Picking Up Speed

The finish line is in sight, and Tom and I have decided we need to sprint toward the end.  So we've up our efforts on the Cheney Cottage, and we're trying to get the house done in the next couple weeks.

We're making a lot of progress.  This weekend, Tom started refinishing the floor in the living room.  This involves renting floor sanders and sanding off all the accumulated dirt, paint, stain and glue on the floors, getting them down to the wood.  The first pass of sanding takes the longest, so he only finished that this weekend, but already the floors are looking a lot better.

 The living room floor, after the first rough sanding

Another view of the living room floor

Tom the floor sander, hard at work

Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen, working on installing the beautiful marble tile counter.  We went to Import Tile in Berkeley and found these tiles, marked way down from their original price ($26/sf).  We paid less than $11/sf, and the tiles are beautiful.

The marble kitchen counter

The counter in place

We still have to add the backsplash, which will probably be a blue-green glass subway tile.

We're also taking care of many of the small details.  One in particular made a big change, even though it was a small thing to do: we installed the doorknobs, escutcheons and door hardware on all the upstairs doors.  Now the doors actually look more finished, and do not have gaping holes where the newer lock ets were drilled out by the University.

The doorknob for the front bedroom

In the Delaney House, Dan has been making progress.  He has built the wall for the third bedroom, so the hallway now stretches from front to back on the second floor.  Having the stairs still strikes us as incredible, and we can't believe we can go so easily from the first to the second floor.  It makes the house really feel like one house!

The view down the stairs of the Delaney House

The new stairs in the Delaney House

Looking up the stairs at the 11 foot ceilings (yet to be repaired)

The new wall in the hallway, looking toward the back of the house

So next up, more floor sanding and the installation of the backsplash.  Once the floors are done upstairs, we'll install the radiators, and the heating system will be working.   There's still trim to paint in the bedrooms, kitchen and bathrooms, and then we should be close to done with the Cheney Cottage.

So we hope to soon have a family living in the house - the first family to live there since the late 30's!