Floor

I had hoped to get some of the tile in before the weekend, but here it is Saturday and I'm not quite done with it.  We spent some time earlier in the week getting the backer board in and adhered and screwed down with a zillion screws...

That took a couple of days because some stuff came up at work, but we had that in by Friday.  While Dale was working on getting all that in, I got started on the built-in banquette:

This will be great to store a lot of those not-too-often used items, holiday stuff, etc.  I am contemplating the top hinged top - do I want to use plywood or do I want to put some boards together?  Does it really matter - we are going to put a thick cushion on this anyway, so I will probably go with plywood.  Problem is, it's just over 8' long -- like 6" too long, so I'm trying to come up with a way to create 2 - 4' hinged panels, and make up the 6" elsewhere.  Maybe I'll just bring the sides in a bit so the top has something substantial to sit on. Dale sat on it and approved of the height - he was worried it was going to be too low, and I can only go up to the bottom of the window frame.  But it was perfect in height.  It's going to be painted white like the rest of the trim.

While I was hammering the frame into place, I misjudged and whacked my finger with the hammer.  I've done this a million times, but this time, the results were pretty spectacular:

It didn't hurt until I taught in the afternoon:  we were working on clay, and I think when I was kneading the clay I got the blood flowing internally or something.  Man, this hurt! Oh, and my finger was already bent - I've got arthritis in this finger, which was one of the reasons it hurt so bad when I hit it--

So yesterday (Friday), I got started on the field tiles for my kitchen:

I had a zillion cuts to make, and I want a very very minimal grout line, so making them super accurate was imperative.  I love the marble tile -- carrara white and nero black.  Love the veining in the black.  So this was an all day Friday thing, getting all the pieces cut, laid, edges perfect.  Before laying the tile, I had to mark off my border all around the room - I have 22" worth of borders to put around.  Oh, and the plywood above is where the cabinets will go.  We are going to tile plain tiles under the refrigerator, dishwasher and stove.

Last night we had a ton of wind - the Santa Anas were kicking up, and we were up and down all night.  It's also hot with those winds, so not a good nights sleep.  And the noise outside kept the cats all riled up all night.  So we didn't get started as early as I wanted to today, but we got busy and figured out the cuts for our borders --

The hardest part is making the corners work on the mosaic borders.  After some messing around, we figured it out and then we made more progress.  Oh, and the open pocket door above is going to be closed in after we get the cabinets installed - right now it's convenient to be able to go in and out while we have it all tented off, but we won't need that doorway after, so our tile stops at where the wall will be.

By the end of today, we got 3/4 through with the borders, and we stopped to take stock and see how we were doing on supplies.

 We realized we were going to be short 5 strips of the top diamond-shaped border.  We have about 6 extra of the greek key, and we need 5 more black tiles to go under the refrigerator.  Originally, I was going to put plywood there as well, but in the meantime Dale decided we should go ahead and tile under that area as well (it's the blank spot above, you can see the water connector for the icemaker).  We still have to patch drywall there, but we have a few other minor things before we get that done. 

So tomorrow, we are going to go out and pick up those last few pieces, and probably get our kitchen sink as well at the same time.  I fell in love with one at the tile shop, but I'm not sure if they still have it in stock, so we'll check to see that, too.  I also want to look at backsplash tiles to match the sink. 

Hopefully, finish tiling on Sunday, and grout the whole thing on Monday, so I am getting excited that things are moving along!  I wanted to have things further, but this is what it is, so I'll be happy with that.  Maybe I'll even take some time out for a movie tomorrow if we get done early enough!