PHASE FOUR Week 28 - Tile Trouble

Week of December 8th - The drywall was finished and floor tiling begun. All went well until my husband noticed that spacers were not used and the tile in the master bathroom looked terrible. The squares weren't lined up and the spaces between the tiles vary in width from thick to thin! The guys were trying to match it up with the walls, which have discovered are out of square, in some places by an inch or more. Luckily we caught it in time, spent two hours Thursday night pulling it off, scraping off mud, and scraping and smoothing the floor. We had planned on putting up Xmas tree lights and decorations on our two-week old tree - we've been so busy with this house that we haven't had the time or the inclination - but such is life when you contract out your own home. We DO like our crew, but have found that we need to be there several times a day to make sure things are done our way and to make sure they have everything they need***We have decided on the colors for our walls and will be painting the drywall ourselves this weekend. One of the guys, Joe, is going to help, a relief to me as I was worried about standing on scaffolds in the master bedroom and bath (18 foot walls!). We chose cheerful earth tones, "Meadow" green for the mud room, Alabaster (very cheerful yellow-beige) for the guest bedroom, a very pretty color whose name I've forgotten (sort of a Cinnamon-clay color) for the office and guest bathroom, and Seafoam (a gorgeous green) for the master bedroom and bath. We looked at hundreds of colors, purchased 7 samples, painted them on scrap drywall, then took them out to the house to see how they looked with the logs and tile. Luckily Norman and I have almost identical taste and agreed 100% on the colors.

PHASE FOUR Week 27 Landscaping & Drywall

Week of Dec 1st - ***Our landscaping was finished last week and our lawn is covered with straw. Our river rock was also delivered and looks nice underneath the deck. I spent almost an entire day raking the front yard prior to planting the seed due to all the leaves that had fallen. It snowed two days after we planted and I took a pretty picture of the house covered in snow, but accidentally deleted it! Anyway, the snow is mostly gone now, leaving very soggy, messy yard. ****Most of our dry wall has now been put up and the "mudding" will begin today. I've learned that it takes three coats of "mud" and that we will need to keep our kerosene heater running 24-7 so the mud will dry properly. (As we speak it is 19 degrees outside.) ****We've ordered our tile and next week the flooring should begin. Our cabinet maker came out this week for final measurements and said the cabinets should be ready in about three weeks.