Interior Update Continued...



 

Besides the kitchen cabinets, there's been some other progress in the interior of the house.  The fireplace has been an ongoing concern because of the height both inside and outside.  All the rock guys who've looked at it said it was definitly a two man job and most of them work alone.  After finally finding a crew that was willing to do it, we lost them while waiting for the back-ordered stone.  The Cultured Stone was manufactured by Corning and was ordered through our friend Randy Miller and his company B.C. Brick.  When we first started looking at the sample boards at B.C. Brick we changed our minds every time we were in the store. 

Randy drove us by a few houses in the area that had stone work finished with what we were leaning towards but it usually left us less sure of our choice.  While in the store Randy gave us a copy of Corning's catalog that had a fireplace covered in stone and after seeing the picture we knew it was what we wanted.  It was actually a mix of two stone types, Southern Ledgestone, and Field Stone in the Bucks Country color.  The mantle came from a local fellow who is manufacturing our flooring.  We had told him we wanted somthing rustic and on one of our visits to his shop, he brought out a few hand hewn beams that had come from a 100 year old homestead barn in his area.  It was as rustic as they

Nosy Neighbor Checking Out The House

 come and we were sure it would match up with the rock and iron fireplace nicely.  Because the wood was still it's natural weathered color, coming up with the color was tricky.  It's made from Douglas Fir which usually goes a pink/orange color when stained so we had Rick (flooring guy) stain it with a brownish concoction of his own making.  After getting it home I mixed up a wax from a dark Danish Oil, varsol, and beeswax and gave the beam a good shot of elbow grease... the color came out spot on and left a nice mellow shine to the wood.  The two wires above the mantel are for some sconces we'll install later.

The bathrooms have been progressing slowly but given the nature of the tiles, it's not a big suprise.  Because the house was meant to mimic an old craftsman style home from the early 1900's we decided early on that subway tiles along with a hexagon mosaic floor would add some old world charm.  Hexagon tiles were used regularly in houses, restaurants, hotel lobbies etc... all through-out the early part of the last century and really have a nice effect on a space. After we had decided on the style of tiles we wanted, the difficult part was finding them.  Locally they were non-existant and even on the internet there were very few companies that dealt with them... probably not a popular choice with all the new styles of modern tiles available.  A number of years back I had lived in an old heritage apartment building that had them in the entrance as well as the bathrooms, the one thing that was different about those tile and the ones I was finding on the internet was that the originals had a completely flat surface whereas the ones I was finding had a rounded or "cushioned edge" that made them look not quite right to my eye.  It took me a while but I found two

1-1/4" Hexagon Tiles

comapanies manufacturing the flat version that we were after... unfortunately, at $14.00 sqft. we'd be coming up with a new idea for tiles.  While in a local tile supplier looking for new ideas, I happened to ask if they had any hexagon tiles (I wasn't quite ready to quit on the idea yet) and to my suprise the guy brought out a sample board that had the exact tile I was after.  I asked about the price and prepared myself to be disappointed, and although he quoted $11.00 sqft., it was still more than we wanted to spend.  Armed with the new manufacturer's name and tile style (Daltile 1-1/4" keystones) I hit the internet and found South Cypress Flooring had the tile for under $7.00 sqft.

Mosaic Floor

This was a bit more than we wanted to spend but we could make it work.  While searching for hexagon floors on the internet, I had found some photos of some historic houses that had borders or small, square tiles around the hexagons... Daltile happened to make 3/4" square tiles so we decided to add the borders as well.  South Cypress Flooring also sold the 3" x 6" subway tiles we liked so we were able to order all our tiles online at save about 45% off the local tile suppliers.  Everything seemed rosy until we found out we'd be waiting 7 weeks for the hexagons to be manufactured.  We knew it would delay everything on the house and drive Dan (site superintendant) crazy, but we also knew these tiles were going to look great.
The tile guy started about a week ago and things are going slower than we had hoped for,  but Arturo (tile guy) is doing an amazing job with the installation.