Progress . . .

There's nothing like the threat of company coming to light a fire under an otherwise unwilling pair of rear ends (those would be mine and Dan's, respectively). We bought the new tile for the guest bathroom several weeks ago, but we have been pretty busy over the last few weeks and just hadn't made much progress until this past weekend.

Unfortunately, now it's crunch time because Dan's parents and brother are coming to visit us next weekend. And we have no guest bathroom. Or--well, we do, but--the toilet and the sink and the mirror and the floor are missing. So basically they can take showers. If they don't mind walking on the bare concrete afterwards.

Since we don't think his family would enjoy having to walk through our bedroom all the time to use the master bathroom, we determined that we should get the guest bathroom done before they arrive. So, last Saturday, we laid the tile in the outer half of the bathroom (it's one of those two-room bathrooms). We chose to start with the outer half because that is the half where the tile meets the hall carpet and we wanted that part to turn out nicely. The instructions on the bucket of mortar said it would take 24 hours to dry. By Monday night, however, it still wasn't dry. And we couldn't get into the inner half of the bathroom unless we walked on it. So we balanced a piece of sheetrock over it and hoped none of the tiles would shift. Thankfully, they didn't.

Now, we have all the full tiles down on the floor. The only tiles left to lay down are the ones that need cutting to fit the edges. But that creates a logistical problem. Our condo building has a covenant restricting construction noise to Monday through Friday between 8:00 and 5:00. Like most people who do remodeling themselves, we are both at work during those hours. :-P So, we are measuring tiles in the evenings after work and then Dan, who only works about 10 minutes away, is going home on his lunch breaks to cut a few tiles every day until they are all done. In the meantime, the tile saw, which has an annoyingly short cord (and we don't have an extension cord that fits the plug) is occupying a significant portion of my already-too-small kitchen countertop. :)

And I am praying that the finished product doesn't look as harum-scarum as the process has been so far. ;)

However, the end is in sight. We think. At least, we hope it is because we had plans to go to Monterey this weekend to see some dear friends we haven't seen since our wedding (and won't have the opportunity to see again for a long time). Once the tile is laid, we still have to grout, install the wainscotting (I know, wainscotting--what was I thinking?), paint EVERYTHING, attach the vanity to the wall, install the sink and faucet, reattach the toilet and replace the fixtures. *grin* It's going to be a crazy week. But the end result (we hope) will be well worth it.

P.S. I did take some "before" pictures, but I am refusing to post them until I can post the "after" pictures at the same time. With any luck, that will be in about a week. :)