Day Thirty Four

I'm glad Tammy brought up the question of the tile last night. Had she not done that we most likely would've taken delivery of our furniture only to be horrified to find that there was no way we were going to make it work. If you're not sure what I'm talking about you'll have to read yesterday's post. Anyway, I fiddled with some graph paper and some measurements at work this morning trying to find a way to make some or all of our furniture work with the room dimensions but I kept coming up empty. I left work at 8:00am and headed for home to show Tammy and Dan what it looked like on paper. Tammy and I decided the best thing to do would be to go to Keith's shop and make some cardboard templates of our furniture. I did that and brought them down to the basement and it looked even worse than it did on paper. Next stop, Schneiderman's.

I got to Schneiderman's and found our salesman. He felt bad that the drawing was so far off and agreed with me that there was nothing we could do to make the furniture fit the room. We played around with several different possibilities for the room but neither of us was sold on any of them. We took a walk back to a couch with an angled end seat (it sort of matches the angle of the bar) and I immediately thought it may have some possibilities for us. It will seat four people somewhat crowded but it will be just fine for the three of us. I called Tammy to drive over and have a look. She actually likes it better than what we'd originally ordered. It's tan and I'm not sure I'm all that thrilled with the color but the salesman said to get it home, try it out and if we don't like it we can order one in a different color. Sold.

Dan and John were busy laying the rest of the tile. It's all in place with the exception of the tile for the bathroom walls. John did a nice job of making some complex cuts around the shower base and some other plumbing. It looks real good. The trickier part of the day was trying to draw an arc for the tile to follow as it worked its way from one area to the next. We wanted it to have a free flow to it without any abrupt angles. Dan used his tape measure as a giant compass and we all agreed we should have paid more attention in 7th grade geometry. After a couple of tries we finally came upon an arc which worked. They'll let the tile set overnight and cut out the arcs tomorrow.

Also in the works for tomorrow will be the installation of the central vac and framing the doorway into the glass shop for the new 6 paneled door.

Day Thirty Three

Dan put in an eleven hour day today. John was called back to Champion Air for some seasonal mechanic work so he won't be able to help much with the rest of the project. He did say he'd be able to help out tomorrow though and I'm sure that's good news for Dan.

Today saw the pendant lights get hung. They add a nice touch to the room. I told Dan I was going to send him a link to the place we got them. Here's the link, Dan...The company is Belacore. We did a Google search for pendant lights and this place had the best selection in our opinion. It turns out they're located in the cities here...I think Mendota Heights. The bathroom vanity light was also hung today. Tammy picked this out at Home Depot. It has sort of a rustic look to it and we thought that would go well with the sauna so close by...I dunno...I think saunas are sort of rustic.

While we were hanging the pendants, Dan commented that a pleated shade of some sort would look nice over the window. I hadn't really given it much thought but after he suggested that I ran it by Tammy and she agreed. Rachel and I hopped in the truck and headed for Home Depot to seek out and order a shade. Before we left we all agreed a medium brown would look nice there and we found one right away. It's on order and will be in by the 21st...thanks for the tip, Dan. I always figured we'd do some sort of stained glass design over the window but I like this idea better. There will be enough stained glass once we finish the projects for the cabinets...for which we still have no idea what sort of design we're going to do. We'll have the rest of the winter to figure that out.

Dan spent the last several hours of the day installing tile. It's looking very nice. He even took the time to show me how it's done. I'd have jumped in and tried my hand at it but I don't want to slow him down. I was telling him that it looks like it has some similarities to the stained glass work we do. You can't afford to get sloppy.

We had to leave for a school choir concert of Rachel's so we left Dan behind working on the tile. When we got back he had quite a bit of it done...that's when Tammy noticed that she thinks we're one tile too wide. We did some measurements and determined that if we use the existing width, the back of our love seat will be on the tile while the front will be on the carpet. As it works out now the carpet is figured for a twelve foot width and will have no seems. What we really need is a thirteen foot width of carpet. Tammy will explain our dilemma to Dan in the morning. I hate to have him undo anything he's already done but I think this is an important change for us to make. It will cause the carpet guys to have to have a seem in their run but I'm thinking most of the seem will be covered by the entertainment center. The part which will be visible will be along a back wall and shouldn't be a problem. Sorry Dan...I hope this isn't a big problem. :(

edit...

I had to add to this post I wrote last night. I went to bed last night thinking about the tile and the fit of the furniture. I got out of bed at 11:45 and went downstairs with a measuring tape to lay some things out. We'd been working off a floor plan the salesman at Schneiderman's had copied for us. It all looks good on his plan but after doing my own measuring I can see where his is not to scale. In fact it looks like it's off by 25%...meaning, what was an okay fit before is now no longer doable. I've been playing around with a few different scenarios but I don't care for any of them. I think we may need to consider some sort of sectional rather than the sofa, end table, chair plan we have now. Tammy won't be too happy when I break the news to her this morning. Oh, isn't this fun...and just when we thought we had it all figured out. I'm a bit doubtful that a sectional will work either as I just don't think there's room for it without cutting back more on the width of the tile run. The one plan which works best so far is to drop the over-sized chair and just go with the sofa and one end table positioned directly in front of the tv. Maybe we could throw a couple of bean bags around for kids to sit on when Rachel has friends over. Keith was amused when I told him all this and welcomed me to his world...gee, thanks.

Day Thirty Two

Dan and I did a walk through of the basement this morning and made decisions about which lights we wanted on dimmers. I had some errands to run and I was able to save Dan a trip to Menards while I was out. He gave me a list of a bunch of electrical things to buy...switches, covers, eyeballs, etc. I came home to see the trim rings in around the canned lights and the wall sconces up. I don't really care for this photo but it's the best my camera would do. Putting in the switches took up most of the rest of the day.

Our last pendant light showed up today just in time. Dan will work on hanging those tomorrow along with the bathroom vanity light. Tile goes down tomorrow too.

Day Thirty One

I hope it's a long, long time before I see another paint brush. I spent nearly every waking hour of my weekend trying to get it wrapped up before I had to go back to work. For some silly reason I figured I'd be able to have the job done by late Friday...no way. Thank God...and I seriously mean that for sending me back into our furnace/utility room early this morning. I don't know why I was back there but larger than life I happened to notice two brand new Paint Sticks leaning up against the wall. Dan recommended I buy them to use for painting the walls. I did just that but I forgot all about them when it came time to paint. Anyway, they're truly a God send. There is no way I would've gotten as far as I did today without them. A paint stick is a paint roller on a long handle. What's different about it is that the handle holds paint. It's very cool...there is a cover which sits over the paint bucked which the paint stick attaches to. Pull back on the handle of the paint stick and it sucks paint up into the handle. You apply paint to the roller by pushing in on the handle. The handle is clear so you can see how much paint is remaining. It's so much faster than continually going back to the paint tray for more paint. You can really cruise with it once you get a feel for it. They're only $16 and worth every penny and more.

Another nice gadget Dan told me about is a corner roller. I'd apply a quick bead of paint with a brush in the corners and then come along with the little roller and apply a strip 3" wide on either side. What's nice about the corner roller is that you can load a lot more paint onto it than you can a brush. It's a nice time saver which gives a better finished look than a brush. I also used it together with a straight edge along the ceiling to apply a 3" strip there. Once you've got the corners and ceiling cut in it makes quick work for the paint stick to finish the wall.

I must confess that I did lose my temper at least once tonight when for the umpteenth time I tripped over the halogen light. I can't believe that would happen as it's so bright. I think that's it...it's so bright that it actually blinds you to where it is and you just don't look toward it not realizing it's right under your feet. I'd lay in bed at night and see its light when I'd close my eyes.

Tammy came home from work and helped me out for a few hours. We jammed to the sounds of David Gilmour, Joe Satriani, Bob Segar, Frampton and a few other names from years gone by. I had to get to Fleet Farm before they closed for a gallon of paint for the bathroom. We gathered up a piece of the wall tile and our counter top sample for comparison and got over there with a few minutes to spare. We found a lighter brown/rust color which I'm hoping will be okay once we get the room together. I got home and painted the first coat leaving the final coat for morning. I'm really looking forward to getting back to my day job tomorrow. I'm very burned out but it's nice to have this job behind me.

Day Thirty

This morning came very early for me. I was hoping to make some progress before Dan and John showed up so I could get out of their way as I knew they wanted to get back to work on the bathroom floor. I'm pretty sure the last thing they wanted to see was me down there spraying. John came by first and met me downstairs. Allie came down to greet him but Toby was upstairs whining. I went up to find him stuck between the railings as he was trying to get around the barricade we set up to keep them from going down in the basement. Allie is so small she can get through but not Toby...he's a bit fat. Anyway, Toby got to see John and all was well. Dan showed up and he and John proceeded to offload tile into the garage. I stayed downstairs and sprayed. I thought maybe they'd left but a little while later they came down and told me they were going to help me paint. "Really?...great!" I didn't want to bother them with it but I also couldn't tell them no. I very much appreciated the help. Plus, Dan did a better job with the sprayer than I was doing. John and I worked behind him rolling the paint in. Rolling it is necessary to get the paint applied evenly as well as giving it a nice finished look. A couple hours later and the primer was done as well as painting the ceiling.

After they left I got busy applying paint to the walls. I knew that whatever I didn't get done tonight would have to be done tomorrow so it was in my best interest to get as much done as I could. I worked till 9:30pm before finally saying 'uncle'. I'd had enough and my eyes were giving out on me plus I was getting real tired of tripping over the halogen lamp I was toting around next to me so I could better see my work. I was able to get the first coat of paint applied to Rachel's dance room and half of the main south wall in the other room. I think the most putzy part of the job was the trim along the top of the walls next to the ceiling. I was able to load up my 4" brush with paint and run a fairly straight line. I tried using the straight edge I'd bought on Dan's recommendation but it didn't work so well for me. Tammy will come behind me and touch up any spots which need it.

Day Twenty Nine

Today was a frustrating day for Dan. The self leveling compound on the floor in the bathroom began to crack and deteriorate. Dan put the compound down over the heated coils for the floor. I first noticed it last night when I stepped in there and the floor felt spongy. I didn't make much of it as the light was out but I did notice some cracks in the cement. We're still not sure exactly what happened. It's possible the compound was mixed with too much water when it went down and it didn't set up correctly but that's just a guess. Before working on the basement I'd painted the walls and a 2 foot width of the floor along the walls with a moisture barrier paint. For whatever reason, the self leveling compound adhered fine where it was applied over their paint. Anyway, we've decided to forgo the heated floor as we're all a little concerned that the same thing might happen again and if it does the tile will be down and that would be a much bigger problem.

I went to Home Depot and rented a paint sprayer. I had high hopes for getting the rooms all prepped and the primer applied before Dan and John showed up the next morning but I didn't make it. The prep work took much longer than I planned and by the time I began spraying it was 9:00pm. I'd been up since 4:30am and was quickly running out of energy...I packed it in at 10:30. I knew this was going to be a big job.

Tammy worked at getting all the gunk and scraps off the floor. There is so much dust in our house that it's almost laughable. I don't think Tammy's finding much to laugh about though but we knew this would happen. Dan and John both commented that they'd never seen quite this much dust in any of their previous jobs. They said it was a combination of sheetrock sanding and taking up the self leveling compound in the bathroom.

Today was a long day for all of us.

Day Twenty Eight

 
There wasn't any activity on the project yesterday as Dick had to be at another site to hang drywall. There isn't much for Dan to do until the drywall is done. Dick arrived this afternoon to spray the 'knockdown' ceilings. He had a slow start as his gun was acting up. A friend of his came by and together they made quick work of the job. I'd never watched the knockdown process and I'm guessing it looks easier than it is.

I stopped by Home Depot and picked up some supplies for painting...respirator, rollers, brush, straight edge and other miscellaneous stuff. I'll be renting a sprayer from Home Depot to help the job along.

Dick is still here as I write this and I don't suppose he'll be out of here much before 7:00 tonight. He says that tomorrow he should be done with the entire job by late morning to early afternoon. Getting the floors cleaned up will be nice so Toby and Allie can run around downstairs without getting full of dust.

I finished cutting glass for the lamp tonight. Tammy will see how much of it she can get ground tomorrow. I'm thinking I probably won't be able to find the time to solder it for another week or so. We still haven't given much thought to what sort of design we're going to do for the stained glass in the cabinets. Eventually we'd like to have windows which we'll change out depending on the time of year. Maybe something for Christmas, Spring, Fall or whatever.