Now that the floors in the living room, dining room and kitchen are done, we focused our attention on the floors in the master bedroom and bathroom.  But before we could begin, we had to move our sleeping quarters into what will be the kitchen and move our tiling supplies and tools into the living room for storage.

I also had to remove the toilet from the master bathroom to be able to tile the floor.  So I started the whole process by permanently setting the toilet in the guest bathroom.

When the plumber ran the lines throughout the house, he used a new type of line called PEX rather than copper.  Since I had only ever worked with copper lines, I was more than a bit apprehensive about how easy the PEX would be to work with.

Plumbing has never been my strong suit in home repair/remodeling.  But after cutting and putting on a couple PEX fittings, I am absolutely sold on it as a product!  You literally cut the PEX to the correct length and push the fitting on.  That’s it!  There is nothing to tighten or soldier or anything.  And they simply do not leak!

It took some time to get the waste pipe cut off and get the hole in the concrete cleaned up enough to glue the toilet flange in place.  But once that was done, it literally took about 15 minutes to set the toilet and get the plumbing done to connect it to the PEX line.  Did I mention that I am now a PEX True Believer?

Then I was able to remove the temporary toilet from the master bathroom so I can tile (and put a bag of grout over the waste pipe to keep the sewer gas out of the house).

I got started on the floor tile in the master bedroom and bathroom.

These tiles are much slower to lay than the tile in the living room because they are 6X36 inches.  So there is a LOT of cutting.  But they do look pretty nice.

By the end of the week, my knees and back were in pretty tough shape from kneeling on the concrete.  So I decided to take a break from the tile and start moving my shop tools from the rental house.

I did get all of the parts for my tablesaw moved over, but have not yet put it back together.

And of course my “Steel Tina” (roller outfeed table for my tablesaw).

Note to any budding woodworkers: a “Steel [insert your wife’s name here]” is a MUST for your shop.  They are pretty cheap, (I paid about $150 for mine) And they will absolutely save your marriage if you have to rip long boards or cut sheet goods.

I also got my tool chests moved over.

But still have to put the tools back into them.

I plan to spend my evenings when I am done working on the house for the day, re-organizing my tools into my tool chests.  But I will need to take a day or two and dedicate it to just organizing my shop and re-assembling my machine tools.

Plus, I do still have a few machines at the rental house: a lathe, a jointer, a 22″ drum sander and a drill press.

Also, our friend Danny came by and helped me lift the wood stove from its shipping pallet onto some furniture pads.  The furniture pads will allow me to slide it into final position by myself once I get the pipe for the chimney.

I like it a lot!  I think it is going to look really sharp once we get the final trim done.

Finally, all of the recent rain has caused some sink

holes to appear.

We have had 2-3 of them appear.  The one in the picture is the biggest.  It is about 16 inches deep.  At first, I thought it was over the leachfield.  But it is too far away from the house for that.  So I do not know why it happened.

When it rains, the hole fills completely with rainwater and mud, much to the delight of Belle The Amazing Water Dog.