Laurie's First Full Week in a Long Time

Now that Laurie is no longer working, she was able to stay up in Payson this week to monitor the tile work.  She also had some other things she wanted to accomplish during this time that made it easier to be on her own.

The rains decided to come this week (not only rain, but one night of snow) and made the whole tiling process more difficult, esp. with Zena wanting to go in and out while Joe (our tile guy) was doing the same.  It made Laurie wish she had some way of keeping Zena in the kitchen while she dried her off.  We decided to look at getting a dog fence to put between the kitchen and great room. An added benefit to the fence would be when we have other dogs over as happened this past weekend when Bob brought Roscoe and he had to stay outside to keep him from wandering around the house and marking new territory. The biggest problem is that the opening is almost 11 feet and the cost of a fence that wide is pretty high so Mike is looking into building a fence out of PVC pipe.

Laurie's first day on her own - snow in mid-April!

The tiling process went well and only took three days from start to finish.  It was good that Laurie was available as she had to make several trips to Home Depot to pick up additional supplies which Joe needed. The biggest issue came up when Joe stopped by on Monday and mentioned that we would need additional bullnose to tile around the window. Since we purchased our tile from Lowes, and since there is not a Lowes in Payson, we went to Home Depot to see if we could find something which matched. Although we found similar tile, Joe was concerned it was a shade too dark and would be noticeable so Laurie went back to Home Depot and picked up several different options to see what would work best. In the end, Joe and Laurie decided the best option was to tile the inside of the window opening with the small square tiles we had bought to use as a decorative tile line around the tub.  Since they have a smooth and finished (colored) edge, no bullnose was required.  For the decorative tile line, in lieu of the small tiles, Joe added a more subtle one-inch half round tile with an Italian design.  The finished product looks great.

Completed tile around the guest bathroom tub

This tile was supposed to be on the walls, but worked well around the window

Nice, simple decorative touch

Another issue came up when Mike realized the plumbing for the tub spigot was too long since it was originally set up for Hardiebacker over drywall and we are now using only Hardiebacker. Laurie purchased a new blade for Joe's tile saw on one of her Home Depot trips and Joe agreed to adjust the plumbing in exchange for the cost of the blade ($58) which we thought was a pretty good deal as calling in a plumber after the fact would have been expensive, in addition to having to remove and replace tile.

The tiling in the master bath and the front door entry was fairly straight forward, though Joe did suggest curving the corner of the entryway which added a nice touch. Laurie also wanted something for the transition line between the master bathroom and the master bedroom and was able to find a decorative tile strip she liked. Joe was able to use the tile strip to replace the small vinyl piece we had to add when we put the flooring in the master bedroom which made Laurie very happy.

Entryway with flair (actually it's a curve)

Old master bath entrance

New master bath entry (and the rest of the bathroom is tiled)

In between Home Depot runs, Laurie was able to complete our tax returns for 2012 and to cut out and start sewing our future daughter-in-law's wedding dress.  She already made a draft version of the dress which Matt's fiance, Danielle, tried on during her visit a few weeks ago and now she is making the actual dress.  She also met with a Home Depot representative to discuss new rain gutters as our's are falling down and leaking.  The quote was more than we expected for seamless gutters and, after he left, Joe said he could do our gutters and would get us a quote.

We had plans in the valley with some friends for the weekend, so Mike drove up after work on Friday to pick up Laurie and Zena and see all the tile work.  Everything looked great and now we cannot wait to get our master bathroom put back together on our next visit.

Stats: 5 Home Depot trips; 2 Walmart trips
Remodeling expense 4/9-4/12: $919
Remodeling expense to date: $47,441