Slow and Steady Progress

My mom has been visiting from Canada so I've been sneaking in an hour here or there to work on the manor.  After the weekend with my friend Tracy, who did most of the electrical for me, I managed to install a few more lights and replaced the simple bedroom light with a three armed chandelier.

Electrical wires soldered to tape wire and labelled . . .

Stairway to Nowhere

I'm feeling a little bit like Sarah Winchester building a mystery house like hers in California.  The basement stairs leading to the main floor in the manor have no opening in the ceiling to accommodate the uppings and downings of the staff.  I thought about this and decided just to go with it.  In my mind's eye the stairs lead up under the main staircase and come out in the dining room.  The servants need to be able to carry the food upstairs into the dining room when serving dinner to important guests.

So with that settled, I'm going to put in a false door in the dining room to complete my illusion (or should that be delusion?!).

It took a lot of finagling to get the stair posts and rail right.  The kit I purchased was missing two treads, so I had to cut them from 1/8 craft wood.  Not something I particularly like doing.  When all is said and done, the staircase looks pretty good and now it's just a matter of adding the bottom newel post and staining it.  I think I'm going to put the cook's desk area under the staircase . . .

I ordered a different door leading into the butler's pantry . . . I just didn't like how it felt closed off from the kitchen.

I also worked on the kitchen floor and finished it today.  I decided to put it in straight rather than on the diagonal for a couple of reasons.  1.  Brian said it looked better (I do listen to his opinion once in a while) and 2.  I would have had to cut several pieces to cover the whole floor.  Sometimes less is more!

I also purchased more vinyl tile for the sewing room and wine cellar.  After several attempts at measuring, cutting, measuring cutting . . . I finally got it right.  I need a gray craft pen to cover the white edges of the tile so you don't see them when it's installed.

And the wine cellar got a marble like vinyl tile.  I just had to cut two pieces to size.  No grout lines in here . . . thank the stars!

All that's left for flooring in the basement is the butler's pantry.  I'm hoping to get that done tonight although my fingers are saying differently . . .

Kitchen Flooring

I worked on a piece of the kitchen flooring today.  A few weeks ago I purchased some vinyl floor tiles from Home Depot in the hopes of using them for the flooring in the basement.  Today I pulled out my tools and a piece of the vinyl to see if I could make respectable "grout" lines.  To my delight, when I pulled up a thin strip of the vinyl, it showed white underneath.  Yahoo!  Grout lines!

I measured out 1 inch tiles and drew a line with a marker.  I used the width of the marker line to make my grout lines.  I scored on either side of the line and pulled up the vinyl.  It took a while to get the hang of it, but once I got going it was easy and took hardly any time at all.

The lines going the other way made me think a little harder.  I drew a line and ended up with black marker on the existing grout line.  Not good!  Then I skipped over the grout line.  Tedious!  Then I thought, why not just mark the top and bottom tiles, line up my ruler top and bottom, score with my knife and voila!

I'd like to lay the tiles on the diagonal, so I found center and centered my tile in the middle of the floor.  I'll cut the other pieces to fit, cut my grout lines and then install everything.  I won't tack down the pieces around the doors though because I'll have to cut out around them first to accommodate the door sill.

And there you have it!  Next up wiring or wallpaper?  Hmmm . . .