Tina got all of the doors sanded, sealed, re-sanded and 2 coats of varnish!  They look great.  In addition, she started on the door frames.  She got the frame to the master bathroom completed so we could re-hang the door and have some privacy…

I think we will get the mouldings in the next few weeks and get started on those.  Moulding is a low priority item since we do not need to have those completed for the final inspection.  But it is a good thing for each of us to work on as filler while we wait for the other to complete the critical work.  I.E. Tina can be finishing moulding while she waits for me to build the cabinets and I can be hanging moulding while I wait for her to finish the cabinets.

When I first started the tiling, I could not figure out why I was having such a tough time getting things to fit right.  Everything measured out correctly, but when I got to a wall or a doorway, they just did not fit right.  Historically, I have always been pretty good at laying tile.  I am slow.  But things always end up square and looking good.  That is why I was having such frustration with this job.

At first I thought it was my new tile saw (pictured without the water tray).

The tile saw has been a source of severe frustration.  The blade that came with it started to burn after less than 10 cuts even though there was plenty of water flowing on both sides of the blade.  And by the time I had done 20 cuts it was as fried as the brains of our HVAC guys.  So I replaced the blade with a decent blade.  Then, I spent another couple of hours trying to get the table square with the blade.  Finally, I was having trouble with the table jamming up.  That problem was solved by pumping nearly half a small tube of lithium grease into the bearings.  After spending almost $500 on a tile saw who would have thought that grease was not included?  GRRR!!!!

When this build is over, before I sell the tile saw, I am going to find somebody that owns a monkey to bring the monkey over to the house and throw poo at that bloody saw for a day!

Even after getting the saw so it mostly works pretty well, I still found using a small angle grinder and a pair of nippers works best for angle cuts and complex cuts.

But after all my frustration with tools, correct measurements but incorrect results, etc. etc., I looked at a box of the tiles and finally figured out what the real problem was.

THESE ARE MUSLIM TILES!!!  The Muslims waged tile Jihad on my hallway!

Once I figured that out, I started treating them like Muslim tiles and they laid down nice and neat in the livingroom.

And of course my boy Boomer is always helping me…

Good friends help you hide the bodies…

We bought a wood stove for the house last March.  We had to pick it up a couple of weeks ago or begin paying storage charges.  So I drove up to Tucson and had them load it into the back of my truck.  My biggest concern was how we were going to get it out onto the ground.

I threw out a blanket lifeline call for help to get the stove down from my truck and our friends Danny and Bonnie responded.  We have known Danny and Bonnie for about 10 years (since our first visit here on vacation) and they are great folks.  But they do not owe us anything.  Still, they saved our bacon.

Last Monday, Danny showed up with a tractor with a hay fork!  We quickly repurposed hayfork as a forklift and got stove down with a bare minimum of physical labor!

We cannot thank you both enough.

The next day, our friend Eve, who we have also known since our first vacation here, called and asked if we wanted to come down and take a proper shower at her place.  HELL YEAH!  (This is a normal shower not some weird California thing.)

To those of you that I have not introduced Eve to, suffice it to say that she is a True American Superhero.

And having a real shower after a hard day’s work is a REAL treat.

Lastly, the photos I failed to post last week.  I got Tina a washer and a dryer.