tomorrow we'll get the downstairs bathroom self-levelling concrete poured. Then if we're feeling ambitious we'll create the mortar-based shower pan in the master bath. Then ALL we'll have to do is tile both rooms!

Doors, more lights & counter measurements...

Today's excitement was supposed to be the guy from L&E Stone coming out to measure our cabinets for the granite countertops. It turned into more distress as he claimed out biga$$ IKEA farmhouse sink would not fit our KraftMaid cabinet (which should hold ANY 36" sink according to our salesguy). "You buy new sink" he says in his broken English. "It much easier." I did the only thing I could think of, I tossed a Sharpie marker at him (in jest, of course). Man, we've owned this sink since April in anticipation of getting a finished kitchen. It cost us $300 bucks. Comparable farmhouse sinks cost $700-$1,000...we're gonna make this damned thing work! Sigh, here's a photo of our drawer pulls while we figure that out:
On happier notes, Brandon (electrician) returned today and installed a bunch of fixtures. Behold the amazing uplights in the living room (thanks to Justen for the shelves & trim):

The fan on the back porch:

The back porch light:

And Justen worked on hanging doors on the second floor. Here's the one to the master bedroom hanging (the bathroom door off hinges is leaning on the laundry closet):

The door to the extra little funky room which he neatly cut on an angle and framed to fit:

And the door to the mega-closet:

Kitchen cabinets....take two!

The installation guys returned today to complete the cabinets. They installed the island and secured it to our tile (albeit 4" off where we wanted them to put it- it's closer to the far wall than we preferred, but on the bright side that gives us more cooking room). They drilled all of the holes and secured the door and drawer pulls too...on the undamaged doors that is. They put in an order for about 8 new doors to replace those that are the wrong stain color (1), have splotchy stain (2), or were dinged in delivery (5). Behold the kitchen cabinets and island:

And another view:

Here's me doing a poor charade of a fridge:

They'll return in a few weeks to put "skins" on the sides of the freestanding wall cabinet (our sales guy forgot to order those), replace the doors and afix the remaining knobs and pulls. And put the corbels on the island (presumably once the countertop is on).

Door bonanza!

Justen installed a bunch of doors on the first floor today. Here's the guest room closet door:
The guest room entrance door (left) and bathroom door:

The door to the bathroom from the study (yes, there are 2 entrances to our miniscule WC):

Kitchen cabinets...take one!

I say take one because our installers only scheduled us for today, believing that they'd complete the job. David and Tim arrived at 8:55 (note: that's EARLY!) and started by unpacking all of the boxes so that we could inspect the cabinets and check for damage. For the most part everything was in pretty good shape, there's a minor ding here, some scrapes there, two poorly stained doors, oh, and a completely different stain color on one door, but overall things were OK.
The guys worked all day and got everything but the kitchen island installed. They promised to come back tomorrow afternoon to take care of that as well as attach the pulls (giving us just enough time tonight to go get them). Here's the view from the dining room into the kitchen:
Another view from the back door. The big white space is where the range and over-the-counter microwave will be soon:

A straight shot from the arch. Our window feels huge compared to when we first moved in:

Justen put the French doors up today:

He also put the finish coat of concrete on the front stairs. He did the back stairs yesterday. We're taking advantage of the warm weather.

Now I have to work Saturday...

I took this afternoon off in trade for working for 5 hours on Saturday. What possessed me? the unseasonably warm 65 degree day we had meant we could get some serious porch painting completed. The most awesome Suz met the hooky-playing Eric and I at the house and she and I got to whole front porch second-coated: Meanwhile, Eric caulked the bazillion nail holes on the back porch. We started a first coat of paint on the back porchabout 5PM. Within an hour we were practically painting in the dark, but soldiered on with the aid of one of our 500watt work lights. Still, that was no substitute for sunlight and I'm sure that will be evident tomorrow morning! OK, it's not so bad:

Warm day = Painting Day

It broke 50 degrees today, so we jumped on the opportunity to paint the front porch. Just a few more sections once they dry from the recent rain.