I stained our concrete floor with fertilizer. On purpose.
Andrea and I think it looks awesome. It was also absurdly cheap and easy to do. So absurdly cheap and easy, it was harder to write this blog post than stain the floor. Okay, maybe that’s because I am actually not a fan of writing blog posts and uploading pictures, and I have more fun installing toilets than using a computer, but still… absurdly cheap and easy.
The most exciting thing lately has been the shower. Over the last two weeks our tile setter has been working hard and doing a beautiful job tiling our shower.
Andrea and I decided to invest a lot of our savings from building our bathroom DIY into some nice finishes. Such as expensive, high-end tile. We found out later that the tile we picked out is truly an exclusive item: the factory in Italy went out of business, and we bought the last seven boxes of tile available anywhere.
Since we had a lot invested in the tile, finding a good tile setter was critical for us. We needed a pro who knew how to properly waterproof the shower. If the shower were to leak, our pretty and very expensive tile would have to be torn out to effect a repair. Our tile is irreplaceable, so a shower failure is not an option. We want this shower to outlast us.
Back at the end of September we had the drywall done. It was a radical transformation of the inside. It was also something of an experience to see all my labor at electrical and plumbing concealed for the next fifty years (hopefully).
The drywallers did an excellent job.
The best part: I didn’t have to do it! Doing this addition mostly DIY taught me a lot about the value of labor. I actually enjoy doing drywall, but it is a very time-consuming process for me and it was totally worth it to have a crew come in and hang everything in one day, then tape everything in one day, then spend a few hours texturing over two or three days. If I had done it, it would have taken weeks.
Well, I’ve not posted much in like a month. Which is typical of me, since I’m not really one of those people who start a blog and actually post things to it. But hey, I’m doing stuff! I even have pictures to prove it.
Basically we finished siding most of the bathroom, and then I hired my friend Reuben to paint all the gable ends and eaves olive green. Behold!
We are presently in the middle of installing the redwood siding. This weekend Caleb and I installed the horizontal redwood lap siding on the west wall, and finished preparing the east wall.
We are using 12′ long redwood 1×6 boards, construction heart grade and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. This means that the boards came from sustainably managed forests, and the trees were neither harvested by clear-cutting nor were old growth. There is no way and no how I would use redwood that was not FSC-certified or reclaimed. “Construction heart” means the wood has knots in it, but is all heartwood and therefore has higher resistance to decay and insects. It should last a very long time.
I picked up 45 boards, special ordered from Big Orange. About half will be stained, half painted, depending on where they will be installed.
Lee Street House of Awesome 