Tile and trim.....

Tile and trim....

December 30th  -- At 8:03am the house came alive with 4 craftsmen and a visit from the contractor. 

The tile setter's goal was to set all the tile floor on the main-level, starting with the shower floor and the bathroom floor in the 3/4 bath off the gathering room, shown in these two photos, with arctic white hex tile with a black hex thrown in randomly to break up the white.  The white and black hex tile is "period appropriate" for the age of my house.

He also set the slate tile in the pattern I created for the rear entry to the mudroom

And, near the end of the day when I arrived home, he came running after me to say that he just ran out of the white hex tile, so the bathroom in the guest suite is about 80% done, as shown in these photos.  I got on the phone to the contractor who will bring the needed 5 sheets of the arctic white hex tile by tomorrow morning.

The crew of finish carpenters are focusing on hanging the remaining doors and trimming the doorways.  Here is the trimmed doorway that goes from the gathering room to the stairwell to the basement.  Eventually, the finish carpenters will build the "wall of bookcases" around this doorway.

They also installed the pocket door, which looks like this.

A new member of the finish carpenter crew arrived today and he was sent to work in the master bedroom to hang doors and to begin trimming the windows and doorways with the mill work.

Here is a photo of a trimmed window in the master bathroom.

   

And, here is a close up of the detail in the mill work for the window trim.

By the end of the day, all the windows in the master bedroom were trimmed and "silled":

And, the door to the master bedroom suite was hung, but not yet trimmed.

During the morning visit from the contractor, we discussed the advantage of installing a mini-pendant light over the sink, rather than a canister light fixture.  So, I will return to the lighting store to order one more mini-pendant light fixture that will match the two pendant lights that will hang over the breakfast bar.

Speaking of the breakfast bar, the contractor, head finish carpenter and I agreed on a design where corbels will extend from a support wall to hold up the granite top of the breakfast bar.  The two corbels will match the design of the exterior corbels.  The support wall will be open on the side facing the kitchen so that I can have a few shelves to hold my spices that will be in easy reach when I face the range top.

The head finish carpenter also needed to ask me questions about the interior design of the master bedroom closet and the shelves in the pantry.  As we were discussing the closet shelving, he pulled me aside and said something to the effect that he understands the importance of closets and to assure me that he is a "closet guru" who will work to maximize storage space -- music to my ears.  Sure enough, when we moved to the pantry to discuss the shelving, he suggested a great design that would also accommodate a space for the vacuum cleaner, with shelving above so as to not waste storage space, as well as the installation of a bar to hang brooms, mops, and so on.  He even suggested a special shelf to hold heavy equipment, such as a professional mix master, which I do not currently own, but who knows what the future will hold with all this space for future kitchen gadgets and gizmos.

In the mean time, I'm pretty sure that I have settled on the interior paint color, "on the rocks" and below is a sample of the carpet for the stairs next to the white trim and the paint color.  

I ran over to the store to pick up a knob that I think will work for the kitchen cabinet doors, and narrowed down the choice to two drawer pulls.  I will mess with these tomorrow and try to decide on the drawer pull and when I do you'll see that hardware.  

So, the tile and trim are the focus this week, and the progress is moving along nicely.  There is a bit more work that needs to be done to some of the drywall in some of the rooms, and I look forward to the painting crew returning in a few days from their holiday vacation.