... and on the Seventh Day ...

... we happily worked our butts off.

On the third day, which was Thursday, Shelby and Bird finished the tiling and grouting in our bedroom and we moved back in that night ... after we scrubbed the tiles clean of excess grout film. That means vacuuming to pick up the big stuff and dust from scraping with a putty knife, then on hands and knees with a wet cloth and scrubbing the white film off the tile surfaces, then rinsing the cloth in a bucket of water that quickly turns milky white and has to be chucked. Then four or five mop jobs, letting the floor dry in between so we can see where there is still some grout film. We keep mopping until the water in the bucket no longer turns milky white. I dumped buckets and buckets, each four gallons, of white water in back. I think the old creosote bush is happy.

By Thursday, we had emptied Shari's studio into the living and dining rooms so it was ready for them to move on to the next room. As they worked on the studio, we emptied guest bedroom and my office. Saturday morning we scrubbed the grout film in the guest room and Shari's studio.

The weekend was rather mournful for me. I had to gut my office: boxing contents of drawers and shelves, then disassembling one desk, disassembling two credenzas, disassembling one IKEA Ivar shelving unit with drawer and glass cabinet components, and dragging them somewhere and somehow so I could remember how to put it all back together again. I have a lot of stuff in my office. In a sense, I was dismantling my identity and shoving it aside.

Shari was smarter when she took down her bookshelf: first she took a photo so she knew how it was organized.

I had seriously underestimated the volume of stuff. We had five packing boxes left over from our move two years ago. I thought I'd buy six more small boxes at Home Depot and that should do it. Hah! It took two more trips to Home Depot and another twenty-two boxes. Now that everything is moved back in, we have a nice stack of thirty-three empty, folded packing boxes in the garage.

Office floor tiles laid (L), then grouted and cleaned (R).

That Monday, Day Five, they tiled my office and finished the grouting on Tuesday. Tiling and grouting the four rooms had taken them six working days.

Day Seven, Wednesday, we cleaned the hazy film of grout in my office, scraping, vacuuming, scrubbing, and five times mopping. We did some more mopping of the guest bedroom, Shari's studio, and the hallways where grout dust had been tracked. Then we started moving furniture back to where they belonged. That seventh day was a long one, but we were eager to keep going because we knew could, and the rewards of returning to enhanced normalcy were significant. Over the next couple of days, we had our living room and dining room back.

I write "enhanced" normalcy because we no longer have petroleum carpets emitting formaldehyde and lord knows what other chemical fumes. How do we know? Our sinuses no longer clog up each night. The floors are so clean, so uniformly tiled, that in a pinch, the house could be used as a hospital ... you know, rooms can be disinfected and blood mopped up.

On the eighth day, we were rewarded. That morning, two carpenters showed up to install an "alumawood" trellis over the courtyard by our front door. It took them only three hours, which is a lot less time than what it took me to move out our courtyard furniture and potted plants.

The effect of the shade is marvelous. The summer heat here is bearable in the shade. If you are in direct sunshine, it's murder.

Day One

We were ready for it eight days earlier, clearing out furniture & stuff from our master bedroom (the "owner's suite") and stacking it in the —  for this purpose, the appropriately named —  "gathering room" (i.e., the living room). But Day One kept getting postponed.

The folds in the carpet, bumpy enough
to trip on, are circled in this photo.

We are having the carpets ripped out of four bedrooms and replaced with tiles. The guys showed up and started work yesterday, Day One.

We've been wanting to take out the carpets ever since we moved in here two years ago. Actually, the feel of the carpet on its thick padding was a bit luxurious, especially with bare feet in the winter. But its days were numbered. Not only do carpets store too much dirt and dust, and not only are cool tile floors more welcoming in the desert climate, but the developer and its carpet subcontractor had installed them very poorly. After only a few weeks, folds began to appear in the carpets in all four bedrooms.

Upon tearing up a corner of the carpet, I saw evidence to support a theory. The padding underneath was really thick. That's why the carpets felt so luxurious. Trouble is, the carpet tack strips nailed all around the edges of the floor are quite thin and the carpet layers cut the padding to abut close to the strips. By the time the carpet was laid down, the thick padding prevented it from being secured by the tack strips.

Tom is pleased with the tiles laid
on Day One.

Day One is a big step forward.

It's going to take a while, one room at a time, to get the tiling done and return to some semblance of normalcy. We are hopeful.

Meanwhile, I need to drive down to Home Depot to get some more small boxes. Sheesh, I thought we were done with those a year and a half ago when we moved form San Simeon to Blue Agave II in Dove Mountain. But I have to move a lot of books out of my office.