Master Touches

The next day, we went to work on finishing the mouldings in the master bath. I painted them before installation so we wouldn't have the difficulty of trying to create a clean paint line.

Meanwhile, Gerald painted the facing surfaces of the window trim.

Since stars are part of the Ruger Ranch logo and a motif throughout our house, Gerald created corner mouldings using a star.

He installed those first.

Then added the moulding.

He also installed the moulding on the inside of the toilet room.

I followed Gerald around and spackled all the nail holes. Then Gerald caulked all the gaps.

The final step will be to touch up all the paint.

The Tub Gets a "Dry" Run

Our little experiment using a kitchen sink fixture for the tub didn't work out because we couldn't get sufficient water pressure with it.

Gerald found an actual tub fixture on eBay for about the same price, and J.C. installed it when he came up on Saturday.

We had to make sure the pressure worked, that the water got hot...

And the jets worked. They did! Yay!

The tub was full of gunk that had apparently been sitting in the jets. I was glad I wasn't in the tub the first time I turned them on.

Vanities, Oh Vanities

Once the tub was finished and tested, J.C. got to work on installing one vanity...

and then the other.

Meanwhile, I worked on painting the door and moulding. Here's how it looked when it was done.

We still had a ways to go, with window moulding, mirrors, towel bars and other details still to come, but our master bath was now mostly functional. And with a few homey touches it was feeling downright nice to us.

Not to say that we didn't have some glitches. The hot water didn't work at first on the vanity on the right. It turned out to be air in the line, which eventually cleared itself.

The vanity on the left leaks just slightly when the water is turned on. It also makes a little knocking noise. These were mysteries that would have to be solved on another visit.

Another Snow Day

It didn't take long before the rain turned to snow, and it snowed for most of the next two days.

Most of the work we had planned to do involved tile, which involved mixing mortar and grout, and Gerald didn't want to do that outside in the weather.

So, instead he decided to try to hook up one of the vanities in the master bathroom.

He didn't get very far before finding out that the piece he's holding here needed to be a few inches longer.

Some time later in the afternoon, I heard cursing from the general area of the master bath, and Gerald yelled for a mop.

Once he got the water shut off, he decided to stick to something he's more comfortable with, and smoked a ham and a pork butt.

Finishing Touches

On Sunday, it continued to snow all day so we shelved our plans to go to Prescott.

So the day wouldn't be a total loss, Gerald decided to install the door moulding on the master bath.

We picked something a little more formal feeling than the rest of the house.

Here's how it looked when it was done.

Master Bath

In between coats of paint and glaze in the closet, Gerald worked on the master bathroom.

For the shower floor, he installed river rock in webbed panels, and grouted it.

He also starting laying tile on the floor. We had bought honed slate, which looked really beautiful.

J.C. installed the toilet.

With the floor in place, Gerald started working on the tub surround. It was tough job and took a long time, like a puzzle with lots of little pieces.

J.C. installed the fixtures in the tub. Bath fixtures turned out to be incredibly expensive. We saved some money by using a kitchen faucet, which had the advantage of having a pull-out sprayer. We decided that might come in handy for washing hair or pets.