More SNAKES and tiling...

So Richard and I do our evening walk to Mom's and we find not one...but TWO more snakes - both tiny Western ringnecks. One is dead, the other is barely moving in the cold. We shooed it on its way and went on.

We also tiled the next wall in the bathroom. The tiny tiles you can barely see are single photos of Hovenweep of specific ruins. This is the result at the end of the day.

Tiling, Tiling, Tiling...

My mural arrived last week from TilePix

Ed was great to work with and made some good suggestions and I am VERY pleased with the mural. The mural is a photo taken by my Pa (and its copyrighted). We visited Hovenweep National Park three years ago and he took some awesome picutres!

Richard and I spent the entire day tiling the wall, placing the mural and putting in the corner soap dishes. There's a trick to the soap dishes - set them in on the tile, rather than trying to hang them from the tile!



Here is the Hovenweep photo in place on the wall.



This is the cropped photo to see it better.

Tiling the laundry room...

So we began tiling the laundry room last week. Seemed to be fairly simple. We'd done it before and with a quick refresher from a book we thought we were ready.

We did the largest wall first - tiling halfway up on the wall that would have the tub, the washer and the dryer against it. Richard had to cut and saw tiles to fit around the openings in the wall for the appliances.

When we got to the wall behind the door, we realized we couldn't continue unless we put the molding around the door first. Off we went to the hardware store to buy molding. Came back and attached the molding, then finished tiling that wall.

Then it started to rain. As it rained we discovered that the back door had a leak of some type. Richard caulked it really well, but next day, we had more water on the floor from the rain. After a discussion with Pa, the men figured that despite the caulk there was an inherent flaw in the door sill that even caulking more wouldn't fix (a rubber seal at the bottom allowed rain to capillary in). However, a storm door WOULD fix the problem and we had one laying in the living room to install later.

So, tiling stopped to get the storm door installed. What should've taken 15 minutes to a half hour took nearly two full days and two people. Although well made, the storm door comes with a variety of options because door sizes in houses are different - there is no standard! Moldings had to be cut, shims had to be placed and Pa eventually had to manufacture an aluminum strip so the door would close properly.

In the meantime, Richard and I had already purchased the cement board flooring to do the floor tiles. At about the same time we realized we needed a storm door, Richard talked with the electrician and discussed the dryer vent and where it would go. Because of the way the house was built, the vent would have to go in the floor. Richard would have to drill a four inch hole and get the sleeves for all the ductwork. So we did that.

Finally, we commenced with finishing up the tiling of the walls. Because the other side of the room would have only the water softener and water heater on it, we decided that wall didn't need to be fully tiled. We just put a line two tiles high around the perimeter.



Richard starts tiling the wall.



This is the back door and the storm door. See all the pretty tiling behind it?



Echo the supervisor gives a quality check to our work. The doorway she is standing in goes directly into the foyer/great room and will have wooden swinging saloon doors someday.

We still have to tile the floor and then we'll grout the entire job. After that cures for 24 hours, the plumber will come in and hook up the water softener, water heater and laundry tub.

Priming and Painting

We are to the priming and painting stage! The end is in sight!

Okay, there's still a lot of work to do but its going much faster.

Richard primed and painted the laundry room while we were in the city. Becky, Richard and I primed and painted the office. The laundry room is a lovely sky blue color called Falling Waters. My office is a soft smoke color called Twilight Gray. I should've painted it white for the quilting but I went with what I liked. There are four recessed lights and two sconces in the room, plus I'll have a work light and probably another lamp by my desk so true color for quilting shouldn't be too hard.



Richard primed the ceiling yesterday and we both primed the walls in the great room. Today he is painting the ceiling. Later, I'll go in and help him. We selected a very pale brown/red color called Weathered Sandstone for the walls.

Attic Insulation and Sheetrock finishing

The sheetrockers finished hanging the sheetrock. We then called in the finishers to do the mudding of all the seams and cracks. They do a preliminary quick patch and paper, then another layer of mud, then another layer of mud and then they sand it to a smooth finish. We had to wait a day or two between layers for it to dry. Drying was delayed by the rain, which we needed.

On the last day as the mudders were sanding, the insulation truck arrived. This truck has a machine in the back and a hopper to load the bales of fiberglas insulation. The machine blows the cotton-like fluff into the attic. This fiberglas is much different than the stuff of old which was itchy and left miniscule slivers of glass in skin as it cut into a person.




This is the truck with the door open and the hosing in place.




Another shot with the insulation truck and the mudders' truck in front of the house.