on Nona's birthday

After celebratory birthday coffee with Nona in the morning in El Cajon, Matt spent the day working on hanging tile in the shower. Here he is, tired and satisfied after the day's labors.Part of the magic happens at the tile-cutting station out front, where Matt has grown even more crafty with his cuts.
Mom and Dad and I went up later in the afternoon; Dad worked in the kitchen fitting the *new* sink cabinet and getting more things ready for cabinet installation. They look fabulous.
Mom and I hung folding doors in the laundry room closet. Or, more precisely, we hung the hardware. The doors are hiding in an upstairs closet until they can be sealed. But they're ready to go!

extended showers

The tile is all lined up now, ready to go into the walls of the downstairs shower tomorrow. :)
Today, Matt added a few little touches: a corner seat,
and a shampoo/soap cubby. Elegant, no?
And, he found doors for the closet in the laundry area. More little pieces. Which, I suppose, is how you build a house. Piece by little piece.


Tomorrow, besides Matt's work on the tile, Mom, Dad and I are fixin' to haul that big sink cabinet up. That's gonna be cool.

shower the people

Matt's been hard at work in Julian today, making efforts toward getting one room done: the downstairs bathroom. Look: he put up the smoke detector and the pretty trim on the recessed light.
And, he made the shower pan,
even putting up the rest of the hardiboard. Looks like a lovely place to get clean, no?
Meanwhile, back at home, Dad (with Mom on the assist) has been putting face frames on kitchen cabinets, so we can take this nice, big sink section up on Friday! (It took all the clamps in the shop...)

more bits and pieces

We're making progress on the house in bits and pieces!

A week or 2 ago, Mom and Dad went up to do some clean-up work, including taking the growing trash pile in front of the house to the dump. Here's the front, all nice and trash-less. :)And here are some of the scraps that used to be there, now at the green waste recycling area of the landfill.

Matt and I went up on Friday to do some odds and ends, including taking down the masking paper that had been up from painting. Mostly, it was down, except for all the annoyingly high and awkward places... Here's the beautiful railing and ceiling, sans paper.


While taking down masking paper, Matt also removed the plastic from more of the windows, inside and out. It's not totally done yet, but the windows sure are looking pretty!
I got the exciting job of tearing drywall out of the shower area--hammering holes in walls is always a good time. But then you have to take care of the little screws, too.
Today, Matt and Dad and our friend Al went up. Dad and Al delivered the first of the finished base cabinets for the kitchen. Cool, eh? You can imagine the range between them...
And Matt worked on the shower enclosure, finishing the plumbing to move the showerhead up a bit (the prerogative of tall homebuilders, I guess), hang hardibacker, and "mud in" the shower pan base.
Bit by bit, we're on our way!