I went to the house this morning to open some windows and fire up the portable heater. There was a considerable amount of condensation on most of the second floor windows and some of the basement windows, so I used a stack of napkins to wipe up as much moisture as I could.

The stucco contractors were already hard at work applying the finish coat when I arrived. They were working as a concentrated group on one section of the exterior wall. That seems to be the modus operandi because they continued to work that way throughout the day, doing one section of wall at a time.

This morning we met with Leonard, from JB Ornamental Iron, at the job site to go over our wrought iron needs. We sketched out railing designs for the light wells, the stairs leading down to the lower courtyard, the balcony and the interior stairs. We may also want him to fabricate a design for the double doors leading to the family room and kitchen. He's going to get back to us with pricing for the different pieces.

In the afternoon we drove down to The Wood Floor Company and talked to Matt White and Paul Kopacz (the owner). Their showroom is much better organized than Golden State Flooring and we were able to find a few different species of wood we liked, including American walnut, cumaru, and kempas. Matt urged us to use prefinished wood because it's much more durable, but we told him that Brad wants us to us to use unfinished wood. Paul is going to give us quotes for these in 4" planks.

Brad called later in the afternoon to tell us he had to push out all the contractors scheduled for next week. The mud is not drying quickly enough, so the drywall installers have not been able to finish their work. Brad asked me to go over to the job site the next two days to open up the windows in the morning and close them at night -- just to get some air circulation. Luckily this weekend is supposed to be warm with temperatures in the mid 60's to low 70's.

This morning I called The Wood Floor Company to try and arrange a time to meet with one of the contractors there named Matt White. Unfortunately he was not available today, so we'll go down there tomorrow afternoon.

Instead, we went to Terico and purchased some really cool looking silver grey slate for the balcony and maybe for the front porch.

We were also going to purchase the travertine for the back patio and lower courtyard from Terico, but we decided to buy it from Bedrosians instead and save a few hundred dollars for almost the exact same type and color of stone.

So I went back to Bedrosians and added an additional 550 sq feet of Mediterranean Beige Medium Standard travertine to our order.

I went to Bedrosians this morning to pay for the bulk of our tile order. We'll be using Mediterranean Beige Medium Standard travertine in most of the tiled rooms -- we purchased amost 1000 sq ft of it. In addition we ordered most of the accent tiles there.


On the way back from Bedrosians, I went to check out Golden State Flooring. Their showroom wasn't very useful so tomorrow I'll try to visit The Wood Floor Company.

This morning we also went to Da Vinci Marble to purchase a few of the glass tile accents which Bedrosians doesn't carry.

In the afternoon, I met with Brad at the job site. We talked about the schedule for the next week.

• The rest of this week, the drywall installers will be finishing their work.
• On Monday, Phil will be spraying a coat of primer.
  
• On Tuesday, the city will be installing our gas line which is great news because then Brad will be able to heat the house. That will help dry the mud on the walls.
• Mid next week the finish carpenters will start on the mouldings.
  

This morning we met Ernie at the job site. We went over each of the rooms and took measurements for all the tiles.

Later in the afternoon we received a fax from Maria at Bedrosians with the tile order. We looked it over and made a couple of changes and corrections. I'll go down to Bedrosians tomorrow morning with the updates and pay the invoice. We were told that if we place the order by 1 PM on a Wednesday, we'll receive our tiles by the end of the next week.

We were also expecting a tile order from Da Vinici Marble, but we haven't received it yet.

On another note, Tony, the wood floor installer was also there at the job site. We talked to him about pricing on the hickory wood floors. If it's going to be hickory, we are leaning towards a 5" rustic hickory because of its character. But right now, we're not sure hickory is the right wood for us, because it's color variation gives it a log cabin feel.

This morning Brad called to say the drywall installers were starting to texture the walls!

He had told them to put on an old world texture, and he wanted us to go by the job site to see if it looked okay. We were able to see the work-in-progress later in the morning and it looked fine.

Rick and Brian from KC Construction were there too, working on the panelling for the ceiling of the back patio.

We also stopped by Dana's workshop this morning and finalized the stain color for the kitchen cabinets. I emailed him the final door and drawer details so that he could start on the cabinets. We selected the Greenland M88 door with a J panel from Dutchman Doors.

Paul, the flooring contractor, dropped off a sample of hickory for us to see. I went back to the job site in the afternoon to take a look, and it is beautiful. It has lots of character with all its grain and knots.

We made another trip to Bedrosians this morning. We looked at accent tiles and slabs. Here's a picture of the accent tiles we're planning to use in the master shower.


We also chose a ceramic tile for the mud room, pantry, and laundry room.

Last night I sent an email to Dana asking him to go ahead and start the kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately I forgot a bunch of details, so he replied back with a few questions. Hopefully we'll have everything finalized by this weekend.