Grouting

Just a few photos of the finished tile.

The picture rail has been removed and the walls are being re plastered, ceilings painted and the original woodwork is having a face lift.

 The holes in the tile are the heater vent and a wall plug.

The floor makes you dizzy if you look too hard, love the 1890's look of the tile.

Tedious Tile

Lesson learned: Subway tiles are hard to install, even for the most talented contractor. It has taken a week to get to this point, and still no grout. Though it seems a flushing toilet is just around the corner, I'm afraid the wall repairs, door jams, paint and clean-up will take us to Thanksgiving and still no flush. We will see.

Wall tiles go up, seat stills needs a fill.

Seat is filled and look at that straight line under the window sill. Seems like a little luck and a lot of magic.

What is wrong with this photo? Does the wall seem to be bigger on the right? 

Picture rail lower? What the heck?

 Turns out the tile is level, picture rail higher on right to make up for the ceiling being much higher on the right. What to do with this mess? Now that the tile is in, the irregularities pop!

Guest bedroom gets a new coat of paint. Love the new color.

The closet door on opposite wall is gone, drywall, primer and paint is going up. Still needs baseboards. So many details.

Colors, Curtains, Cubicles

The walls are getting their final coats of paint. Curtains and rugs have been ordered, and the tile is started. Our goal is to have a comfortable living room by Thanksgiving.

We went from 100 degree days to 36 degree nights in a matter of a week and now our "no heat" situation has become rather uncomfortable. We are gathering space heaters, blankets and searching the storage unit for our winter clothing. (no luck yet) There is snow on the mountains and frost in the air. We only live in two rooms, so it is pretty easy to keep those warm with the oven and one space heater. We have started baking cinnamon rolls in the morning and drinking hot toddies in the evening, to keep us warm.

We hope to be looking at our final 3 weeks for this phase. Progress photos....

Wool rug has interesting texture using loops and cut edges. This one will go in office, away from spills and blueberry stains.

The coordinated gray version will go in the living room, where we don't want to fuss too much over spills.

Cubicles: Our two tiny bathrooms are finally getting finished up. Tile is going in, slowly and methodically. Subway tile certainly has turned out to be challenging. Our contractor measures, checks horizontal and vertical position, preps and secures each tile individually with great care. They worked from the opposite sides of the bathroom and had to meet in the middle and hope that everything lined up perfectly. Here is a series of photos starting at the right side and working around to the left. You can see that one row of tiles touches to make the connection. They are hopeful that the process will go faster once they have a full horizontal row to build on.

Toilet side hugging the door.

moving around to the bath/shower.

Behind the bath, the tiles meet up with the one row coming from the other side.

The tiled "bathtub seat" is  giving them problems. They will build the seat up with more cement to allow for a clean corner from side to top.

The tiles continue under the future console sink and end back at the door opening. You can see how many levels, measures, cutters and tools this takes. It will last forever and be our bomb shelter if we ever need one. 

The other cubicle is 4 feet by 5 feet with 10 foot ceilings and has nothing in it except a beautiful coat of paint. The cabinets should be ready soon, the old re purposed door has been reframed, and the toilet is "at the ready" in our kitchen. It makes a nice conversation piece.