Home Addition Update

January 24th. Lots of progress to report. The new tile for the bathroom was delivered; I'll talk more about this below. Inside the radiators were installed in the bedroom and the drywall is up, sanded smooth, and the rooms ready for the trim-work and painting. Jason hung the new doors to Jane's closet, so soon we'll have to find out how the inside of the closet will be arranged with hangars and shelving. It will be a fair-sized, walk-in closet......although I'm not sure it will be ample enough for all of Jane's clothes and accesories! Anyway, after that the switches and outlets will be hooked-up. Outside the roof has been installed and the siding is mostly finished. The siding crew started last Saturday and I expect will be finished early next week. We have a lot of custom trim-work that has to be wrapped in painted aluminum. This "metalwork", as it is called, takes some time to finish...but will last a long time with minimal upkeep and has great curb appeal. Here is the latest view from the backyard looking toward the porch (picutre taken January 27th); notice the trim along the bottom and top segments of the porch framing. The siders were at work over the weekend installing the ceiling. The ceiling is white vinyl that mimics 2 inch beadboard. The crew worked all day and the ceiling looks great. See a picture of the ceiling below. This view is from the bedroom door.

The Bathroom. I had originally demolished the bathroom approximately 7-8 years ago after the wall tiles had fallen off, the result of water getting behind the walls. The long wall of the tub surround had a window with painted wood trim. This isn't a good design feature to have in a tub surround where we mostly take showers because the wood was continually getting wet and eventually leaked water behind the wall resulting in a lot of rot and eventually the wall failed when the tile fell off. When I took out the the old bathtub the wall sheathing and studs were competely rotted and I had to replace them. I re-drywalled the entire bathroom and installed new bathroom sink, toilet, and bathtub. I never did finish the tile. The reasons why are many and long-winded and I'm not sure I believe any of them myself anymore. Suffice it to say, it will be nice to have the shower back.

Janauary 28th. The tile was installed last week but has not yet been grouted. Remember as you look at the photos below, that I demolished the old bathroom and installed the tub, all new plumbing, and the backerboard for the tile.....if the window had not been an issue, I think I could have put up the tile as well (or at least I would like to think so).

The picture at left is a picture toward the front of the tub surround. We opted for the larger, hipper tiles. I think they must be 5x7 or something. Evidently, no one uses the old 4x4 tiles anymore and I must admit that now that the tiles are up they do look nice. As an accent, we used a border of small glass and stone tiles. See the close-up of the accent border below.

We have enough of the accent tiles left over that I'll be able to use them to make a backsplash for the bathroom sink. Then, I'll have a DIY project to report on.