Sorry I missed posting an entry last week.  My travel schedule for work has been brutal the last 3 weeks with last weekend being the worst.  I got home from Seattle about midnight on Friday and had to leave the rental house at 3:30 AM Sunday morning to catch a flight to Augusta, GA.  So we did not even go out to the build house last weekend.

Tina did go out for a few days while I was in Augusta and got started finishing the doors.  They are really coming out nice.

She is doing these a little different than the way she did the doors in our Minnesota house.  Instead of putting on a coat of sanding sealer, she sanded them down well with 220 grit sandpaper, then varnished them with a mix of 2/3 varnish and 1/3 mineral spirits.  Then she sanded them with 320 grit sandpaper and put on 2 more coats of varnish (without the mineral spirits).  The result makes the grain really stand out.  And with the high gloss, they look like you can put your hand right through them.

Unfortunately, we only have 2 sets of sawhorses, so she is limited to doing 2 doors at a time.  I think we are going to go to Home Depot this week and get 2 more sets of saw horses.

But we were pleasantly surprised to learn how quickly the varnish dries in the desert.  In Minnesota, a coat of oil based varnish took 10-12 hours to dry.  Here, they are dry enough to add another coat in about 90 minutes.

When Tina was at the build house by herself, she did catch one of the most beautiful sunsets.  Of course, she had to rub my nose in it by texting me while I was stuck in the heat and absolutely miserable humidity of Augusta.

For my part, I did finally get started on the floor tile.  It has been 7 or 8 years since I have done ceramic floor tile and I found my skills are a little rusty.  Of course, I had to start with the most time consuming part of the tiling as well – the hallway and the guest bathroom.

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I did this doorway.  You will notice the tile comes right to the door jamb on the right side of the photo and left is about 1/2 inch beyond the door jamb.

Oh well, that is why God made angle grinders.

But I think the transition pieces we got for the doorways will look really sharp once I get the tile straightened.

Also, we had to pick up the wood burning stove this week.  We bought it back in March because they were due to increase the price and they agreed to hold it for us for 2 months.  After 3 months, I guess they wanted their warehouse space back because they were going to start charging us to keep it.  So I picked that up on Saturday too.

Unfortunately, with the pallet and the attached shipping stuff, the thing weighs about 350 pounds.  So it is still stuck in the back of my truck.  Since I am taking the week of July 4th off from work to work on the house.  I am hoping I can impose on our friend Danny and our friend Eve to help us scare up a couple strong backs to help me lift it from my truck onto a dolly.