Lots of pictures

Sorry that I did not have time to post last week. But to make up for it I have quite a few pictures to show this week!

Last weekend, week and this weekend were pretty productive. I grouted all of the floors that we had tiled last Sunday. It was rather difficult to stand up straight for a day or so afterwards. The floors turned out very nice.

All of the base kitchen cabinets are installed at the house. Dad finished those last week, mid-week.

This is a picture of the butler's pantry as you come in from the garage and across from the half bath.This weekend we worked hard tiling the dining room and kitchen. We are still not finished, but it is turning out GREAT! Mom came out to help and she was our cutter while Dad and I laid tile. Laura was even out for awhile late Saturday night and was a good sport about getting on her hands and knees to scrape out the mud from between all the tiles with a paint stick. I've put a couple different pictures showing the progress. The second picture is a better representation of the actual color of the tile.

AND...my plumber showed up last week! So he's started work in the basement. Let's see if he comes back this week. :)

Have a great week!

More of the Same

Well we did have a productive weekend this weekend.

Friday I got a second coat of varnish on most of my windows. When it starts to get cold out the varnish doesn't go on so well, so I had to quit. Then it rained all day Saturday, so I didn't really want to have my windows open. :)

The hardwood floor installer came back last week to fix the floors. The study now looks fantastic. However the hallway looks worse than it did before. I don't know if these are sanding marks, I can't feel the grooves like I could before, or if they are just the way the varnish went on and he'll be able to fix it without resanding AGAIN. He was supposed to come look at it with us this weekend, but never showed. So probably one night this week we will meet him at the house to see what he thinks. Until then I can't finish varnishing my door frames or putting down the couple tiles in my laundry room that butt up to the hardwood. I also can't start staining my interior doors until his sanding is complete.

So...I started work on laying tile in the half bath. Aside from the cuts around the toilet flange I did the entire job myself. And it turned out pretty good! I am very happy with it. It is a similar pattern to the main bath. The tiles are not at an angle and the accent tiles are different in the half bath. I think it will look very sharp when I add some accent decoration pieces when I move in.

Dad worked on setting my kitchen cabinets. He had one side of the stove done and was almost finished with the opposite side when he realized that the stove would not fit in the opening! So after some noodling and measuring he realized that the cabinet shop built the two drawer units on either side of the stove 1/4" too big...each of them. So we had to haul the stove up from the basement to see if it would fit. It did...but barely...and without room to open the drawers without scratching the stove. So...he had to undo all the work he did Saturday and take some material off the ends of the corner cabinets. I now have 1/4" to work with. At the end of the day Sunday he was back to the spot he was at the end of the day Saturday.

Sometime this week I'm thinking I might be grouting the tiles in the bathrooms. Not 100% sure on that though.

Also...the plumber has said he is going to be there on Wednesday. Are we taking bets? I'll let you decide. :)

In other news...I am totally bummed out because Grandpa Crower might not be coming home to Michigan this summer. And that means he'll miss me moving into the house and the celebrations to follow! He has been so involved in this house, and now he won't get to celebrate it with me. :(

**Pictures to follow tonight**

Rub-a-dub-dub One Man in a Tub

This weekend was spent tiling the main bath floor. The layout was a bit tricky as everything was on an angle and there were a lot of little cuts. It took all day Saturday AND Sunday to finish the floor. Dad's knees and back were a little worse for wear at the end of the day...but the finished floor looks FANTASTIC! I'm so excited about how it looks!

On the laundry room floor Dad laid tile one night while I did the cuts. The following night I laid tile while Dad was my cutter. On this one I let Dad to all the tile laying and did the cutting for him. I also helped clean up after the tile was down.

We put our first heating mat in this bathroom. We were very careful not to break it while installing the tile and I did a little bit of wire rigging to test it out. It is going to be great! It will be so nice to step into a nice warm bathroom on a cold day! My kitchen will also have heated floors. :)

That's all the news for now. I am going to pick up some grout tomorrow and hopefully we'll get this floor 100% finished this week.

Oh...the hardwood floor guy is supposed to come out this week to fix his sanding job. I didn't get a chance to go check it out tonight...I'll try to stop out tomorrow night to see if he's been there.

Dad and I both have Friday off. So it should be a good weekend to work on the house. It's supposed to be 40 degrees on Thursday and mid to upper 40s on Friday! So maybe I'll be able to open the windows and put a second coat of varnish on them! It would be nice to have that out of the way.