I did not fall off the face of the earth. Nor did I fall into a batch of quick drying tile mortar. I still have all of my fingers and toes.

I’ve been spending about 4 hours every weeknight and most of the weekend trying to get projects finished at the farmhouse. The reality is that about 5 projects are "more done" than they use to be but nothing feels like it is ready to be scratched off the to-do list.

The floors were installed in the residence (other than the tile in the wetroom). I’m not happy with the quality of the installation and I think I am s*****d on that one. The biggest issue is that they did a sucky job with the main seam in the living room and is show SOOOO badly I don’t know what to do. I’ve been told it will "tighten up" so I’m giving it tens days before I become a clear and present PITA. (picture to follow in the next couple of days.)

The tiling job in the wetroom continues but at a glacier pace. Measuring from the floor up, there is the bottom one foot I was told to leave until last, then there is four feet of the field color. There there is the accent stripe (tiled on a 45 degree angle <oye>. I still have three more feet above that and then the floor and then that last one foot. Oh yeah … and all of the grout. I figure that’s four more nights plus a Saturday. (picture of the progress to follow in the next couple of days.)

I wanted the old-house look so I purchased 5/4" x 4" stock from the lumber yard. This stuff is far from budget minded. Unfortunately, it was all wrong. The wood turned out to be only 3-1/2" wide (something I should have realized) but worse than that, it was 4-3/16" thick – that’s 6/4 stock ! So now I have 160 board feet of the stuff in my lumber racks for some other project. It will make a nice top for a vanity or side table. It’s not hardwood but it has nice grain and it *IS* thick !

The final trim around all of the doors will be 3/4" x 4-1/2" wit ha bead detail on the inside edge. I decided to save some time and bought pre-primed. I’ll run it all through the router table today to add the detail, then start cutting it to fit each door. I’ll mark it all since I want to give the pieces a coat of paint before it goes up. (At least you know what I’m doing all day <ugh>)

There’s still some electrical to finish; the AC has not been hooked up; the plumber can’t do his thing until the wetroom and kitchen are ready; there is still a punch list on the steel; the front porch and landscaping are non-existent and will remain that way for at least a couple more months; and the spiral staircase won’t get installed until after the occupancy permit because (1) it isn’t required; and (2) it needs to go through the paint shop for primer and final color.

Random …

• Zen put on some weight, I lost some weight
• I have a business trip this week so will lose 2 or 3 nights work on the tiling
• a 3600 sq ft shop feels small when you have so many unfinished projects and everything is still being stored on the floor (I can’t even get a car inside at the moment)
• the week brought us rain, rain, thunderstorms, clouds, thunderstorms, the 3 H’s, cool-sunny-dry-windy … the weather men got every day wrong !
• Wallops had to scrub the Minotaur I rocket launch three times (yes, the Eastern Shore has it’s own full scale space vehicle launch facility)
• the Popcorn Hour got a replacement drive so it’s back up and running
• my employer has asked I start a "business oriented" blog – it wont’ take any content from since I don’t talk about that kind of work on this blog although, I may occasionally reference one blog from the other
• Dinner last night was Chicken and garlic Alfredo over garden pasta with brussels sprouts

So there you have it. One post for a week’s worth of content. It doesn’t help me get to the magical 1000 post milestone but at least you know I still care enough to write Oh, and for this to truly have been a roundup, it should have been posted by Saturday <doh!>