Good News, Bad News

     All the tile is now grouted, with the exception of the powder room. In fact, it doesn't even have tile yet. It seems I made a serious error in calculations, and need two more boxes of the mosaic basketweave tile. Home Depot says the bad news is, they're out of stock. The good news is they expect to have it mid-July..or September, depending on who you talk to. Now the question is...do I wait and trust them to come through or go find a replacement product and move on?
    The foyer was almost the last of the travertine. Because of the size of the tiles and the layout, Ed decided to put a hardwood border around the foyer, then lay the tiles.

  Once the foyer was done, Ed took the last pieces of travertine, definitely not the stellar pieces, and finished the closet in the downstairs guest room. The bad news was,  he was one tile short. The good news was, the porcelain tile for the craft room is in the style of the  travertine, and the same size. I doubt anyone will even be able to pick that piece out.... unless they read this first.

   John from Entek Heating came out this week to put the finishing touches on the heating and air conditioning system. He charged the heat pump, installed the thermostat keypads, set the zones, and a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't get.  Ed was as happy as a pig in mud. He asked a million questions and generally hung out and watched, which is good. None of it made any sense to me and he'll be the one to tinker with it anyway.

 

     I stalled out on putting finish on all the trim. I was a little overwhelmed with the number of doors that needed a coat of urethane, sanding, and a second coat of urethane. Ed wanted to spray them but the weather hasn't been cooperative. Finally, I found a method posted on the internet which described using metal L brackets to hook the doors together for spraying.  
    Ed says "I don't have L brackets, but that gives me a great idea."
 

   And it was. He put heavy plastic down on the floor of the basement shop. Then he used wood blocks to put the doors up like a folding screen. Then he got out the airless sprayer and sprayed the doors in short order. The only problem he encountered was that the Helmsman spar urethane was so thick that the compressor had to work overtime to pump it through and began to overheat.  The next day we sanded them with 220 grit sandpaper. After making a few adjustments to the sprayer, Ed gave them a second coat of urethane. What a relief to have them done!

     Ed is going to take a few days for a  well-deserved visit to some friends, while I will be home with cat/dog/chicken duty.  I will be working on getting one coat of urethane on the rest of the wood trim.  When he gets home we'll start hanging doors, trimming out windows and installing baseboards. 
   The good news is, yesterday was glorious weather, blue sky and 84*. It was perfect weather for the Dollars For Scholars Rod And Reel, a car show and sturgeon derby. The bad news is, today we're back to cloudy skies. Will summer ever come?