Tuesday, December 1, 2009

The States

OK...So I've really been wanting to get this blog back up to date....but once you get behind it sure is hard to catch up...so here goes...

I was in the States for six weeks and got back on November 30. Again there wasn't too much time for play. I was really sick for the first week and a half, stuck in bed, freezing cold but sweating, and shivering with the chills. Not too much fun. After that I started my job I came for and demolished and remodeled a bathroom...Out with the tub, toilet, floors, walls, lighting, etc... A week and a half later and all done. It came out really nice and once again I had some really high end materials to work with which always makes it a good thing.

As you can see this is a pretty small bathroom. It had some old tile in it with these huge grout lines. The shower door was pretty much uncleanable and the lighting wasn't that great. It also had one of those vent fans that sounds like a small jet when you try to get some of that "Number 2" smell out of the bath or steam from a hot shower. So we decided to fix all these problems. Out with the old and in with the new. I didn't get any demo pics just this one before and the following afters.


As you can see we put in a nice marble floor. I laid them on an angle centered up with the toilet. We finished it all with a nice relaxing paint job. You can also see a new GFCI outlet we had put in so that we could mount the poopy fan switch near the toilet. :)


Here you can see the new can lights we threw in and that nice shiny vent fan above the toilet. It's a light/night light/vent combo. It'll suck anything out of this room. I had to run a new vent house in the attic for it from the vent out to the eaves to get the moisture out of the shower. The can lights were the only nice ones we could find with PAR lamps for the shower but they were non-ic so I framed out some boxes around the cans in the attic to keep them up to code. You also get a preview of the shower tile. Marble 4"x12" with a beveled edge. I loved this stuff. And what about those ceiling patches...what, what patches, I don't see any patches/repairs...exactly what I'm going for. :)


You can see the shiny new tub we threw in. Now here we have the crown jewel of the shower...That beautiful tile. These homeowners can really pick out some pretty materials. On one wall we have the really nice plumbing fixtures and on the back wall we have the "Glass Waterfall". 1"x1" glass tiles from the tub lip up the wall into the niche up the back of the niche around the top of the niche and then back up the wall to the ceiling. This was the time eater of the job. The design, layout, and the details of the work took sometime. Sometimes I wish I didn't pay so much attention to detail because I spend a lot of time making sure things are just right. But in the end it makes me happy as well as the homeowner.


Here is another shot of the "Glass Waterfall". I wish I could say I was really good but it's not me. When you are working with beautiful materials it's hard for the complete job to not look good. I must say though I really loved these marble tiles, they cut like butter. They did have more natural fracture lines and were prone to crack a bit on small cuts but they came out beautiful. There is nothing like natural materials and that natural color they contain. A lot of these pieces had color lines that matched up across pieces, greens, browns, greys, and blacks. Beautiful beautiful material.



From North Carolina I was able to shoot down to New Orleans for a week. We rented a car, A SEBRING (Michael Scotting it up). We drove down to New Orleans and spent the week with my family there. What a great week, nothing to do and all week to do it. Now this is how vacation is suppose to feel right? I got to meet my new nephew too... how cute is he?!?!

And here are they boys!!!



It was great to see the family and actually have a week out of my six week stay in the States that wasn't consumed by work. After New Orleans we headed back to North Carolina with only a little less than two weeks left. I spent a couple of days up at Dani's moms to visit with them. Definitely not enough time for fun but just enough time to work. She wanted me to build a pergola, so as quick as I could I took my measurements, drew something up, and we got it constructed in one day. I couldn't believe I actually got it finished that quick. Big big thanks go out to CJ (Dani's brother), Riley (CJ's boy, for his sanding help), Nicky and Erv for their help, and of course Bird for the hot chocolate. Thanks guys!!!

So here's a good before...


And then the after...

Here's a shot from the door...not bad for a days work.