NOAA's Ark or More Showers

        NOAA says we're completing year two of La Nina, and that the weather should return to normal by the first of June. I'm not putting my boat away any time soon. It's Mother's Day and the forecast calls for rain and thunder all day.
   This week, with 32 hours on the books, I finished staining 3,110 linear feet of wood trim. Not varnished, just stained. We were hoping for a couple of clear windless days to take all the boards outside and spray on the finish. But I just don't see that happening any time soon. My guess is that I'll be applying it by hand. Did I mention the interior door jambs and doors need to be done too?

 
 Ed has finished the travertine showers. He's going to wait until the floors are down to grout everything at once. Just a caveat for those cutting travertine for the first time: If you have a piece that needs to be cut-and-fit, be sure to check for natural fracture lines before deciding which edge of the tile to cut. Once in a while, that stuff will break like a saltine cracker.

   He's done the walk-in shower downstairs and the guest bathroom upstairs in walnut travertine. Then he moved on to my favorite, the silver travertine, which is in our bathroom. It's delicious. It also doesn't seem to be quite as loose as walnut. By that I mean it seems to be less fractious. I can hardly wait to see it all done with the floor and grout!

  The wood floor installers will be here next week so Ed is trying to get everything up on the ceiling that needs to be there. He installed the speakers for the sound system, smoke detectors, heat detector, spider detector...just kidding on that one.  I was able to get two ceiling fans at Lowe's, and am waiting for two more.

   We have used CFL bulbs where we can. We noticed something odd in the bathrooms. Those bathrooms that were painted Sensational Sand, previously tan/brown, now looked purple. not a bad purple, but definitely not the color we started with.  We had installed "soft white" CFL bulbs, and will be changing them out to "natural sun" to regain the original color.

 
 Saturday I went to town for groceries and Ed began installing the Steel Partners fixtures for the entryway, kitchen island and dining room. If you buy these lights, consider the size carefully. We ordered the small lights, and they are very substantial. They are beautiful strong statement pieces that will anchor the style of the house. You can see the island light to the left and the dining room light to the right, both still in the process of being installed.

   
 While out and about yesterday I stopped at a rummage sale, and bought four block prints from the 60's. The artist is noted only as "Ken". The style is pure Craftsman. At $1.00 each I could hardly leave them on the table. I'll  mat and frame them. They'll be perfect.