Cabinets, Tiling, Carpet, Door, etc...

Lots of progress this weekend! We did a bit more prep for tiling in both the guest bathroom...

 ... and the laundry room ...

Next, we put carpet in the walk-in closet in the master suite:

The big project though was tiling the master bathroom! It took a good part of the day just to lay out and cut the tile. A good tile saw with a water-cooled diamond blade makes the straight cuts easy, though cutting holes for plumbing is still a real challenge even with a tungsten-carbide drill bit.

After prepping the tile, we used a notched trowel to lay out the thin set and then set the tile using these nifty little spacers called TileJax! They make getting good even grout lines very easy, and are reusable. After letting the tile harden for about a day, we then applied the grout and ended up with pretty nice results.

After getting the tile set, we hung the closet door, a nice six panel solid cherry door. Quite heavy!

Today, I did the final wipe-down of the tile floor. You always end up with a bit of grout dust on the tile no matter how well you wipe down during the install:

It shines up real nice after another wipe down with a damp sponge after the grout has had a day or so to dry:

Color!

Over the weekend, with the help of some wonderful people, I got many rooms in the house painted.

Above is the 2nd bedroom, which will be used as an office initially. Below is one of the kitchen walls.

Next, the master bedroom. The vaulted ceilings (12 feet at the peak) made it a bit tricky but we got it done.

Both bathrooms were painted as well, in a lighter shade, seen below.

Driveway

With warmer weather today, along with some rain, the driveway was set to become a muddy mess. Fortunately, we got some crush rock down which helps a lot, and will become a good base for the eventual asphalt.

Doors and floors

For the past few days we've been working on a number of items, including simply bringing finish materials and tools on site.

This includes wood trim and solid wood doors. These are all purchased unfinished, so we have been finishing them with Watco Natural Danish Oil. Penetrating oil is a much nicer and easier product to work with than varnish!

Most of the light fixtures are now installed and operational, which makes it possible to work into the wee hours of the night. The most recent project was starting the tiling process of the master bathroom.

With the doors out of the way, we setup in the bedroom to measure and cut the cement board as needed. After stapling down a simple vapor barrier, the cement boards are then screwed through the subfloor with masonry screws.

We are using Durock Cement Board which is a bit lighter than most cement board products, making it easier to work with and install, while still providing a very strong and stiff base for the ceramic tile.

Sunny day before the snow comes

Just a nice little panorama shot of the front of the house.

The house faces North-East, so I've gotta be up early to get a shot with the sun behind me!

Lighting

Most of the lighting fixtures have now been installed upstairs.

 The chandelier fixtures are from Menards and the small mini-track lights are from IKEA.

 

Most fixtures are on dimmer switches, adding flexibility. The track lights use small halogen bulbs which work great with dimmers.