Porch Tile Outside - Door Profile Inside - Grouting Bathrooms - Day 82

Tuesday - The rain we expected today did not come. So the tile guys were able to start the porch decks. The brick men said they would be back tomorrow to finish the foundation once the ground dried.

Inside Josh and Gary Wayne were putting up the door profiles. Amber and Kim were grouting the master bathroom.

Amber and Kim grouted the laundry - master closet - and master bathroom. 

Josh was building door profiles. 

The guest bathroom tile is done but still needs the tan grout. This bathroom has a window in the shower. the window will be covered by plantation shutters. 

The porch will be covered with swirly gray porcelain tiles that are 16 inches by 16 inches. they are slip proof and ADA approved.

Josh just installed the closet door profiles. They still have to be caulked and painted.

This is the finished laundry floor with white grout. 

Bedroom 3 - entry door and double closet door.

Bedroom 3 - doors open

House Day 81 - It Rained Early - So Most of the Work Was Done Inside

Monday - We got a half inch of rain this morning around 7 AM. This stopped the outside workers cold. By the afternoon is was sunny and 80. Tomorrow we expect a full day of rain. when I left the job today at 5 PM - the tile workers were still busy. 

The laundry looks great with light blue walls with blue and white tile. The pocket door to the right goes into the master suite closet. I took the picture from the dining room.

The bathroom is light blue with white tile and blue highlights. On the left will be a free standing white tub that looks like a tea cup.

Gary Wayne was hanging the 3 feet by 8 feet solid wood interior doors. Notice that each door has 4 hinges. The large double doors are for the closet.

Pennsylvania rounded river pebbles cover the shower floor in the guest bathroom. the pebbles prevent slipping.

The guest bathroom has tan tile with a highlighted checkered stripe. Lulu designed the bathrooms all by herself. 

Rain prevented the last 5% of the brick being done. We kept the porches less than two feet off the ground so we did not have to put up guard rails. There will be front steps.

Notice how the porches slants away from the home. It is reflected in the brick pattern. The columns are fiberglass resin. The porches will be covered with slip proof tile. 

The electrical box is hidden in the bushes. Tallahassee no longer uses meter readers - usage can be read right through the lines by a computer. 

Day 80 - Some Paint - Some Brick

The house is painted dark khaki. It looks like tan - gray - green. 

Friday - While we were driving north to Charlotte for the football game - the workers were busy on the house. They completed painting the outside. They applied the brick to the foundation. 

The only thing left on the outside is the tile on the porches. 

The foundation was covered with brown brick and mortar chose to match the paint.

House Day 79 - Lots Got Done - Soffits - Foundation - Showers

They used a special mix of mortar that Lulu chose to match brick and the house. The house will be a dark khaki. 

Thursday - I was awakened by a call from Gary. He said that if I wanted pictures - I had better get to the site - before they covered up the water and sewer line hook-ups. As I pulled up on the scooter - I was surprised at so many vehicles and so much going on. A front end loader was digging the ditch for the sewer line. The bricklayers were doing the foundation. the city inspector was giving approval to the water and sewer lines to be covered. And coming up the street was the soffit truck and trailer. 

It looked like rain for a while - but the weather held up and prevented a whole bunch of mud ann mess. 

The water line is a one inch piece of plastic pipe. In Tallahassee - they only put the water lines under about one foot of dirt. 

Bubba West is my plumber. He is laying the 4 inch plastic sewer pipe. They put a few elbows in the sewer line to stay away from some of the remaining tree roots.

The front end loader operator was very exact. The orange pain marks where a phone cable with over 100 pairs of copper wires passes. Whenever you dig in Tallahassee you are required to call the 800 number - and they send out an inspector. He marks the space using an underground sensor and different color pain. Blue is for water lines - yellow is for gas lines - orange is for phone lines.

This is the sewer line coming from the street. It is a 4 inch black pipe about 3 feet under ground.

This is the joint  of our sewer line to the city's black pipe.

The bricklayers worked all day and I am guessing they 50% done.

This guy's job was to mix the colored mortar. He kept the mortar boards filled.

The master shower has a small seat in it. 

The guest shower is large brown tiles. 

Check out how neat the wiring is in the circuit box. The white circuit breakers are ground fault interrupters. 

The brick will be cut using that saw above. 

This man was construction the soft rails from scratch.

The vinyl soffits protect the underside of the roof eaves.

The brick are real orange - then they were glazed with a darker material and fired. The tiles will cover the entire porch. They are skidproof - ADA approved.

The house is raised up about two feet in the front and one foot in the back. This brick will also be used to construct the steps.

Bending the stock material to the size and shape we needed of rth soffits.

The soffits protect the underside of the roof. There is no exposed wood. 

They completed the entire soffit in one day. 

The soffit rails are aluminum. The soffit panels are vinyl. The column are fiberglass. the lintels are Hardiboard. The siding is Nichiboard.

Day 78 - Tile and Electric

Nick is doing virtually the whole house. He does very neat work - this circuit box is a work of art.

Tile is going up in both bathroom showers.  It is white subway tile with a blue border that is made of floor tile sliced up. There will be a corner seat for sitting to wash your feet.

Other Day 77 Highlights - One Month Left

Front porch paint done.

Guest bathroom.

House Day 76 - Tile and Painting

Monday -  Gary said it will take about 100 days to build our house. We are now at Day 76 - and it appears he will be right. 

The painters today put a second coat of varnish on the porch ceilings. They also put a second coat of paint on the front and back siding of the house. They were also painting the white woodwork inside.

The tile men were prepping the showers for the tile work by using mortar to shape the shower floors. Both shower floors will be covered with pebbles. There will be no thresholds going into the showers so they must be slanted toward the drains.

The painters put on the final varnish coat on the porch ceilings. Since this is the only wood on the outside exposed to the air - it needed a good sealing. The rain and the sun will never touch this wood. 

Shaping the large floor in the guest bathroom was skillfully done with a level.

This tile man was cutting tiles to make the borders around the master bathroom.

This picture shows the finished porch ceiling - the siding with a second coat of paint on it - and the exterior hardboard trim with two coats of paint on it. Note the keystone.

The posts and lintels are painted white. The vanished ceiling really shines.

This is the shaped floor in the master shower.

The master bathroom will have white subway tile.  The decorative strip was made by cutting some floor tiles.

Here is a pile of decorative borders made from floor tiles.

The 4 scuttle holes in the attic lead to the HVAC hardware. They also allow you to work on ceiling fixtures. The doors are made from scrap wood. 

The man is pushing mud to shape the guest bathroom floor. The guest shower is big enough to drive in with a wheelchair - turn around - and come back out.