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(Having a hard time trying to think of a summarizing yet catchy title...maybe next time.)

We happened to be out at the house today when the very first tiles of our shower mural were set into place:

Dan said he was only going to do the inside corner pieces for today, since that's a tricky area that's best to let cure before moving on. The remaining flat areas will go fast, I bet it will all be done by end of the week.

Plumbing work has started, and most of our bathroom sinks have arrived. We chose the Kohler "Ladena" K2214 model sink for all bathrooms, with the master bathroom sinks in "Ice Gray", and the other bathroom sinks in plain Almond. This is one of the master bathroom sinks:

I like the rectangular look - it's a nice change from your traditional basic oval.

The upstairs has been almost entirely trimmed out; here's an area behind (obv) a toilet:

I was surprised to see water in the toilet, actually, but I guess there wasn't any reason not to hook them up. (Darn, I forgot to ask that the First Ceremonial Pee be reserved for me. :)) Oh yeah, almost forgot: I'm sure that close family members will recognize the toilet model above as a Kohler Wellworth Pressure Lite K3505 model (aka a "big ****" toilet). You didn't think I'd fail to carry on that tradition, did you? (Note to brother Bill: no vulgar comments on my blog! :)

Regarding the "Pressure Lite" aspect of this toilet model: this is a nod to water efficiency, in order to try to keep a reasonable load on our well.

Here's our 85 gallon water heater:

I think water heater size guidelines are usually based on # of bedrooms, but the plumbers had told us we needed a larger model due to the size of our master bathroom tub:

We have never really been into the hot-tub thing, so choosing the above model was done mainly through online research, etc (no sitting in some showroom tub in our bathing suits, thanks but no thanks). This particular tub is a Kohler 6' Seadream model, with heater. Seeing it in real life has made us both go "wow" - it's really big.

The stairs have been all trimmed out, and work has begun on the newel posts as well:

Just like the floors, the stairs have only had two coats of sealer. They will get buffed and sealed one more time near the end of the job. Here's the bottom of the stairs:

In the picture above, you can also see the entryway tile has been started.

While they are very pretty, we've learned that super-fancy newel posts, bannisters, and handrails can be very expensive. In order to cut costs (a novel idea for me, my wife would say) we chose relatively simple items. Here's the current shape of our upstairs newel posts:

In that same picture, you can see a lot of the casing has been installed upstairs. Not only does it look great, but this is one step that really starts to transform the rooms from a "work in progress" look to a "ready to move in" look.

All of the exterior doors have been getting removed for staining. They are all made of fiberglass with a raised wood grain imprint. Fiberglass doors are stronger than wood, and eliminate any chance of warping which eliminates a big concern in our drizzly climate. This is the rear porch door:

It looks better in real-life; the picture makes it seem more reddish than it really is.

In other news, our DSL internet was finally hooked up by CenturyTel, and I've asked our data guy to schedule one last trip to do the final trim work and test that everything is working.

The propane tank was filled up for the first time. Our thousand gallon tank was only able to hold ~800 gallons - bummer, I was hoping it would take at least 900, but oh well.

One item I think we made a mistake on is the side porch door. For some reason, I think I thought it would add either cutness or uniqueness to have this door open outwards. That was dumb - the side porch itself is not big enough to stand to the side to get out of the way of the door swing, so you end up backing up down the steps to give the door room. I would hate to have the door torn out so it can be replaced with an inward-swinging door, but I'd also hate to live with it this way. Paul is getting an estimate on a new door and he is going to let me know what the labor costs will be - we'll see on this one.

We are also getting a quote on a double-door set for the upstairs game room. This is something we are definitely going to do. Each door will be relatively narrow (2' wide), but there will be a transom with glass panes above them. It should look great.