Today, four months to the day after starting our fireplace project, we had the final inspection. It was a different inspector, not Mr. Personality, and – amazingly – he was quite nice!

I opened the door and offered him fresh homemade cookies; he did the inspection, saw the gas shutoff and exterior vent, asked about whether we had a carbon monoxide monitor, signed off on the permit, and I sent him out the door with another cookie.

Done!

Oh, and when the inspector came in, he saw the fireplace and immediately said, “Wow, nice tile work,” a tribute to Builder Pat if I ever heard one, since the inspector has probably seen thousands of fireplaces. Continue Reading >>

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. Continue Reading >>

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. Continue Reading >>