Dog Days of July

      The past few weeks have been scorchers here in the upper midwest, but at least muscles hurt less when its over ninety.  The going has been slow, but very rewarding.  The beginning of the end has started and it looks like we should be on schedule to be in and finished with the interior in the next few months.  Its been an exhausting week for any number of reasons so instead of writing something more we posted a lot of pictures!

Stairway to Heaven From Hell

One less gaping hole

Measuring out the treads 

Finishing the bathroom entry tile

Winning!

Plugging the floor like a gangster

Starting to laminate the countertop

Tread landings being laminated

The joy of clamps

Odysseus has nothing on this 

Milling trim

Still aspiring to be a plumber and installing trim

Window one casing done

Sills and casing

Mighty fine work if i do say so myself

Before and after window sill

casing the joint

Finish nailing

Level and leveler, wood glue and social glue

Double D...eLind

    It was an excellent weekend for work.  Friday I finished the flooring in the utility room and the last foot of the dining room.  Saturday morning Doug showed up to work with me, and progress was indeed made.  With two people at it the SOB spots (in most every room) I had left undone because they were small spaces, needed to be done by hand, poor quality subfloor, etc.  were finished by noon.  Noon as it was turned out to be the perfect time to break and borrow a table saw from my neighbor.  Once we got it set up and calibrated it worked amazingly well.  Saturday ended with only about 100 sqft left to go.

    With the goal of finishing all the flooring Doug and I hit up sunday morning.  Once we ran out of the lumber from the sawmill out of Saginaw things got a bit harry (L. Liquidators has some shitty quality).  Instead of having straight rows set ready to be nailed it took a lot of effort to remove the gaps.  Doug would hammer a screwdriver into the subfloor and then jack it against a filler board to pressure the row into line while the staples were being put in.  Despite the heat we got into a mind set of not letting it beat us.  Now I generally don't let things beat me, and I can say that is exhibited exponentially more with my dad, but when both of us are at it hell or high water wont stop something from getting done.  Flooring as it turns out has nothing on either hell or high water, we finished the installation around four this afternoon and called it a day. 

Lynch's Handy work 

Dining Room finished

Study/spare bedroom finished 

Creepin in the background

Master Bedroom finished 

Smatz Brothers 

Hallway no longer ugly

Finishing the hallway

In action 

Flooring Is finished

Utility room finished

floored by the progress

It was a good weekend for work all in all.  I took half of friday off of work and installed the majority of floor in the sun room with Amber's help.  On saturday morning Doug showed up and spent a few hours helping by setting up rows of flooring to be installed ahead of the nailing.  While all this was going on Lynch was setting the tub and doing a great job tiling the surround with left over granite.  Sunday was a bit of a wash on the progress front, but Amber and I took somewhat of a holiday to go boating with friends in the afternoon (and had a great time).  By Monday afternoon some of the details of the flooring were finished, and it became very clear that my material estimate was a bit low...so it looks like I will have to hit up lumber liquidators for about 150 maybe 200 sqft.  It looks like the floors will be totally installed and ready for finishing by the end of the week provided that I can successfully install all the required thresholds between the rooms.

Nailer and Mallet

Integral of a curve

Sun room floor

Aspiring plumber

First line drilled and screwed in

Organized flooring on the docket 

Sun room from above

Hand installation of the second row

Entry room installed

Flowers for my Grandmother 

Starting the dining room

Finished the last coarse of the sun room

Lynch set the tub and installed the first layer of tile

Setting up to tile the tub 

Lynch "testing" the fresh laid mortar 

The closet that took as much time as a whole room

Leveling the floor