January 24 and 25: Finishing Touches and Beginning Tiles

Eventually, we have high hopes for the entryway. A bench on which to sit; some area outside to get off the bulk of the mud. But for the moment, three entry mats (all filthy now) and some crates are the shoe storage available.

Phil grew tired of tossing down his wet jackets, or having no good place for the spotlight (very necessary near the front door: on occasion, Shadow will bark in the middle of the night in a particularly vicious way; Phil gets up, gets dressed, and goes with the spotlight to see the intruder), or losing his gloves amid half a dozen pairs of boots.

So a shelf with hooks became a priority purchase. It arrived, and Phil put it up, a bit low on the wall in terms of ideal decorating, but the right height, we think, for the five sets of small hands that will be using it.

"I really like it," Phil said multiple times.

After that, Phil got started on finishing the pocket doors. This required some wood on the interior faces, as well as the standard sides and top that face into the rooms. Note how much nicer the one door looks, though!

We immediately hung up the Johnny-jump-up, and Caleb had a great time bouncing away.

Then Phil did the second pocket door, and all the other doors, except one interior where we need to put down tile first.

With the scraps, he was able to finish off a little bit of floor. I was so thankful, too, because that spot was where the enormous bulge had appeared while we were away. The bulge had maybe settled down a little, but with that finishing trim pushing down, the floor is back to the way it should be. And that one spot looks so wonderful! I stared at it for some time, admiring how, well, finished it looks! Trim is not high on the priority list, but I will be so happy when it makes it to the top!

With ever-smaller scraps, he did manage to finish off between bookcases and beam.

It took some creative cutting, but, hooray!

On Saturday, all four of the older brothers played Cars together, for hours. I read them a whole book, too, the delightful first in a series of Taiwanese-American tales, The Year of the Dog.
bros
Phil emptied the one not-yet-really-started room and vacuumed it.

He laid out tile, too, and researched the steps to put that down. We talked through the size of grout lines between tiles: there are options there. When he went to cut the tile, though, it didn't work nearly as well as he would have hoped. Since he would be going to town on Sunday, he opted to just wait, and make a thorough shopping list of all the bits and parts needed.