Week 25 (+1 day)

More progress this week. Apologies to our friends who look forward to catching up with the project on Mondays; Labor Day felt like a continuation of Week 25, so I thought I should just post it along with everything else.


Monday

On Monday, the tile floor was sealed:

Well, sort of. I asked about some spots that still looked unsealed, and the head tile setter reported that it hadn't been done properly. He went back & did it himself on Tuesday.

Said tile setter also made great progress on Monday:

We were expecting the tile to stop around 4 feet high, so were surprised that he was apparently planning to go all the way to the ceiling. We talked to Mr. Bunkport's guys on Tuesday morning to find out why. Turns out, the reason was related to their having to build out the walls slightly to meet the tub, to avoid water problems later. They agreed that perhaps the full wall was a little too much, and we ended up with them pulling three rows down to arrive at a height around six feet.

Tuesday

They finished the tile on Tuesday:

If you look closely above the tile (click on the image to blow it up), you can see how the wall bumps out about an inch.

Another detail: they finished the corners with this brushed nickel strip:

Looks great!

Meanwhile, they were hard at work on the kitchen counter & tub front, building a worktable for them in the garage:

Very exciting to see it coming together!

And that afternoon, Pickles had a nap in the sun, in her once favorite/favorite again room:

Wednesday

On Wednesday, another piece of exterior trim appeared:

And more progress on the counter:

They also primed the walls upstairs:

And down:

Thursday

The counter & tub front got one step closer to done:

Friday

On Friday, they added an edge strip to the counter:

And installed the tub piece:

Saturday

Sheet rock guy had to come again on Saturday to do some additional work, including finishing off that bumped-out wall in the bathroom:

They offered to have the painter come again to re-prime on Sunday, but I had actually managed to buy paint and round up very kind & willing friends to help us paint over the long weekend, so I said we'd just do it ourselves, so that we weren't waiting around all morning for the painter to arrive.

Sunday

Amanda joined us Sunday morning, and we hit the ground running, putting a light cream color on the walls in the kitchen and sun room:

And painting some stools generously given to us by our friend Robin:

We painted them the same red as the accent wall that Adrienne has always wanted in the kitchen:

We did another wall on the other side of the room, as well. And Adrienne, disgusted by the grungy freezer door that refused to come clean (and clearly drunk on the color red), did this:

It was a very long day, but we finished! We chose these particular colors to play up the warm light we get in the afternoon. It looks pretty great.

Labor Day

Both Amanda & Susie joined us to do the downstairs on Labor Day. We started with priming the bathroom:

There are no lights in the new room yet, so we used this 1000 watt lamp to light our work. It was like painting next to the sun.

After priming, we put the same cream color on the walls downstairs (same idea: play up the warm afternoon light):

After that, we moved on to the bathroom, painting two walls & the ceiling a bright white:

Meanwhile, the dog was absolutely no help at all:

People still painting:

Dog still sleeping:

After the white, we put a nice blue on two of the walls:

This is the same blue that we put in Adrienne's office, & which was generously given to us by Amanda & Matt.

More painting:

More lounging in the sun:

I didn't take any photos of the finished cream walls, because even though the trim is white, it's too hard to see the contrast in the photos, & I didn't want to bore you. Here is the finished bathroom, though:

Enormous thanks to Amanda & Susie, who gave up their time this weekend to help us get this done!

We were so happy to have finished the painting, and so tired, I didn't think we would get to tackle reassembling the kitchen. But Adrienne soldiered on, and I was so inspired by her fortitude that I followed suit.

I mentioned in Week 23 that most of the stuff that normally lives in the kitchen is currently in the dining room. This is the horror we've been living with:

Here is the dining room after we finished as much as we could (given that there is still some more work to be done by Bunkport & Company):

We have a kitchen again!

Up through this week, one of us has been able to take noise-sensitive Mrs. Pickles out & away to Amanda's & Matt's basement. Unfortunately, Adrienne is back to work & I need to go back to the office this week -- that means that the dog will be here alone & that means, in turn, that Monday-Friday work has to stop. We're both worried about what this means for the timeline, but there's no way around it. Mr. Bunkport doesn't seem overly concerned about it, so we're just hoping for the best.

Up next...at some point: kitchen counter & electrician!