Shop (-vac) Till You Drop!

It's been a while since I have posted much about the house.  Yes, we're still working on it.  Yes, there is still a lot to do.  Yes, I'm still having fun.  This month we have been having fun with floors.  Admittedly, the fun has been broken up with hard labor and adhesive.

I think it's already been said that we found our flooring for the majority of the main floor - a ceramic tile.  It wasn't what we were shopping for on the fifth in Santa Fe, but we came home with 2500 pounds of tile and at least ten pounds of relief for having finally decided on something.  The debate between wood, tile, a combination...really, how many times can we say, "I don't know; what do you want?"

They are 18"x18" and vary from tile to tile - some greenish tints, grays, etc.

 

That same weekend we loaded and unloaded 2500 pounds of tile, we also started on the bathroom floors.  It seems like years ago that we picked up odds and ends of commercial linoleum tile.  We'd accrued some light blue, a gray/brown, and turquoise.  Turns out that a box of turquoise had some gold in it, too - yes!  I can't remember if I planned it that way, as I had eyed that color also.  We picked those up for about ten cents apiece at the ReStores, figuring we'd use them in the bathrooms and mud room.  I had all these ideas of patterns in my head, which Tom was ready to toss out the window way back when for the labor of cutting the tiles.  We discovered they cut well on the table saw, and my designs came to be...

 

The guest bathroom - clawfoot tub on the far end; toilet, sink, and linen closet on the right side.

Tom quartered the large tiles, and we set it at an angle for our bathroom.

We ran out of adhesive after finishing the guest bathroom and almost half of ours.  Tonight I nearly finished ours before it was time for pizza and Master Chef at 8pm.  Admittedly, there may have been enough adhesive if I hadn't gotten it all over my arms, knees (terrible place to get it when you are kneeling on OSB - hurt to get off the floor a couple times), and anywhere else you think it shouldn't have been. 

A couple weekends ago we made a trip to Denver for kitchen cabinets, and at the ReStore up there, we found the wood flooring we will use for our bedrooms - success!  Next we will get in our backer board for under the ceramic tile, and then floors are just a work in progress with materials on hand and decisions made.  (Of course, there is still the basement, which we are again leaning towards staining/sealing and leaving concrete.)

On the cabinets front, Tom was spared the arduous morning at Ikea (I 'd already done all the leg work on the design, so it wouldn't have been horrible).  There's a saying about things well-planned being tossed out the window.  We did nearly that.  At the ReStore we loaded up the cart with flooring and then wandered further into the store.  We found a huge set of solid wood door cabinets (used, of course), which included enough of the right pieces to fill the kitchen and then some.  After looking through the layout we already had worked up and much measuring, we loaded up the cabinets and flooring - filling the sixteen foot trailer and the bed of the truck - and drove away with a lot of extra pennies in our pockets.  What a score!  They'll need a little fixing up, but with the money we saved, there is plenty to replace some hardware and even to strip and stain them to the color we were wanting (which wasn't available in a solid wood door at Ikea). 

So July was busy with more than just flooring.  We took doors off cabinets and hauled them downstairs.  We arranged the boxes and figured out our kitchen configuration.  We installed some more electrical line for ceiling lights, etc.  Our insulation, drywall, and ceiling planks arrived and are ready for installation.  And last but not least, we celebrated my birthday with Pop with a festive family gathering.  The celebrating was fun - maybe a little too much fun. 

Aren't I cute with two different shoes, both on the wrong feet?

That's me - so glad to be!

I asked Tom for a Shop-Vac.  I wouldn't care if I never swept up a pile of dust and dirt and grit before the house is finished.  I was so excited with my new present that I vacuumed upstairs and downstairs and upstairs some more and downstairs some more.  I even got a big, big spider.  It is thrilling to see the floor underneath all that dust and not breath in more than I get in the dust pan.