Why would one do renovations on a NEW house?!? Idiots. Oh and Happy (belated) 4th of July

Remember in my last post I said I would do this post the day after. Yep... or like 4 days after. Whatever. We've been doing the stupid renovations okay? :-P

Wednesday night wasn't all relaxing with our anniversary and such. We also had to make a home depot run. Why? So we can buy MORE things to finish our downstairs.

Now when I say finish, the downstairs WAS finished. It had walls, flooring, doors, etc. There was NOTHING wrong with downstairs. See? Normally there is a bench under that shelf, but otherwise it is finished. BUT (this is a HUGE but) see that door on the left side that is just cracked a little bit?? THAT door is like the door to Narnia. It can create a whole other world when you open it. And unfortunately that whole new world makes the OTHER world (aka the entryway) look... boring.

How do you remedy boring? Well you decide to rip up the flooring and install TILE!! Yay!! Well actually, you convince your husband to do these things... but really it's a great idea (insert eye roll here - sorry Josh). The key to this convincing is to start out helping.

But in the end Josh ended up doing 99% of the work.

So after all the scraping and such it was time to actually physically lay the tile. We had NO idea what we were in for.

Day 2: July 3, 2009

It started out fun and interesting, the tiles looked so shiny and fabulous. We started laying out the "pattern" and all was well. Then Josh started using the adhesive, and trying to line things up... and all hell broke loose.

This shows the first tile all straight and level in place.

Tile #2, leveled, looking good... Josh checked and double checked it's levelness, even lines, etc.

This is the last picture of the day. The adhesive looks yummy right?? *sigh* There was a lot of frustration after those few tiles. The cameras were turned off as the subject matter was too intense to be captured on film. Lol. And FYI, if anyone out there has this brilliant idea to tile themselves. RENT A WET SAW. Just trust me.

Life would have been much more pleasant had the husband not tried to save a few bucks (that we spent in the end anyway...).

Needless to say the tiling did not get done...

On to the FOURTH of JULY!! That morning we spent helping friend's move into their first house. We'd spent a little bit of time there prior helping them take down wallpaper, clean the kitchen, rip up the carpet (to find hardwood floors that are in great shape - kind of jealous), etc.

Saturday morning we got up and helped them move from 9:30ish until about 3. After some showering it was back to their place for food, friends, fireworks and wiffle ball (I just couldn't make that one an "f"). I can't get any of these pictures to upload. *sigh* Oh well. Maybe another post (which I always say and never do...).

Sunday we were back to tiling. This time renting the wet saw late that evening and using it that night and Monday.

Tuesday Josh worked all day but finished the last of the tile that night!! Wednesday Mom and Ian came down and spent the night. Thursday we took them to the airport and then Thursday night (well last night) Josh and I did the grouting. Well he put it down and I wiped it up.

Finished tile, no grout.

The mixing of the grout.

And grout application.

This wasn't as much fun as it looked like but it's DONE. Oh wait... not really.

I got up this morning to find an email from Josh. "What do you think of the grout color today?"

I went downstairs. That beautiful medium gray grout is now... white? Well super light gray.

*sigh*

We'll have to figure that mess out later.

For now we have a rehearsal dinner tonight, wedding (yes another one) tomorrow at 10AM. Then reception and then the Iron Hill Twilight Crit in West Chester. THEN staying with friends that night and coming home Sunday sometime.

I am unfortunately missing what I know will be an awesome get together in NYC with my favorite MM nesties on Sunday. BOOOOOOOOOOO.

*hugs and kisses*

mj