Day 14 has been posted to our Renovations .Mac photo-journal, showing yesterday's progress. I didn't get into the house after our work today to take pictures, so I'll take them tomorrow morning before we start, and post them when I get a chance.

Yesterday we installed Wilsonart flooring into our ensuite bathroom. We had some left from our previous house, and thought we should use it. It's expensive stuff, around $11/sqft 2 years ago, so we didn't want to throw it away. Unfortunately we were short 2 pieces in the color we planned on using, so we had to improvise and use 2 of a different color in a strategic location to finish the job. It looks a little funny, but it could almost come off as planned to someone who looked at it without background of the situation. ;-)

Dad also finished painting all of the trim in the house white yesterday. It looks great, so much better than the dark brown it was, and it looks sharp against our new colours.

We also installed ceramic tile in the kitchen and around the island yesterday. Today we finished the ceramic tile installation, doing the dining room and the entrance. It looks really good, and considering it was the first time Dad or I did tiles, I think we did a great job. I had fun using the wet saw we rented from Home Depot, but I didn't have fun cutting out some of the weird corner pieces -- on more than one occasion at the beginning I got the pattern backwards or sideways or removed the wrong section. Thankfully, we were able to reuse nearly all of the "blown" pieces because at some point we would need a skinny piece along the edge or a corner piece. Of the 18 cases we ordered, we only used around 13.5, and we hadn't estimated for doing the entrance. That was nice because we got to return 4 cases of tiles and a bag of mortar, saving us $100.50, which paid for lunch and the extra paint we needed to buy (again).

Paint cost us twice as much as we expected. The result is nice but it's not been cheap. Our carpet was also more than we hoped it would be, but reducing the quality would have deminished its effectiveness as a sound-barrier between the main floor and basement.

Mom and Dad begin their vacation tomorrow, so Cheryl and I will have to finish what's left over ourselves. That includes:

• Grouting and sealing the tiles.
• Installing the appliances.
• Screwing down the living room floor.
• Painting the entrance, living room, dining room, hallway and main bathroom.
• Scraping excess paint from the metal window frames

As a result of the cost overruns (the drywall mishap didn't help either, but in the end the ceiling looks better than we could have acheived on our own), our plan of getting me a new laptop in September has been eradicated. This Pismo G3/500 will likely have to last me a long time.