Flooring in progress

The siding and other exterior work was done last week. Here's a picture of the back of the house:

And the porch:

 We decided to cover the porch ceiling with some tongue and groove cedar boards. We'll stain them to match (as well as possible) the Nichiha shakes on the gables. The framers did cover the columns with cedar after this picture was taken. We'll stain those to match the gable shakes as well. Obviously, we still have to do the stone work, and the front door is just temporary

The work has now moved to the inside. My brother-in-law Bill and his friend Mike are doing the tile work. We're doing porcelain tile in the back hallway, laundry room, guest bath on the first floor and the main bath upstairs. In the master bath, we're doing travertine tiles. Bill and Mike got the Durock installed last week. This week they'll start laying tile and working on the shower pan in the master bath. After that, they'll start hanging interior doors.

I'm doing the wood floors. We chose Cumaru, a very hard wood from South America, also known as Brazilian Teak or Brazillian Chestnut. It really doesn't look like either teak or chestnut, but that's what they call it. It does look fantastic, but it moves a lot. We're okay with small gaps appearing between boards--we already experienced it n the last house, and other than installing a humidifier, there really isn't much we can do about it.

In the last week, I laid flooring in the kitchen, the front hall, and about a third of the family room. Hopefully this week, I'll finish the dining room, the entry, the rest of the family room, and the breakfast nook. After those are done, I'll finish milling the trim, and get started installing it.

I'll post some interior pictures when we get a bit further along. The progress, and the blog posts, will slow down now-- I'm spending more time doing what seems to be real work, so I'm too lazy to blog very frequently.