Troy and Rob were there this morning working on the columns. They also put in the transom window above the front door.

Russ was there too, continuing his work on the stair rails. Here is a picture of the newels and banisters at the very top of the stairs.

Here he's drilled the holes for the balusters at the very bottom of the stairs, and he is getting ready to install them along with the rail.

Phil's painters are still AWOL. Brad said they're finishing up one of his other jobs.

We stopped by the job site this morning but no one was working. Brad had said Phil's painters would be working today, but they weren't there (yet?). However, the house did smell like stain, so we think Dana had been there touching up the crown molding above the kitchen cabinets.

Several weeks ago, Brad had warned us that the progress on the house may seem like it's starting to slow down. So far that hasn't happened. Today the job site was buzzing with activity again.

Although there was only one tile crew present, they were busy grouting the mudroom and pantry floor, the medallion in the entry, and the front porch.

Dana was back at the job site installing two more cabinets, the bookcase in the playroom and the storage cabinet under the stairs. He and his son were also installing the crown mouldings on the kitchen cabinets.

Russ finished the stair ends on the lower flight of stairs and started working on the rails. Here is a picture of the newel and the banister. He still needs to attach the wrought iron balusters (also called spindles).

And finally, Troy and his crew were hard at work again. Today they finished almost all of the baseboards on the first floor. You can see some of their handiwork in the picture of the medallion and the picture of the stair rail, above.

Today we brought all of our faucet fixtures to the job site and spent about an hour with Brad marking the locations of the spouts, handles, soap dispensers, etc. We still need to do the whirlpool tub, but we have to wait until after Marblus has finished cutting the hole for the tub. Afterwards, we had to bring all the fixtures back home -- and in a few weeks we'll have to bring them back to the job site again so the plumber can install them!

There were three tile crews working today. Two of them were finishing up the front porch and front entry and one was starting to work on the pantry and mud room.

Troy and his crew (Rob and Trevor) were back at work, installing baseboards in the first floor.

Russ finished the flight of stairs between the first and second floors and was starting to work on the stairs leading down to the basement.

Because there were so many crews working today, there were three tile saws in the front yard and two miter saws in the backyard. Here's a picture of Russ' setup. That's Troy (left) and Trevor in the background with their miter saw.

We met with Keith Willig, the landscape architect, and Brad this morning. Keith had two versions of sketches for us to look at. He described the various features of each, and we walked the job site with him. We told him what we liked about the two different versions, so he's going to go incorporate the features into a final plan. We'll meet again on Tuesday, but he'll send us PDF's of his work in progress so we can give more immediate feedback.

This afternoon, we ordered all of our Toto toilets from HomeClick.com. Hopefully we'll receive them in about two weeks.

When we arrived at the job site today Freddie, the foreman from Tile Plus, was installing the front porch tiles (is he qualified to do that?).

Right behind him, a crew from Tile Plus was installing the medallion in the front entry.

Earlier, they had also floated the floor in the mudroom and pantry, in preparation for putting in those tiles.

Phil's painters were still busy preping the second floor for painting. Check out the nifty handles called "Door Deckers" they use for handling and stacking the doors.

Russ was back on the job again, working on the stair ends. He said he should be done with the stair ends and railings by next Thursday at the latest.

The flooring contractors were doing their edge sanding today, preparing the floors so that the finish carpenter can install the baseboards. One of them was also finishing up the installation in the guest bedroom. All the other rooms look like they're done.

Phil's painting crew was busy masking off the second floor casings.

Only one tile crew showed up today and they were finishing up the master bathroom floor.

Brad said the tile crews will be ready to start work on the front entry tile soon, so I dropped off the floor medallion with him (it's been tossing around in the trunk of my car for the past two months!). Also, Brad received the quote from CB Showers for the shower enclosures and mirrors. We just need them to make a couple of corrections to the quote, and then we can accept it.

We stopped by the job site this morning and saw that Sousa's Garage Doors had installed our wooden garage door yesterday.

The contractors from The Wood Floor Company were continuing their work on the hardwood floors. They had started to lay out the wood for the mudroom and pantry, so we had to tell them not to install the wood floors in those rooms -- we already purchased tile for those rooms. Here are some pictures of the work in progress. The first one is the dining room and the second one is the kitchen, as seen from the family room.


Here is a picture of the tile work on the master bathroom floor.

And here is a picture of the stairs leading down to the lower courtyard (taken from the upstairs balcony).