This is what the kitchen floor looks like after it has been "mudded over" (a completely technical term for covering the floor with concrete-like mud). It basically provides a hard undersurface free from the defects of the 30 year old floor. It was poured in about 3 different layers, each one oozing out further than the previous one.

This is a shot of the dining room area, also quite completely mudded. This was also done in about 3 days, as was the kitchen. The mud does not take very long to prepare (one part water, 5 parts "mud dirt") and it basically evens itself out over the floor.

The doors are done - the floors go more

These three shots give a picture of what the floors look like before Doug begins laying the porcelain tile out onto the floor. The floor was covered with concrete board, a 1/4 inch thick concrete and plastic mesh. These pictures look a little bit as though newspaper was put on the floor, but, it is concrete board. The above picture is the dining room area, just below is a shot from the dining room into the kitchen.

This shot shows one of the kitchen doors which has been sanded repeatedly over the past three working days to try to get the stain off. This is quite a process! Door will be stained with a lighter color, on the inside, than on the outside.

So, anyway, we took a break - Linda and I left Michigan behind for a while and headed out west, to Southern California - this shot is taken in Laguna Beach - on the left, there are seals on the rock, and on right, there are birds, seagulls. There are also seagulls on the rock on the left, at the very top of it.

More shots from 11 - 12 May 2009

This shot shows the ceiling above the sink area (the west end of the kitchen) - it is wallboarded over and some mud is in the cracks.

This is the east end of the kitchen, showing the rest of the ceiling.

This is another ... cord(?,!,?) ... sticking out of the wall - somewhere or other.

And here is the area over the fireplace after it has been covered by - wallboard!!!

Events on remodeling, 11 and 12 May 2009

Here is the living room above the fireplace, with the door that was above it removed.

Here is a wider shot of the picture above.

OOhhh! a hole with a cord coming through!!! Gorgeous!!

(eh, what?)

This is the area above the stove ... not sure why they broke through - possibly to configure the electrical outlets differently.

Things are happening in the kitchen

Six more shots from this weekend - the wood with squares marked on it was added ...

This is just a picture of the floor - okay, I set the camera off by accident!

The rest of the pictures show various stages - they are in reverse chronological order.