Tile, trim and planning the built-ins....

TILE, TRIM, PLANNING THE BUILT-INS....

January 3rd --  The head of the finish carpentry company and one of his crew showed up before 8:00am this morning as did the tile setter.  The head of the finish carpentry company and I went over the basic idea and plan for the shelf in the master bedroom closet as well as the bulkhead shelf between the two hanging bars in that closet.  We also discussed the 16 inch depth shelves for the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the gathering room and its library ladder rail system, with the ladder treads and sides to be built in oak; the design of the fireplace mantels in the gathering room and the master bedroom; and we designed the mudroom, which will have a small bench with underneath storage for taking off shoes/boots; a coat closet with doors (so that I won't have to look at hanging coats when in the gathering room); a wall of adjustable cubbies; with a place for the recycle bins and a place where I can hang my bike; and a row of coat hooks.  It will be awesome!  He drew the outline of some of these built-ins on the dry wall.

If you look carefully at the photos below you can see the "penciled-in" coat closet between the two windows on the south side of the mudroom. There will be an open shelf on top of the closet doors.

In this photo you can see the penciled outline for the three rows of adjustable shelves that will form cubbies; if I remove the shelves of the cubbie stack to the left, I will be able to hang my bike in that space with the proper hook.

In this photo of the fireplace in the gathering room you can see where I taped the specs for the center channel speaker that will be installed above the fireplace mantel that has been penciled in on the drywall.  Above the center channel speaker I hope to mount a flat screen TV.

On the tile front, the work shifted to the master bathroom this morning.  In the photo below you can see the "warm wire" floor heating system coils have been laid out on the floor.  The coils cover just about the entire bathroom floor so that my tootsies will be toasty when standing before the vanity, getting out of the soaker tub, stepping out of the shower, and

 as you can see in this next photo, the heating coils also go into the room where the toilet will be set.

After the coils were set in place and the electrical connection was made to the pull wire in the wall that will lead to the control panel (I can set the floor to warm with a thermostat or a timer), the tile setter than prepared the floor for the tile that will be set next.

However, before he covered the floor heating coils, he set the tile in the shower in the master bathroom, as shown below.

 In the meantime, the only finishing carpenter who worked today concentrated on the trim for the windows in the southwest corner of the gathering room shown below, and 

one of the windows in the mudroom.

He also started installing the bulkhead shelf in the master bedroom closet, as well as the shelf above the clothes bar.

As the weekend approaches, I'm not sure if there will be any work done until Monday.  When I asked the tile setter, he told me that with the forecast of anywhere from 1-4 inches of snow, the odds were even whether he would come to work.  The finish carpenter told me that his boss told him he could have the time off, but then he told me that he might just show up to get things done.  Although the painter e-mailed last night to tell me that he wanted to take advantage of today's warmer temps to do a small exterior paint job elsewhere, so he wouldn't be here today.  However, he didn't tell me whether he might come by this weekend.  

So, it will be a surprise if anyone or no one will show up this weekend.

In the meantime, I took what I hope is my last trip to the paint store to pick up a few more color samples, which I will throw up on the walls and post some new photos over the weekend.