Tile setting begins

The hardwood guys worked yesterday to lay down the second coat of sealer (both upstairs and downstairs), and will be starting to install hardwood on the stairs next. In the meantime, Paul and his crew have started setting tile in place. Here Paul (job superintendent) and I (on the left) are laying out the tile mural for the master bathroom shower:

Paul Lewing (the artist) makes it easy to assemble the proper layout; though most of it was pretty obvious in our case, he numbers each tile on the back and provides a layout diagram so that no mistakes should be possible:

This is the mural all laid out on the floor:

The three loose tiles at the bottom are accent tiles that will placed around the perimeter of the tub deck. From the right, they are a catamaran, a ferry (a common sight on Puget Sound waters, in case you've never been here), and the Mukilteo lighthouse. When my wife and I were dating we used to spend a lot of time down at the Mukilteo beach next to the lighthouse and this brings back lots of fun memories. Ah those teenage years... :)

See the sunken ship on the bottom? I asked Paul to model that on the USS Constitution - I've always been fascinated with the age of sail and the USS Constitution is a marvelous ship that is still accessible to the public; I highly recommend a visit if you ever find yourself in the Boston area. (I also want to see HMS Victory someday, but find myself a bit short on cash at the moment for a European vacation...)

We are very happy with how the mural has turned out. It will make a really unique and personal touch for our bathroom.

Tile setting in other rooms has also been going on. This is the upstairs laundry room:

I asked Paul, and he said they were planning to set all of the tile first, then go back and grout.

This is the upstairs guest bedroom bathroom:

Here's a good view of the floor in one of the upstairs bedrooms:

That is not the final "look" of the floor...the above will be buffed, and then a third final coat of sealer will be applied near the end of the job. Sasha the floor guy was careful to caution me about this, so we wouldn't get alarmed that this would be the final appearance. So far it looks good, but I am a bit surprised at how much the grain raised. Hopefully the final sealer coat will really level things out.

Our appliances have been delivered and are waiting in the garage:

The garage remains a minor disaster zone, with two chop saw stations plus a tile saw...

...but I'm sure it will all get cleaned up nicely when things are done :).

Last but not least, we've finally finished selecting all of the light fixtures. The kitchen island pendants took some searching before we decided that we both liked the "Kana" onyx shade pendant from Tech Lighting. There will be three of these hanging over the island. The sales folks at the Kirkland Crescent Lighting showroom were quite helpful during the process, but I'm glad it's over. One more thing done! :)