turtle + mole

a while back i stopped asking mathew, “when is it going to be pretty?”

pretty started this sunday with the help of my parents. they showed up this morning ready to paint. my dad even cooked lunch! and there were cream puffs for dessert made by my mom.

while i sanded trim, my dad painted the walls and ceiling, and my mom painted details and baseboards, mathew finished the cutting and placing of tiles.

we were still trying to decide whether to use these larger green tiles (given to us by a friend.) now i think we’re going to go with the smaller travertine tiles to match the rest of the shower. the entire shower floor slopes toward the drain so smaller tiles fit the curves easier. but we’d still like to use the green tiles somewhere because they are quite beautiful handmade tiles. maybe in the kitchen?

the primer is done. one more coat of paint (and once the bathroom is done) we can move in!

mathew spent the first part of the day doing woodworking and paint prep in the bedroom. as the sun started setting we got to work on more tile.

mathew cut solid slabs of travertine into shower shelves and figured out how to round and polish the cut edges. he did all of the cutting and i laid most of the tile.

we worked on the bathroom for 6 hours saturday night (!) but in the end it was really satisfying to be almost done with the tile and shower.

for fun we often conceptualize t-shirts for people. “i’m with grumpy” is what my t-shirt usually says…

the day started out nice enough. a sunny mission district day. mathew put the final coat of plaster on the ceiling. i stripped paint off of wainscoting.

and then i started putting up tile (which started out stressful!) just to my right mathew was putting up more kerdi-membrane (which was also stressful.) so we’re working in this tiny space, tripping over each other, making messes and having difficulties. at one point mathew said, “i’m putting up this piece of wood and it might fall on you.” um, thanks?

luckily tile cutting worked out great. my dad loaned us his tile cutter and it was able to cut our 1″ travertine tile expertly, even really thin pieces weren’t a problem. thanks dad!

mathew finished sanding the bedroom ceiling and walls; they are now ready for paint! and instead of feeling like he’d accomplished something he said he felt like we wasted the weekend. huh? i beg to differ, we’re ready for paint and look! there’s tile!

here we’re trying to decide what to do with the shower curb, cut tiny travertine, cut green tiles or cut-to-fit solid travertine (not shown.) and mathew just needed to be fed, with a full tummy he’s now upstairs finishing up the kerdi-membrane. now i will have no more excuses for not working on that tile…

mathew spent leap day shopping for supplies and working on bathroom wainscoting.

i did tile prep which included math, more math, and drawing out lines on the wall (which are very faint in this photo.) and now that mole is back working upstairs it means lots of random photos just because i think they’re pretty! like a blue window with orange kerdi-membrane.

or flourescent orange chalk line dust (cheeto dust.) or pretty and compostable wood shavings…

not much happening here. i pottered around upstairs this weekend, looked at things, stripped some paint off the wainscote boards, and got back into bed:

it may not look like much, but all that paint, glue and spackle takes about 10 min per foot to remove from each piece. and when your nose is running, it’s difficult (and messy) wearing a respirator.

i also got the head and side casing cleaned up, and attached at the bathroom door (above right). the side casing is the same wood shown in the first photo of last week’s post, after stripping about 1/8″ of paint. it is beautiful tight grained smooth old wood (where it doesn’t have nail holes and dents).

i also finally finished painting the (hopefully repaired) leaky mouldy window, patched a couple of roof leaks from the last storm, cleaned out some gutters. sorry, no photos yet – maybe next post.