Kitchen tiled and grouted!

Exciting!














(View from hall way)















(View from loft)
The hall and front entry will be done next week. :)
Then someday it will be kitchen cabinets and countertops.

Merry Christmas-Main floor tile is in progress

Merry Christmas!!!

Yes, I actually decorate this year.....outside and in 2 rooms. The rest of the house is still in various stages of construction. (As y0u can see, I adopted another dog, Sadie on Halloween from a local shelter. She is a 4-5 year old Shih Tzu mix. She seems to have adjusted to her new home and gets along very well with Tawny, my 12 year old Poodle/Miniature American Eskimo mix.





They started prepping for tile on the main floor this week. This required pulling up more subfloor in some areas, patching and screwing subfloor down in others. This picture shows the hardiboard cut and ready to be installed.















Hopefully most of the tile will be down and grouted by New Years! :)

Upstairs loft family room is now livable!

Progress continues and I am very excited. The upstairs loft now has a kids corner,














lots of seating, my home office,














and entertainment options! As long as you can climb stairs, there is now a very relaxing space in my house. :)

June Interior Work

Mom has come down twice in the past month to help out with interior projects. We have focused mainly on painting and light installations.
Mom painted the ceiling in the master bedroom (some spots took 3 coats because this is where we sprayed the doors and there was a lot of over-spray on the ceiling) and helped me install a ceiling light/fan and a closet light.



















We also put a ceiling light/fan in the upstairs family room.



















We also sanded, primed, sanded again and painted the family room floor and stairs as a stop-gap until I can afford to install hardwood and carpet.



















Lastly we worked on the front door, which is now red! I still have to finish prepping and painting the door surround, but we are one step closer. :)

And there was light....after 5 months

For the past 5 months, I've been trying to the get the fabulous looking light I bought for the stairwell and the can light in the basement hallway to work. Ladders, multi-meters, pliars, etc have been used by many people to assist me in this undertaking. I mentioned it to my brother Ruel while talking about the progress on my house. He said he'd take a stab at it while in town this weekend. Well it took an hour, and we put his masters in electrical engineering from Standford to use, to figure out that the 3-way wire had a disruption it in and the can light was even connected to the switches.













As you can see after the line was put in someone cut it almost all the way through with just a small section of the outside covering remaining intact. We made a trip to the hardware store for the wiring and add more tools (dad'sDeWalt VSN Hammer Drill, a 2' (foot not inches) long auger bit, phishing line, flashlight, etc.) Four holes in the subfloor and 45 minutes later, Ruel caught a glimpse of a 2X4 cross brace, which explained why all our attempts to phish the line went to the left from the bottom and the right from the top.

































In the end, it was the utility knife, pliers and Ruel's brute strength that were needed to phish the line through the brace into the storage room and then we just had to feed it through the existing holes in the floor joists past the break to a new junction box we put in. Ta Da! Four hours later Phase 1 is done. (Sorry Kevin & Mel for the delay in getting to the hospital to see Declan. Obviously it took a lot longer than we originally thought.)




















Next I need to phish one more line down to connect the hall way light and we'll be done......with this project. :)

Little by Little

Mom and dad have come about every 6 weeks to help with painting, installing lights, etc. In between I plug away. Last weekend I put finishing touches on the front coat closet-installed the bar, added shelf paper and bins, hung the door and put the door handle on. I gained at least 12 inches in my closet for clothes now that the coats are out. Yeah!

The tarp is gone; Hello, garage door!

Not only does it look great, but the opener is fantastic. I can barely hear it.