Long time, no see! But I've been very busy.

I'll leave this at the top. Here's how the fireplace turned out on the inside. The exterior will be resolved in the next month or so, right after our roof is replaced from the last hail festival - I included a pic of the party balls! As a matter of fact, the roofers are tearing off the old roof as I write this.
​If you look closely notice the fireplace is operating beautifully and the fancy, schmancy OLED tv is working perfectly with the stereo moved over and dialed in for a cozy theatre experience. Queue the Formula One race!

On to the next project... The Master Bath!
And this what it looked like for the last 10 years. Nice enough, but very squeaky floors and faucets that always needed repairing.

Step one, demolition of floor tile, exposing the original wood plank subfloor. There's no pic, but the glass block by the vanity and in the shower is removed only one way - with a sledge hammer! And meticulous cleaning up as there was shards of glass EVERYWHERE!

The demo continued until reaching the point to begin reconstruction. You see the only walls left intact, the others were stripped of the drywall. Be careful where you step, otherwise you'll have a foot in the basement! That's the insulation I put in the ceiling when I remodeled the basement. (Nice job.)

A glorious new subfloor! Glued and screwed to the original floor joists - and squeak free! That's nice. Also relocated the toilet and shower drains to the best positions possible. Drywall installed as well, with roughed in plumbing and electrical.

Next up, was new framing for the shower niche and water proofing the whole shower after putting up 1/2" cement backer board. The first course of tile is shown with the water proofer. All laid out with a cleat on the bottom, to insure level tiles and to locate the niche at the tile grout line.
​This is where I'm hoping the dimensions I calculated earlier were correct.

Before lying down the floor tile, I put down an underlayment that allows for small movement between the floor and the tile. This prevents cracks in the tile.

Tile, tile, tile!
​Found these devices to help level the tile. Really easy to use and prevent "Lippage", or the uneven-ness you'd notice otherwise. The on site inspector notices everything!

The 'splurge' finally arrived - a Bidet Toilet. Will let you know how that turns out. Seems a little odd, but we were at the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show in Las Vegas in February and of all the things that caught our eye...
​It sat in the living room, on display, for a few weeks.
We went to the Las Vegas show for two reasons. First, it was our 26th Anniversary and that sounded like something fun to do. Second, was we were curious about some kitchen and bath features we'd otherwise miss. So we had a great time, walked 8 miles everyday at the LV Convention Center, and had some great meals at celebrity chef restaurants. Gordon Ramsey's places were the best!