Week 38: 12 - 18 March
Mar. 20, 2023No doubt you think that I’ve forgotten about the blog but nothing could be farther from the truth! I ended up taking a last-minute trip to US for a month and in that time, obviously wasn’t taking photos and updating. I’m making up for it today and will hopefully provide a decent overview of everything that happened in the past month.
Exterior
The exterior looks pretty much the same but the photos below show that our neighbors’ homes have also been making progress.
Garage/Basement
The guys were there another Saturday morning, working away at getting the first coats over the basement walls. You can see that the channels that they had to create for electrical wiring have been sufficiently mudded and smoothed to the point that they are barely visible.
In this photo, the dark patches above the cables going across the floor show
the wet mud that covers the wiring.
If you look closely, you can see the lines where the wires are.
A few coats later and you can’t even tell there are bricks beneath it.
Wall coats are done. The dark patches are still not dry yet.
A nicer view showing what looks like a garage that will be finished some day.
You can see the guys at work here at the beginning again, starting with the
layers covering the bricks under the stairs.
The technical room is in progress and you can see that the stairway still
hasn’t been started yet.
All of the structural pieces are gone from under the stairs and everything has
been smoothed over…I’m trying to figure out how to best use this space
once it’s done.
The stairway walls are nice and smooth.
Basement Technical Room
The technical room/laundry room also has smooth walls now.
The tiles have been laid in the entryway although they haven’t had grout
applied yet. We are really impressed with our tile layer who has been
doing a beautiful, careful job.
Long before the bathroom tiles are laid, another waterproofing layer is added
to the particularly wet areas of the bathroom.
And our bathroom has tiles!
And now we have grout!
Another peek into the in-progress bathroom.
And we have grout and edges!
Our pantry also has floors, albeit without grout at this point.
The kitchen is currently serving as a storage area for the bathroom cabinets.
(The boxes labeled with “dreja”.)
The tall, narrow space to the left of the firebox is for firewood storage.
Our original plan was to have bookshelves installed in the space next to the
fireplace but due to how deep it is we are reconsidering and may just put a
recliner in the far left corner and make a nice cozy reading nook.
A closer view of the fireplace.
The toilet has floor tiles…
Yes, you are seeing correctly that we have blue and pink bathroom tiles. And downstairs, we have a sort of teal blue. In 2020 when we were selecting tiles for the bathroom, we had some major challenges. Due to COVID, everything was delayed but also, we were incredibly frustrated when dealing with the bathroom studio. They gave us a catalog with style choices and told us to choose. Easy enough…we spent ages selecting and picked what we wanted for each of the bathrooms…and then they told us they didn’t have those tiles anymore. So…we picked again. And the same thing happened. So we finally said, “well, maybe you could just tell us which ones in the catalog you DO have available?” And we were so tired of spending months picking and choosing and so we chose these. If you go into a bathroom in an old-school Czech house, you’ll generally see bathrooms that are brightly coloured and so Lauren really wanted something more along those lines. And so teal and blue and pink are what we ended up with!
Upstairs Bathroom
This photo was taken as the tile guy was working on the last layer of waterproofing before he laid the tiles. The green line is level across the bathroom so he knows how high he needs to add the waterproofing.
The tile guy pointed out a problem with the bathroom that up until now no one had noticed. Can you see what it is?
We have water pipes going to the bathtub…but no drain. The plumbers have
been called back out and are already there figuring out where the drain needs
to be.
The tile guy is adding waterproofing.
A few days later and that waterproofing layer is done and dry.
Floor tiles are down except where the bathtub will be.
The shower stall still doesn’t have tiles yet.
And there’s more waterproofing on the wall where the sinks will be.
The bathtub corner and missing drain.
Moving out to the garden, let us first apologise for the blurry photos.
Lauren is not the best photographer in the house. All of the trees have
buds and new growth and are ready for summer.
This is about a 2-minute walk from our house. A nice field with a path
through it. In summertime, the grasses here are waist high.
Spring is definitely here with crocuses popping up everywhere. This
particular gardenbed is by the parking lot at our butcher shop.
