The Doors - Day 123

I couldn't help myself with today's title... The Doors are one of my favorite musical groups, and on Day 123, Friday the 27th, the shipment of our new doors arrived, along with all of the wood trim.

The deliverymen brought in doors of all sizes, each of them already set in their own door jams. A couple of them caught me off guard because they were huge sets of double doors.

I couldn't remember where they went and almost told the guys they weren't ours, and then I remembered that we had a hall closet and an expanded closet in Grace's old room that needed them.A couple other closets required some smaller doors, but then the rest were all the same size. They're all really nice quality, sturdy doors.

I also had to check on the progress of the tile in the bathrooms. The masons were doing all of the grout work for each of the rooms.

The whole process of grouting is dirty work, but the end result can provide dramatic contrast or nearly seamless flow, depending on the shades used.

We're using a much lighter grout in our master bathroom since we're installing Carrera marble in there.

We're using darker shades of white or gray in the other bathrooms, which have gray or darker colors of marble or porcelain tile on the floors.

Things are looking good and starting to really come together.

Day 122

We just endured a couple more days of "Snowmageddon" in which we saw less than even measurable snow and sleet that resulted in two missed 'snow days' for Grace. I have a feeling it also slowed the progress at the house, but certainly some stuff got done.

The most progress was in the laundry room upstairs, which now has a floor. We put in ceramic wood-grained tile because we like the look but wanted the durability to deal with spilling detergent, bleach, water or whatever.

I think it turned out nice. You can see the contrast between the floor and the cabinets, but there will also be a nice contrast once the the hardwood floors are stained.

The crew also finished most of the tile in the master bathroom, including the half-wall in the shower.

I took a few shots from different angles in the room to give better perspective.

One of the shots is from in the WC, looking out toward the shower and the picture window where the tub will eventually be.

They also finally installed the tile in the shower wall in Grace's bathroom, including the neat pattern with the mirrored tiles to give her space a little 'bling' to it.

More to come...
Flip

Day 119

The start of a new week, Monday, February 23rd is day 119 of our renovation. Tomorrow will officially be the 4 month mark of Project 713.

The carpentry guys unofficially finished installing the cabinets. There are a few things that need to be tidied up, but overall everything looks great. We've got our first look at the cabinets surrounding the refrigerator and the built-in microwave/convection oven that will be above a counter-top.

This is a look at the butler pantry and the space on the far left is where the wine fridge will go. You can see the space in the middle for the small sink.

They also went back into the upstairs laundry room and put in a support for the counter at the back of the room.

The masons came back to finish working on the tile in the master bathroom. Below you can see they've almost completely tiled in our shower. It will have glass walls on two sides.

By the look of things, they may start doing some grout work tomorrow, but they still have to lay the tile in the laundry room so they may just wait until that's finished before grouting everything.

Cheers,

Flip

Show Us Your Drawers - Day 116 & 117

We've arrived at Friday, February 20th and it's Day 116 of Project 713. The cabinetry has been delivered and we're starting to get a good look at how all of that space in the kitchen and entertaining area is going to start filling in. The carpenters started by installing our built-in bookshelves and storage on the wall for the entertainment center. It's cabinets along the bottom and shelves on either side of the where the TV will be.

In the kitchen, you can see where we've got the island going in. It looks nice with the light gray cabinets and it will have a custom counter-top that's being worked on as we speak. The gray color will give it a nice effect as if it were floating above the floor.

Taking a look at the cabinets in the far wall of the kitchen, you can see the spaces for some of the appliances. The dishwasher will be to the left of those windows and the sink will be centered under the windows. Our oven and stovetop with an exhaust fan will be just to the right of the windows.

The picture below is the butler pantry. The pieces haven't all been put in, but eventually the our glasswear and crystal will be in those mounted cabinets which will have glass doors. There will be a wine fridge on the left side of the counter and there will be small sink in the center, beneath the window.

I ended up going back to take some more pictures on Saturday morning when there was more daylight. Here's a look at the laundry room cabinets. The second picture was taken from out in the hallway.

The next pictures below are of the master bathroom's vanity and you can also see the tile continues into the water closet.

I also took a few more pictures in the kitchen/entertaining area from different angles so that it gives you a different perspective of the sight lines from the sink area across to the TV wall.

You can see that there's plenty of open space from one side to the other, but the island will clearly be a gathering place when we have company over. That was definitely key for us in our planning.

The carpenters will be back on Monday to finish off the installation and the masons will also be back to finish up tiling in the bathrooms.

Cheers!

Snowmageddon 2015!

The temperatures are dipping dangerously low here in the Deep South! We're in the 20's and dropping precipitously, on our way to the low teens or even single digits, when what to my wondering eyes does appear? Snow!

It snowed very hard for at least 20 minutes or so. Enough that it was actually starting to accumulate on cars and was blowing around in the street.

Of course the dogs absolutely loved it. I shot a bit more video of the snow down at our little neighborhood park where I usually end our evening walks with a little off-leash time.

Back to Work - Day 112

After the President's Day weekend, it was back to work for me and the tile crew as well. Monday the 16th was Day 112 of Project 713.

The guys have made a lot of progress in all of the bathrooms. They've put down all of the bonding material, the tile and spacers in all four rooms.

They've also put in the subway tile for the showers in the guest rooms upstairs and on the first floor.

The master bathroom will take a bit longer, as you might expect, since it has a bit more intricate floor work as well as the custom shower and then some more decorative patterns on the walls.

The shot above was taken while the mason was making sure he had enough tile for the floor of the shower. Here's a nice shot below of the finished product, plus you can see that he was able to create a nice diamond pattern with the marble floor.

They've made some progress but there's still a ways to go with the walls and then of course all of the grout. It's just nice to see how our color and pattern selections are working out.

Oh, and in case you're wondering- the picture below was Grace's class project in which she was supposed to make an animal out of recycling products.

You're looking at her creation, "Graham" the Gator. He's made from a plastic cupcake container, a cardboard pizza box, a plastic powder cappuccino mix container, Pringles cans, plastic Perrier bottles, toilet paper roles and duct tape. I know, right?! She chose a Gator? No respect...

Winter Break Ski Trip

The President's Day long weekend doubles as the 'Winter Break' for the Atlanta Public Schools system, so we were looking for something fun to do on Sunday. Fortunately, a group of parents with kids all around the same age got the idea to go on a group ski trip up to western North Carolina, to a small outfit called Sapphire Valley Ski Resort.

Since around 75% of the children had never skied before or were beginners, this place was perfect because there was a bunny hill, a tubing hill and then a very modest adult hill.

Grace had never skied before, so she took part in the group lesson with the rest of the newbies.

They started them out with the basics, such as their stance and even just moving around on one ski.

By the end of the lesson, they were cruising down the bunny slope on just their skis, and no poles. In the picture below, that's me on the right with the gray jacket chaperoning her and a friend down the slope.

Grace was a little tentative at first, but by lunchtime she'd gotten her confidence up and she worked up the courage to try the 'big' slope. The video below is Grace's last trip down the 'bunny' slope before going "big time!"

She made it down probably 6 or 7 times without any major bumps or bruises. In the picture below, Grace is posing with her friend Sophia who is a pretty experienced skier. They had just finished a wicked run down the main slope.

However, on about the 4th or 5th run, another parent with his son got out of control and totally slammed into Grace, knocking her over. I was right there, so I was able to get her up quickly and make sure she understood that wasn't normal slopes behavior and NOT her fault.

All in all, she had a great day and will probably make major improvements and enjoy skiing from now on. The picture below is Grace and some of her friends, tuckered out from skiing, waiting for their dinner at Cracker Barrel.

Valentine's Day - Day 110

It's Valentine's Day and I love the fact that the tiling of the bathrooms has begun!
The crew finished up putting the cement-board in the shower of the master bathroom.

The rest of the shipment of tile arrived so I helped the guys make sure they delivered the boxes to the correct rooms. Below is some of the pre-fab patterned tile for the master shower.

Below are the boxes of all of the subway tile that will be strongly featured throughout several of the bathrooms.

I checked in on the progress a couple of times and here's what got finished that day.

The mason also started putting the decorative tile pieces together to start putting that shower floor in.

I'm not sure how much more they got finished over the weekend because I was out of town on Sunday, so I'll be back next week to document the progress.
I'll have some fun pictures from a short ski trip on Sunday to show, though.
Flip