Yoohah, the tiling and grouting are done on the second shower stall, which is in the guest bathroom. We need to finish it before the Harts visit next week, but it was just another (sort of major) project to get off the punch list. We'll call it the Dethloff shower for now, since they'll be the first guests to break it in. Likewise, the upstairs bedroom is being temporarily named the Dethloff loft. Go figure.Finished the tiling last weekend, then started on the grouting. White, non-sanded grout 1/8" gaps. The box says 5 lbs will fill 12.5 square ft of 1/8" space on 6x6" tiles, which is what we probably have on average (mixture of 6"x8", 3"x6", and 2"x4" tiles). So off to Sliverdale and Home Depot to get grout on Monday. The tile covers about 100 sq ft of the shower (walls and ceiling), so the box formula indicated 8+ boxes of grout. I only bought 4 boxes (20 pounds) of grout since the formula seemed pretty whacked. Hells bells, it only took 1.5 boxes (7.5 pounds), so I don't know what idiot created the spreadage chart on the grout box. Nevertheless, the grouting is done and I have 3 boxes of grout to return to Home Depot. Total cost to grout was about $8 and another $15 to seal it all (a silicone based sealer). For the floor, I had a half box of sanded light gray grout which was just enough to finish the job.
Friday, Peninsula Shower and Tile came from Sequim to mount the door assembly. This one is relatively simple. 32.5" wide, 72" high clear-glass door, 3.8" thick. It will hinge on the left and open both in and out like the one in our master bath. Simple chrome hinges and handle; clean, attractive and easy to maintain with a squeegee. The door went in in an hour, then I grouted and sealed the floor (flat pebbles). Still have to caulk the margins of the tile and mount the shower fixtures, which include a single mixer unit (temp and pressure in one valve) and shower head, so it should go in easily (I hope). The last shower fixture job was a nightmare because I had the wrong cover for the valve, but we sorted that out in a week or so.So, if everything goes well, we'll have the finished, entirely operable Dethloff shower done a few days before we need to use it. That's not so bad; don't even need to go to the clubhouse for showers like when we moved in last May.
Other stuff is going on when I'm tired of dealing with the shower. Nancy ordered and hung some drapes in the master bedroom (for her parents arrival). I screwed up my courage and put two Molley bolts into the gold-colored plaster wall. You only get one chance on this one, but after careful measurements I got the "Mackey table" mounted on the wall. We bought this table in Santa Fe in 2006 for our new house after admiring the one that Ned and Colleen Mackey had in their house in Denver. Four years later if looks just as good as we thought it would.
I put some of the overhead speakers in place. Had ordered them last winter, then sort of forgot about them and/or didn't want to generate any new drywall dust. However, they were using up floor space, so out came the utility knife, drywall saw, and screwdriver. The speakers in the living room went in easily, about an hour to do both. Then off to the upstairs bedroom where we had two rectangular speakers to mount high on the wall above doors. These took a bit of finagling to get them centered above the doors (studs on either side), but they came out fine. I went to mount the speakers in the downstairs den only to discover that I'd only ordered one (not a pair), so it went in and a second is in the pipeline. That leaves three to mount, 2 of which are 11 ft high in the kitchen. I'll do these when I rent the BIG folding ladder that I need to put up the hanging light fixture above the island. It goes at the peak of the ceiling, about 13 ft above the floor. So I'll need a 12 ft ladder.I've discovered that I've fallen into a pattern of doing the easy jobs first and deferring the ugly ones. So each week I scratch some things off the list, only to find that the most onerous ones remain. The biggy is the upstairs bathroom (tile vanity and linen closet, shower and bath tile, floor tile, and toilet). At my current pace and level of enthusiasm, I suspect that this will be a winter project. No hurry, no worry.
