Here we are, at the two-month anniversary of the start of our fireplace project, three days into spring, and we are basically done with our little project. Pat has spent a couple days finishing up details, and one set of bookshelf doors had to go back to be refinished, but it’s essentially complete!
Thanks to Rachel for the drift wood and the lovely decorative bowl.
I won’t mention the fact that we have to have Mr. Personality the Bothell building inspector come examine our final product.
Shelves installed, and fitted so closely you could barely slip a piece of paper between the edges. ‘Nuf said.
Happy (belated) St. Patrick’s Day! We had a happy day – the tile got finished on our fireplace! Also finished are the final repairs to the wall, adding texture and paint.
Here’s where we were on Monday:
And here’s where Pat left it last night:
It’s hard to capture the colors accurately, but you can see the pattern. Those shelves off to the left will go next to the fireplace on either side, and the two boards (you can see them better in the first picture) will become the mantle. So close! But I suspect we’ll still hit a two-month anniversary for the project on March 23.
We’ve started consistently riding our bike to Benji school. On Tuesday, I drop Benji off, unhook the trailer, go ride hill repeats for an hour, then hook the trainer back up and ride us home again. It’s a nice system and I get a hard workout in before evening, when my motivation wanes. On Thursdays, we ride, but I bring my laptop and do work while waiting. All this unseasonably dry, warm weather has certainly facilitated this plan.
Thus far, I’ve parked our rig in the entryway, where it’s dry and a little more secure. I tend to leave things like helmets and extra clothes in there.
Tile work has started! Actually, Pat started cutting time last week, an exercise in the most complicated puzzle imaginable, where you have to make the pieces to fit this precise space and shape.
I didn’t get a picture of it, but he started by laying out all the tile and figuring out how to match the patterns on each tile. Then made this curved pattern with a flexible piece of wood, traced the correct curve onto each tile, and eventually started cutting, very carefully and precisely. Each tile was then laid out again to make sure the curves matched each other.