The sauna is about 70% complete. They got the walls and door up as well as the thermostat and light in place. It looks very nice. I don't think the installation was a straight forward as they would've liked but it worked out well. They'll put the flooring and benches in place tomorrow and then it should be done. Dan says we can use it tomorrow night but I think we're going to wait until the entire basement is done before we christen it. I'm looking forward to seeing it tomorrow with the benches in place. I don't know if it's appropriate to say this about a sauna but it's very cool.
I worked for a few hours soldering the lamp. I've got another 7-9 hours of work left to finish it and I hope to have that done tomorrow. Tammy thinks we should wait until all the construction is done before we hang it. I'd thought we'd hang it and raise it up above everything until the construction's done but that's probably not a good idea as someone could bang into it with something over the next few days.
They'll be back in the morning. Dick has gone over a few spots in the sheetrock which got dinged and needed repair. He'll sand them tomorrow and I'll get them repainted. Dan plans to finish the sauna and start work on the floor in Rachel's dance room.
I talked to Tim tonight and he said he's spent 16 hours over the last 2 days staining our cabinets. When he tells me that, I'm a little concerned that the cabinets are going to overpower the room. It's not as though they're all in one place though because they're spread out between the entertainment center, the kitchenette and the bathroom. Keith thinks he'll be ready to install the cabinets by Friday. That would work well for us so we can get the carpet installed on Saturday or Sunday. I made an appointment to have the cable dvr installed the following Monday and the sofa delivered the day after that. I called about the pool table delivery today but the guy never got back to me. I'll need to bug him tomorrow.
They got several items off the to do list today. Dan cut thearcs in the tile this morning and they turned out very nice. They also grouted the floor tile. Dick stopped by to patch a hole in the wall where they had to move a light switch. The switch was where Keith intends to join the bar top to the wall. It was an easy fix as the switch could still be accessed from the backside of the wall inside the sauna. Dick stayed around for several hours and helped Dan install thesump pump and the central vac.
I stopped by Keith's shop to get some photos of the cabinets while they're still being constructed. As I looked around, our cabinet parts were everywhere. Tim was there staining them...it's a family affair.Here's a photo of several of the door fronts Tim had just finished staining. I caught the master(Keith)at work too.
Tomorrow is the day we've been waiting for as Dan plans to put the sauna in. I think we're all curious just to open the boxes and have a look at the wood and other materials. I hope to have some photos to post here tomorrow.
I'm glad Tammy brought up the question of the tile last night. Had she not done that we most likely would've taken delivery of our furniture only to be horrified to find that there was no way we were going to make it work. If you're not sure what I'm talking about you'll have to read yesterday's post. Anyway, I fiddled with some graph paper and some measurements at work this morning trying to find a way to make some or all of our furniture work with the room dimensions but I kept coming up empty. I left work at 8:00am and headed for home to show Tammy and Dan what it looked like on paper. Tammy and I decided the best thing to do would be to go to Keith's shop and make some cardboard templates of our furniture. I did that and brought them down to the basement and it looked even worse than it did on paper. Next stop, Schneiderman's.
I got to Schneiderman's and found our salesman. He felt bad that the drawing was so far off and agreed with me that there was nothing we could do to make the furniture fit the room. We played around with several different possibilities for the room but neither of us was sold on any of them. We took a walk back to a couch with an angled end seat (it sort of matches the angle of the bar) and I immediately thought it may have some possibilities for us. It will seat four people somewhat crowded but it will be just fine for the three of us. I called Tammy to drive over and have a look. She actually likes it better than what we'd originally ordered. It's tan and I'm not sure I'm all that thrilled with the color but the salesman said to get it home, try it out and if we don't like it we can order one in a different color. Sold.
Dan and John were busy laying the rest of the tile. It's all in place with the exception of the tile for the bathroom walls. John did a nice job of making some complex cuts around the shower base and some other plumbing. It looks real good. The trickier part of the day was trying to draw an arc for the tile to follow as it worked its way from one area to the next. We wanted it to have a free flow to it without any abrupt angles. Dan used his tape measure as a giant compass and we all agreed we should have paid more attention in 7th grade geometry. After a couple of tries we finally came upon an arc which worked. They'll let the tile set overnight and cut out the arcs tomorrow.
Also in the works for tomorrow will be the installation of the central vac and framing the doorway into the glass shop for the new 6 paneled door.
Dan put in an eleven hour day today. John was called back to Champion Air for some seasonal mechanic work so he won't be able to help much with the rest of the project. He did say he'd be able to help out tomorrow though and I'm sure that's good news for Dan.
Today saw the pendant lights get hung. They add a nice touch to the room. I told Dan I was going to send him a link to the place we got them. Here's the link, Dan...The company is Belacore. We did a Google search for pendant lights and this place had the best selection in our opinion. It turns out they're located in the cities here...I think Mendota Heights. The bathroom vanity light was also hung today. Tammy picked this out at Home Depot. It has sort of a rustic look to it and we thought that would go well with the sauna so close by...I dunno...I think saunas are sort of rustic.
While we were hanging the pendants, Dan commented that a pleated shade of some sort would look nice over the window. I hadn't really given it much thought but after he suggested that I ran it by Tammy and she agreed. Rachel and I hopped in the truck and headed for Home Depot to seek out and order a shade. Before we left we all agreed a medium brown would look nice there and we found one right away. It's on order and will be in by the 21st...thanks for the tip, Dan. I always figured we'd do some sort of stained glass design over the window but I like this idea better. There will be enough stained glass once we finish the projects for the cabinets...for which we still have no idea what sort of design we're going to do. We'll have the rest of the winter to figure that out.
Dan spent the last several hours of the day installing tile. It's looking very nice. He even took the time to show me how it's done. I'd have jumped in and tried my hand at it but I don't want to slow him down. I was telling him that it looks like it has some similarities to the stained glass work we do. You can't afford to get sloppy.
We had to leave for a school choir concert of Rachel's so we left Dan behind working on the tile. When we got back he had quite a bit of it done...that's when Tammy noticed that she thinks we're one tile too wide. We did some measurements and determined that if we use the existing width, the back of our love seat will be on the tile while the front will be on the carpet. As it works out now the carpet is figured for a twelve foot width and will have no seems. What we really need is a thirteen foot width of carpet. Tammy will explain our dilemma to Dan in the morning. I hate to have him undo anything he's already done but I think this is an important change for us to make. It will cause the carpet guys to have to have a seem in their run but I'm thinking most of the seem will be covered by the entertainment center. The part which will be visible will be along a back wall and shouldn't be a problem. Sorry Dan...I hope this isn't a big problem. :(
I had to add to this post I wrote last night. I went to bed last night thinking about the tile and the fit of the furniture. I got out of bed at 11:45 and went downstairs with a measuring tape to lay some things out. We'd been working off a floor plan the salesman at Schneiderman's had copied for us. It all looks good on his plan but after doing my own measuring I can see where his is not to scale. In fact it looks like it's off by 25%...meaning, what was an okay fit before is now no longer doable. I've been playing around with a few different scenarios but I don't care for any of them. I think we may need to consider some sort of sectional rather than the sofa, end table, chair plan we have now. Tammy won't be too happy when I break the news to her this morning. Oh, isn't this fun...and just when we thought we had it all figured out. I'm a bit doubtful that a sectional will work either as I just don't think there's room for it without cutting back more on the width of the tile run. The one plan which works best so far is to drop the over-sized chair and just go with the sofa and one end table positioned directly in front of the tv. Maybe we could throw a couple of bean bags around for kids to sit on when Rachel has friends over. Keith was amused when I told him all this and welcomed me to his world...gee, thanks.
Dan and I did a walk through of the basement this morning and made decisions about which lights we wanted on dimmers. I had some errands to run and I was able to save Dan a trip to Menards while I was out. He gave me a list of a bunch of electrical things to buy...switches, covers, eyeballs, etc. I came home to see the trim rings in around the canned lights and the wall sconces up. I don't really care for this photo but it's the best my camera would do. Putting in the switches took up most of the rest of the day.
Our last pendant light showed up today just in time. Dan will work on hanging those tomorrow along with the bathroom vanity light. Tile goes down tomorrow too.
