AllGuinness

The haze of the wedding-honeymoon-holidays is finally wearing off for me, and I am feeling the need to get back to work. We had hoped to finish more than we did before the wedding, so there is still plenty left to do.

The upstairs still has much to attend to. The hardwood flooring is only about one-sixth done. We have laid the floor in one of the bedrooms, but we still have the other bedroom and the hall to go. Then there is the sanding staining and finishing. We probably should have gone the pre-finished Bellawood route or something, but we are too stupid for that, so we had to go with a more traditional product. This is something that is usually, and probably rightly so, done by a professional, but we are trying it ourselves. Just so you know about Bellawood, there is always a way to tell if it is being used. It has a slight bevel edge on each side of the board. The way I understand it, there are slight differences in thickness when the planks are milled. Normally this would be evened out in the sanding step of hardwood flooring, but since this is a pre-finished product, there is no sanding step, so the bevel edge makes it harder for us to notice the difference between the boards. Neat trick, but we didn’t want it just because we didn’t like the little grooves in the floor. I think it looks dumb.

There is a gang of work to do in the front, or what will be the master bathroom. We got a really cool tub with champagne bubbles and shit, but we have yet to install it. We are still waiting on the grouting of the tile, and the finishing of the plumbing. It should be pretty cool when it is all done. It is closed now with entry only from the bedroom attached. I did some ok work on that.

There are some other plumbing issues with the upstairs bathrooms too. There is a somewhat major leak from the main bath to the dining room, and that ain’t good. It’s going to be a nightmare to repair, but what are you gonna do, right? We will be relying on professionals for that one. When they fix it, we can finally get the king of all tubs reattached. It is the coolest bathtub in the world, but until it is attached is just a really odd towel hanger.

There are some other more minor things to take care of, then it’s off to the kitchen and the most extensive project yet! We’ll put my carpentry skills to the test as I try to make something that is virtually level.