Monkey business!

By the time I saw the knitpicks.com catalog with the first Mr. Foster monkey kit, they'd already sold out. Boo hoo! But yesterday I received an email that the new Mr. Foster monkey kit is out, so I ordered it right away. He comes with patterns for a security officer suit, sailor suit, and doctor coat and scrubs. Cute!

Mysterious Mosaics

The bathroom shower tile looks just fine and it's the picture that emphasizes the dark tiles and makes them appear very regular, especially when you look at low resolution, like on a computer screen. Weird.

Here's another picture of the tiles (now showing the completed wall) and you can probably see lots of zig-zags - or at least I can:

But click on the above picture to see a larger view (really large!) and the patterns made by the dark tiles are not as obvious. But trust me, in real life you have to work hard to see them.

Since neither I nor my husband was home to see the actual tile, we were relying on the cell phone picture of the tile. The message to fix the tile was routed through our contractor and then to the tile guy. When the tile guy looked at the tile, I'm sure he thought we were nuts, but he moved a few of the small tiles anyway. He asked his assistant to take a picture to send to the contractor but when the assistant prepared to take the picture he got a screwy look on his face as he looked from the camera to the tile and back again. Now they saw what we saw!

So mystery solved. The tile is just fine and we've all learned that pictures can lie, especially when it's a picture of glass mosaic tile!

Update on the house

Here are some pictures of the bathroom shower and floor in various stages of tiling (they're cell phone pics, so pardon the quality and color):

Bathroom floor, looking in from the doorway:

Shower floor (those are temporary wood strips just above the strip of mosaic):



The shower as of this morning:



This one shows how wide the mosaic border is. The white tile will continue above the mosaics to the ceiling:



It's been a more labor intensive tiling job than the "tile guy" first thought. But he is doing an absolutely beautiful job. I'll probably be taking longer showers just to admire the tile. I am sure his other construction work is just as well done, so I highly recommend Dastrup Construction.

I finished writing this post and was about to publish it when I saw something in the above picture that made my heart just sink. Do you see it? The mosaic tiles above the inset shelf are not very random, in fact they are down right regular...in a ziggedy zaggedy way. I tried not to see it. I thought maybe I was just noticing it because of the lighting. Mosaic tile comes pre-arranged in sheets so it's not the tilers fault. They certainly didn't lay the individual tiles that way. Somehow the sheets, which are 12x12, must have come that way. But I knew it was speak now or forever live with the tile because tomorrow they're going to grout. The tile guys now see the issue and they're fixing it. Crisis averted.

The other projects are progressing. The bedroom drywall is up and after the tiling is finished, the drywaller will come back to tape, mud, and smooth out the joints. There are eight 4" diameter recessed lights in the ceiling (yay - light!) and the contractor repositioned electrical outlets so they are more accessible and added one more. The ceiling fan box is also wired. This is the fan we're thinking of getting. It will have maple blades and a brushed nickel housing:

(picture from Modern Fan Company)

The contractor is also building our custom bathroom vanity. It will be maple with brushed steel cylindrical feet and stainless steel drawer pulls. We're still mulling over the idea of a stainless vanity sink. But I hear from those who have stainless bathroom sinks that while they look great when clean, they dirty easily with toothpaste, water spots, and finger prints. A basic white sink hides a lot of those messes.

The front of the house (where this whole project first started) is also almost finished. The front doors are being stained and will be installed once the interior workmen are finished going in and out so we can minimize wear and tear on the new door.

So it looks like a few more weeks to go. I think we (as in me and the husband) will be refinishing the floors, putting in closet organizers, painting, and installing the light fixtures and ceiling fan. All things we've done before. We've also done tiling, drywall, and electrical ourselves but it's been good to pay someone else to do these things this time, especially after seeing how difficult the tiling is.