Bill has taken a half day off work to finish shingling Old Farm's garage South facing wall. It was a long weekend we also spent shutting down the house for winter. As a 306 yr. old Pilgrim son's house, Old Farm is well situated in it's landscape, defying elements while making the most of them. It's original size with plumbing all downstairs and a fireplace in every room, we are able to continue our visits year round easily.
Installing this Bianca Carrara floor took three days after laying out tiles for a good pattern, installing a new marble transom and painting the room. Day one I numbered tiles with blue tape as they were measured, cut and dry fit into place. We used a rented large wet saw due to 24" length cuts and started at the entrance. Full tiles were fit with 3/16" spacers - first against the marble transom while last tiles will have baseboard trim on their edges.
Day 2 was using Versabond Thinset #2, & a 3/8" notched trowel to set a row of tiles with a laser leveler starting at the door and working toward the window wall. This creates critical grout lines for the room as we then worked from the windows and backed out. Back buttering tiles helped with adhesion to waterproofed cement board (which replaced a second layer of plywood).
Day three was sand-grouting the floor with Polyblend's "Artic White", after cleaning cracks. Gorgeous!
The main bathroom here has vintage tiles and tall white walls with high windows facing North. To help integrate the strong blue tiles, we will hang a pale Norwall 1.25" stripe wallpaper on the angled vanity & toilet wall. The colors mimic the tiles and are subtle enough to "warm" the room. Norwall offers a great vinyl coated paper which is prepasted and inexpensively made in Canada. Home Depot: $24.91/roll from the book "Simply Stripes 3".
My favorite pattern is blue & white stripes which our boys all wore at times.
Existing studs dictate the vanity will mount in the corner of the room, which also gives the toilet as much space as possible but means the light fixture & mirror will move 1 1/2" to be centered over the faucet. The wiring was notched past a stud and the mirror will be hung vertically now. Leif has added Rockwool to exterior wall cavities before Bill helped sheetrock after updating plumbing.
We have chosen the Glacier Bay Dual Flush Elongated Toilet with a soft closing lid for both bathrooms here since it is modern, low and narrow with a "10 min. hook up". After snaking the exit pipe from the septic to the house, we installed one already. Best price Home Depot: $179. Floor tiles: Lowes $63 with a Large Wet Saw rental: $75 from Home Depot.
Acorn Deck Houses have 4" X 12" solid wood beams painted dark brown which many owners have wrapped in new wood or stripped. This paint makes them wondrous & highlights the knots. Bought from Ricciardi's, Morristown, NJ, $165 for 2.5 liters.
