Picture Updates

The bathroom tiling is now complete! I had James from Century Glass up this morning measuring for the glass wall and door for the new shower. It should be installed by the time Carol gets home. I took a few more pics so you can see the finished tile job. It looks wonderful and the pics don't really do it justice. James commented that he has seen LOTS of showers but never has he seen one with a window and view as cool as ours! Being biased, we agree with him.

I also took a pic of the walk-in closet floor, just because I could. We're anxious now to get the rest of the upstairs finished. The door is still a few weeks away; the vanity should be in by the end of next week and then Leo (granite guy) can measure and make the top. I have to drywall one half of the pocket door rough-in (at least one side must be left open until the door is actually installed so that you can access the adjusters) and replace the piece I removed when wiring up the floor heater control box. Then I have to paint the room with the light blue-gray colour we have chosen. It will look sweet when it's completely finished!
Oh, and here's another hummingbird shot. This time, a male Rufous Hummingbird. We love the irridescent red feathers they have on their head and neck. Very pretty!

Upstairs Flooring

After a beautiful weekend last week with lots of sun and temps around 30*C, we paid for it over the Victoria Day long weekend. We had cool weather all 3 days, with a little sun early on Saturday but mostly gray, dreary and rainy. It was a good weekend for working indoors!
I have not laid a laminate floor before so I had been reading a lot of online project tips & tricks. Putting down the underlay was a good way to ease into it. We cleaned everything off the floor that we could, moving the bed to one end of the room. It was easy to roll out the plastic-felt and foam sandwich that made up our underlay, leaving the strips rolled up at one end until we could move the bed.

The plan was to lay the boards on the cleared half of the floor, move the bed onto the finished floor and then lay the remaining boards on the other half. It worked out great. The boards look great and feel wonderful on feet that have lived entirely on bare particle board for the last 8 months. The upstairs makes up about 1/3 of the area of the top two floors so it was a good accomplishment to finish that portion. It certainly is the easiest area to do, with few obstructions and doorways, and all the walls having right-angled corners. The main floor would be much more of a challenge with lots of odd angled cuts, many doorways, the kitchen cabinets and a bunch of transitions to mess with.

Our master bathroom is coming along great. Tony is doing an awesome job setting the tiles in this very awkward space. He should finish up by the middle of this week. I have included an image of the shower floor tiles so you can see the complexity involved and the tile we chose. We're hoping our vanity cupboards will be done later this week as that will really make things look more finished.

I was going to upload some pictures of our progress on the deck and the upstairs bathroom, so here they are. We also had a couple of visitors early this morning. Joey woke us just before 5am with her "non-predator" bark. We stumbled downstairs and were stunned at what we saw standing on our driveway - an elk! We had no idea that there were any elk around our place, but we can certainly vouch for that fact now! He was slowly browsing his way down the driveway toward the house, only turning away and heading up toward our well when he was less than  20 metres away! Sadly, it was just barely light out and our camera was only able to capture a few blurry images.
Before leaving for work, I saw that the hummingbirds were visiting and I was able to capture one nice image of a female Rufous Hummingbird as she hovered next to the feeder. Pretty cool!
You can see that Tony (tile guy) has laid the shower floor and most of the floor in the ensuite bathroom. The narrow trim band is not yet in but apparently, he will have all the rest of the tile in by the end of today. Stay tuned for some more photos of the finished tile work.

I used the "small" thumbnails today, but remember, as usual, if you click on the images, they will open to their full size!

Stuff is Getting Done!

It's been a very busy last few days. Clayton and his crew were up on Monday, resurfacing the plywood on our deck in preparation of installing the waterproof vinyl floor on it. The wood face has to be smooth with no bumps or depressions so a vigorous sanding is followed by filling all the gaps and holes with something similar to automotive body filler, albeit with an additive that leaves the patch flexible to move with the wood. Drip edge moulding is installed around the perimeter of the deck, and then finally, they roll on an adhesive and glue down the vinyl deck covering. All the seams between the sheets of vinyl are then heat welded to make the whole thing one continuous waterproof membrane. The vinyl has an attractive light marbled pattern through the predominantly tan coloured surface. It looks great and should last for many years with only washing and sweeping for maintenance.
While there, Clayton did the final measurements for the railings and indicated that he will be back within a couple of weeks to install them.
While he was busy outside, Tony, from Kamloops Tile Works was up in the master ensuite. He and his company are tiling our shower stall and the bathroom floor. The shower has a weird triangular window in it so was way more complicated than we could handle on our own. Watching Tony work you can tell that he's a real craftsman. He works quickly and makes no mess whatsoever. I, on the other hand, was covered from head to foot with mortar and grout when I did the downstairs bathroom tiles. Oh, and his work looks 100 times better than my best effort! After waterproofing the walls in the shower, he gave me quite a lot of "homework" to do on Monday evening. I had to build the small seat/shelf that fits at one end of the shower; install 3/8" plywood over the entire bathroom sub floor and around the weird window; remove the toilet that we put in a few weeks ago; and finally, install the rough-in for the pocket door between the shower/toilet and the vanity and sink side of the bathroom. Needless to say, I was working until 11pm that night and at it again at 7am on Tuesday, finishing moments before Tony arrived. It was worth all the effort though, as all the tile should be in by the end of today (Wednesday, May 16) with grouting and clean-up completed by tomorrow (Thursday).
Yesterday, we ordered the pocket door itself. We found that Home Hardware can get one made of "knotty alder", the exact same wood that the vanity cabinet is being made with. It should look great when it finally gets here (5 weeks until it arrives!)
I will post some photos of all the work when I get a minute to sort through all the pics.

Busy, busy

Contrary to the lack of posts here, we have lots on the go at the house.
Next week we have Clayton and his guys from Renovation 911 coming up to put the vinyl on our deck and install the railings. We have opted to go with a simple aluminum rail with thin aluminum pickets (bars?) powder coated in flat black. This is the least obtrusive option we could find. While being completely safe and "to Code" it won't disrupt the view any more than absolutely necessary.
Carol is at home today. This morning we had Cameron from Insite Custom Cabinets coming to measure up for the vanity he's making for the master ensuite bathroom. After getting quotes from a few suppliers, we were amazed to find that having the vanity custom made was cheaper than buying the same layout of cupboards, etc. from Home Depot or Rona. Perhaps if we waited for one of their super sales, we might have been able to come close to Cameron's quote. As it is, we get to pick exactly the wood and stain colour and finish that we want. We have chosen "Knotty Alder" for the wood with a warm stain. It will look amazing! It will be topped with a piece of "Blue Pearl" granite with "under mount" sinks - our one extravagance when it comes to the finishes!
Walter and Tracy from Kamloops Tile Works have done a great job designing our shower and floor tile. Walter will be installing it all sometime around the middle of the month. We are just waiting for the tile (back ordered, of course!) to arrive and then they are good to go.
The house painting is very nearly complete with just the high area around the windows remaining to get its coat of colour. It's starting to look more like a house and less like a construction project! We will be starting to install the laminate floors this weekend and that will really make things look more finished. We'll be sure to post some pics of the progress as it happens.