Brick-a-brac

Today was Day 5 of our tiling adventure. (In our defense, not all of them were full days.) We still have work to do in the shower and on the front of the tub, but it's coming along. John successfully completed the difficult cut around the shower head fixture (you can see it best in the left-hand photo). The rough edges of the cut will be covered with a small chrome cover. It's going to look great. The temperature control piece below it will be a challenge, too. I'm sure we'll figure it out. And by "we" I mean John. The cutting tool he's using is a violent, aggressive thing, and I'm happy to let him wrestle with it.

Treads preview

We dropped by our stairbuilder's workshop this afternoon and got a sneak preview of our beautiful maple stair treads. There are 29 of them in total, and they are gorgeous. They will be stained a medium-toned reddish brown to coordinate with the rest of the woods in the house. The underside of each tread has been cut to exactly match the size of the steel steps (the treads in the photos are upside down so you can see the cuts). There are still a few dirty jobs left to do on the house, so these lovely pieces will not be installed until later in September. We can't wait!

Movin' on up

We put in another seven hours tonight on the bathroom tiles, and made it almost to the very top of the wall. At this rate, it will likely take us another 20 hours to finish the job. Yikes. On the bright side, though, we're pretty happy with how they're turning out so far.

Stairs to the basement!

The interior and exterior stairs to the basement were installed today, and they look great. The interior stairs, in the left photo, lead to the ever-decreasing jam storage area (surely they must be finished pushing out my condiments with mechanical equipment by now). The exterior stairs, in the right photo, lead to the bachelor apartment we hope to rent out sometime in the winter.

Amateur hour

After some encouragement and helpful tips from our builder, John and I started tiling our third-floor bathroom tonight. After going to so much trouble to pick our tiles, we were nervous about ruining them, but Patrick bolstered our spirits.

Phase 1 of our tiling adventure has taught us a few things:

1) Tiling is 20 per cent tile setting, 80 per cent cleaning. I have mortar in places you don't want to imagine.

2) It is extremely time-consuming to clean dried cement off of tiles. We will not allow mortar to dry on tiles in phase 2 of our tiling odyssey.

3) Our marriage will probably survive finishing our bathroom.

Our first three and a half rows turned out pretty well. The tiles actually look like bricks, which was the goal. The next row is a decorative listel, which has a few different colours in it. This listel border will wrap around the tub and shower. We're aiming to put in the listel and finish the rest of the rear wall tomorrow.

Tile on!

Party in the back

When our steel worker bailed on us, the Botan crew stepped up and took on the work to complete the exterior and the roof. They installed the inset panel on the rear of the house today, and we really like how it looks. The white trim you see in the photo will be painted the same brown as the steel.

As the exterior design comes to life, you can see why we call our place the Mullet House. The front is very traditional, while the back is more modern. Business in the front, party in the back!

Taping and mudding

Not all of the drywall boards are up, but the taping and mudding has begun in several areas where they are. We hope that this step will be finished by the end of the week so that the painters can begin next week.