Tuesday was a long day of remodeling, and even though I was just overseeing it, I was exhausted when Tom and Darren left around 5:00. The floor was completely laid. A first coat of black was on the inside of the two doors, but not yet the edges. The window sill, but not yet the window surround, had been painted black. Sanding had revealed some sloppy original paint on the original bathroom door under the first black coat. Thinking of how Darren had incompletely filled the hallway bathroom door earlier in the year, I wondered how that was going to turn out. (It turned out fine.)
Darren said he would come over to finish his part on Wednesday, probably around 1:30. Somehow I also had in mind him saying 11:30, perhaps he had said that early in the day, but by the end of the day I'm sure he said 1:30, though I was still having trouble remembering clearly which he had said the next morning, so I was ready for him to arrive before 11, though at least that gave me a chance for fairly full sleep.
But just like the 100 pound roller saga, I waited and waited, and there was no Darren and no phone call either. After about 2:30 PM I figured he might not come, so I'd better be prepared to go to work instead. By 3:30 I was taking a shower to get ready for work. I had left a note on the door for him to come in. When I checked my phone while dressing around 4:00 I saw he had called, so I called back. He told me that Tom had told him to call to tell me he wouldn't be over, but come Thursday instead. I thanked him and said that letting me know made it possible for me to work a full day. He should have known to call me himself, but somehow he doesn't seem to appreciate his client's perspective when off site. (On site, he's very nice.)
On Thursday, Darren showed in the morning and got to work. John Jones and TJ came out to install the new ceiling fan mount. Then, just before noon IIRC Tom showed up.
Darren finished the trim installation, and painting the doors and trim. Tom added the seals and doorknob to the door, hung the curtain rod, and finally, just before he left around 5 PM, at my reminder, he added the little plate to the bottom of the door for the sweep button. Then I gave him the final check.
Tom also cut the three door thresholds, coated them with polyurethane (not my favorite thing, but ok in small doses and essentially without peer in this application) and nailed to the floor. He talked to me quite a bit about this. The threshold I had bought came with screws, but no concrete anchors. He had purchased a package of slightly larger screws with anchors, but they had a less flat top, and plain galvanized rather than stained finish. At first he tried using the small screws with the anchors, on the Queen's door, and it worked, but I decided to use the larger screws on the King's door. But after using the larger screws, we decided that they held so much better, he went back and replaced the small screws with the larger ones on the Queen's door as well. Because of the padded flooring underlayment, the thresholds can press in a bit if you stand on them, and obviously the screws need to hold very strongly.
However exhausting Tuesday had been, this was even moreso. But I couldn't help walking around the room, probably spreading dust around, for a long long time before going to bed in the Queen's room.
My original idea as to where to put the curtain rod hangers was thwarted by the fact, only discovered afterwards, that the curtain rod wasn't long enough. I had wanted the hangers 8 inches from both sides of the window, for a more massive look. But the rod turned out not to be long enough. Tom filled and painted the two holes he had made, and made new holes for the curtain rod length. I had not yet bought the curtains (I did that Friday night) and my only thought was to make the rod 5 inches lower than the rod in the Queen's room so the curtains would touch the floor and crumple slightly, which is said to be the most fashionable length, and also would hold the curtains in place while I run the future fan. I thought it was actually better not having the curtains, as Tom could concentrate on getting this correct compared with the other rod. But after it was all done, and Tom gone, I wasn't so sure anymore I should have done this. Contrary to my expectation, the window in the King's room is just as high or even higher than the one in Queen's. So the lowered curtain rod now comes dangerously close to the top of the window. I'm sure the curtain will cover, but there will possible be more light leakage from above than desired. Also, it is said that higher curtains make a window seem larger. These possibly lower than desired curtains do seem to do that, though they may also make the wall seem higher. The high trim also may seem to make the ceiling look higher.
Unlike Tuesday night, when I was obsessing about irregularities in the apparent firmness/flatness of the floor, such as where Tom had filled the old near-closet crack, and wondering if tiny bits of concrete a fraction of a millimeter in diameter under the floor were causing some other irregularities near where the side of my bed would be, by Thursday the floor was beginning to seem very flat, and especially flat around the hallway door on the inside, where I had obsessively cleaned on Monday night, and kept re-cleaning (possibly to Darren's inconvenience, though he copied me in vacuuming and re-vacuuming on Tuesday, along with his usual sweeping the top of the underlayment just before putting on each piece of flooring. I'd still rather have had the time to fully re-clean not only the room but the surrounding bathroom (not clean at all, though I cleaned the bathroom floor a bit on Monday night in hopes it would help keep the under-flooring region clean
Darren said he would come over to finish his part on Wednesday, probably around 1:30. Somehow I also had in mind him saying 11:30, perhaps he had said that early in the day, but by the end of the day I'm sure he said 1:30, though I was still having trouble remembering clearly which he had said the next morning, so I was ready for him to arrive before 11, though at least that gave me a chance for fairly full sleep.
But just like the 100 pound roller saga, I waited and waited, and there was no Darren and no phone call either. After about 2:30 PM I figured he might not come, so I'd better be prepared to go to work instead. By 3:30 I was taking a shower to get ready for work. I had left a note on the door for him to come in. When I checked my phone while dressing around 4:00 I saw he had called, so I called back. He told me that Tom had told him to call to tell me he wouldn't be over, but come Thursday instead. I thanked him and said that letting me know made it possible for me to work a full day. He should have known to call me himself, but somehow he doesn't seem to appreciate his client's perspective when off site. (On site, he's very nice.)
On Thursday, Darren showed in the morning and got to work. John Jones and TJ came out to install the new ceiling fan mount. Then, just before noon IIRC Tom showed up.
Darren finished the trim installation, and painting the doors and trim. Tom added the seals and doorknob to the door, hung the curtain rod, and finally, just before he left around 5 PM, at my reminder, he added the little plate to the bottom of the door for the sweep button. Then I gave him the final check.
Tom also cut the three door thresholds, coated them with polyurethane (not my favorite thing, but ok in small doses and essentially without peer in this application) and nailed to the floor. He talked to me quite a bit about this. The threshold I had bought came with screws, but no concrete anchors. He had purchased a package of slightly larger screws with anchors, but they had a less flat top, and plain galvanized rather than stained finish. At first he tried using the small screws with the anchors, on the Queen's door, and it worked, but I decided to use the larger screws on the King's door. But after using the larger screws, we decided that they held so much better, he went back and replaced the small screws with the larger ones on the Queen's door as well. Because of the padded flooring underlayment, the thresholds can press in a bit if you stand on them, and obviously the screws need to hold very strongly.
However exhausting Tuesday had been, this was even moreso. But I couldn't help walking around the room, probably spreading dust around, for a long long time before going to bed in the Queen's room.
My original idea as to where to put the curtain rod hangers was thwarted by the fact, only discovered afterwards, that the curtain rod wasn't long enough. I had wanted the hangers 8 inches from both sides of the window, for a more massive look. But the rod turned out not to be long enough. Tom filled and painted the two holes he had made, and made new holes for the curtain rod length. I had not yet bought the curtains (I did that Friday night) and my only thought was to make the rod 5 inches lower than the rod in the Queen's room so the curtains would touch the floor and crumple slightly, which is said to be the most fashionable length, and also would hold the curtains in place while I run the future fan. I thought it was actually better not having the curtains, as Tom could concentrate on getting this correct compared with the other rod. But after it was all done, and Tom gone, I wasn't so sure anymore I should have done this. Contrary to my expectation, the window in the King's room is just as high or even higher than the one in Queen's. So the lowered curtain rod now comes dangerously close to the top of the window. I'm sure the curtain will cover, but there will possible be more light leakage from above than desired. Also, it is said that higher curtains make a window seem larger. These possibly lower than desired curtains do seem to do that, though they may also make the wall seem higher. The high trim also may seem to make the ceiling look higher.
Unlike Tuesday night, when I was obsessing about irregularities in the apparent firmness/flatness of the floor, such as where Tom had filled the old near-closet crack, and wondering if tiny bits of concrete a fraction of a millimeter in diameter under the floor were causing some other irregularities near where the side of my bed would be, by Thursday the floor was beginning to seem very flat, and especially flat around the hallway door on the inside, where I had obsessively cleaned on Monday night, and kept re-cleaning (possibly to Darren's inconvenience, though he copied me in vacuuming and re-vacuuming on Tuesday, along with his usual sweeping the top of the underlayment just before putting on each piece of flooring. I'd still rather have had the time to fully re-clean not only the room but the surrounding bathroom (not clean at all, though I cleaned the bathroom floor a bit on Monday night in hopes it would help keep the under-flooring region clean
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