Saturday, January 30, 2010

And Behind Door #2...

All of the room doors in our Wimberley home are now in, and they all look like the one in this first photo... except one. Door number two is very different, having come from a charity auction where Ann bought it years ago. It had been on display in her Houston dining room on a stand against the wall, and it made a pretty fine accent decoration. It now resides in Wimberley in a different occupation servings as, you'll never guess... a door. It fit perfectly as an entry into the laundry room, to be seen by all from the entry foyer. Right now, behind door number two are my workbench and tools, but someday it will conceal lots of dirty clothes from grandkids playing in the pond, grandma cooking dinner, and grandpa changing oil.






Sunday, January 17, 2010

Cool stuff

Ceramic floor tiles are not my favorite finish for many areas since they are cold to the feet. And they often help prove that unbreakable objects are NOT. But one thing ceramic tile is great at is performance in wet areas, so I started installing these 16" x 16" tiles in the master bath this weekend. Tiles this big are tough to cut without a big commercial wet saw, so my strategy is is to lay all the whole tiles first, and then rent a wet saw for just a few hours for the cut tiles. After this job is done I'll be finished with all the floors downstairs. Woo hoo! Soon it'll be time to start the long task of trimming out the downstairs with stained baseboard, door casing, closet shelving, and other bits.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Making a (back) Splash

I had told myself that I'd NOT do much work on the house during the holidays, at least not while we had family visiting. So when Stacey asked me how to install tile backsplash I hesitated... but only for a minute. Then we set about installing a few pieces of the glass tile you see pictured. Just to help her learn how, of course. And I'm glad we did, since it looks even better in place than it did sitting in the box for six months after I bought it. Next, hopefully Stacey will have equal success doing backsplash in her own home. Knowing her, she just may get it done much faster than I did.



Monday, January 04, 2010

Wimberley Holiday Fun

Another year gone by, and another step forward (pun intended for first photo) in creating the family holiday retreat of my childhood memories. Although our home may never have the character (or characters) of my grandparent's home in Longville, LA, it does have all of the fun. And actual A/C and heat, toilets that work, etc. I admit that we didn't have an uncle dressed as Santa Claus like in my childhood, but there is always next year...

Our 2009/2010 holiday season saw four generations of family gathered in Wimberley, ages one-and-a-half to 77. A few of my favorite photos are below, each with special memories that God willing, will last for our kids and grand-kids like my Longville memories have for me.





















Sunday, January 03, 2010

Flooring, Finally!

After considering dozens of flooring samples to cover most of the downstairs, I finally made a decision. Forbo Marmoleum is a true linoleum, made of linseed oil combined with cork and sawdust. (Some people call vinyl floors linoleum, but they are not). Since linseed oil is plant-based, this stuff is considered to be one of the most eco-friendly floor coverings on the market. And compared to ceramic tile, it's warmer on the feet and friendlier to fragile objects dropped on it. It took the green movement to bring true linoleum back, and luckily it's now available in some decent colors. The photo shows a test layout of the 20" square tiles.
But the much more important test was the second one, with grandkids visiting yesterday and today. And it passed! Photos of that visit coming soon.