This past Saturday was a very productive day.  Kevin was here and lent his expertise the task of installing the floors.  He also trimmed down all our doors.  He brings 25+ (?) years of construction experience to our team.  I would have never thought that some of the interior doors needed to be cut a inch above the floor to allow the heated air to circulate!

The floor is manufactured by Ark Floors and Pop got a great deal on it.  It is hand scraped distressed oak.  The two ‘rooms’ that we did (dog house and guest bedroom) were done quickly and efficiently because we had the right tool!  The PowerNailer 445 is amazing.  You almost can’t make a mistake with this tool.  I say ‘almost’ because with my skillz I was able to make a couple of mistakes.  We have cork underlayment to deaden the sound of the floors.  Bonus : Cork is GREEN (http://www.corkfloor.com/benefits.html) I am helping to offset Al Gore’s carbon footprint. 

The guest bedroom.  Notice the hinges are empty?  Kevin’s working on the doors while I take pictures.

Who left the hammer on the floor?  We are piecing the closet together with any left overs.  There aren’t too many becuase we can use the short end of the finishing piece as the starting piece for the next row.

Inside the dog house closet.  You can see that the far wall has some black scuff marks from the rubber hammer.  The last row is a bit tight when putting it in.

While posting the previous entry this morning, I realized that I had missed a bunch of pictures.  So this evening I went around and took some pictures of the progress we have been making.

Kevin was helping us for 3 weekends.  He got all the doors hung and even custom cut the loft powderroom door.  Genius.  I struggled a bit (more than a bit) with getting the base board moulding correctly cut to length.  But Kevin schooled me in the secrets of the carpenter : “Putty and paint make me the carpenter that I ain’t”  Once I was able to take that nugget of wisdom to heart, everything went smoother and faster.

The tile in the master bathroom is done.  This was a long process, but finally got finished.  It was only later that I realized that I had not taken the test plugs out of the diverters in the shower!  Doh!  Hopefully the tile can be minimally removed to get the test plug out.  We also have a problem with the tub sitting (or more acurately, floating) correctly.  Right now it rock back and forth.  This might be fun for making waves in the tub, but I would really like to make it sit flat.  I think we are going to have to pull it out and adjust the cement that the tub is sitting on.  Thank goodness for hubless couplings.  On Sunday, I sealed the tile and the grout of both bathrooms, but didn’t have time to test it.  On Monday, Pop spilled a bottle of water and said that it all beaded together and didn’t soak in.  I guess that was as good fo a test as any.

In the picture below you can see the 3 4 5 colors Toby selected for the loft area.  The dark blue of the walls, the lighter blue of the stairwell, the barely not quite white of the ceiling, the bright white of the trim and the bold green of the powder room.  Whew!  I’m sure she can tell you what the real names of the color are.

The painters have the master bedroom primed for color.  They were almost 100% off on their estimate of how much primer was necessary.  We ended up using almost 20 gallons of primer.

The guest bathroom turned out really nice.  Yaya did a great job of selecting colors.  Pop did a great job with the shelf above the toilet alcove.

The guest bedroom.  Pop was inspired when he purchased rosettes for the corners of the door casings.  Not only do they look great, they made the door mouldings a breeze.

This past weekend (3 days, Labor Day included) we had painters working, working, working.  Between Yaya and Toby there are 11 different colors going on the walls and ceilings!  Below are some pictures of the loft and loft stairwell.

This blue looks not too much different from the original purple of the drywall.  Did we really need the paint?  Compare below:

The color on the loft walls is a different blue than the color on the stairwell walls.

The drywallers have finished.  They put on a great ‘smooth coat’.  We are prepping for paint next weekend.  The tile continues to be installed.  There was some question early on about 12″ tiles on the ceiling.  We decided to go with the 6″ tiles on the ceiling so that we have less of a chance of them falling down on us.

There have been full crews here for many days this week.