Downstairs Progress Report #3

Let there be floors!
   We've added heated floor coils under a portion of the new tile in the office for us to use in the winter. There is a heat vent in the room, but adding the heated floors will help warm the room and ensure that we will want to use the space year round :)

   Tile in the office, mud room and backdoor entry area has been laid and grouted - finally! - with a little line of tiny slate tiles to "separate" the spaces - just wanted to add it in for fun since we decided to use the same large tile in both rooms.

   We've begun getting the bedroom closet ready for, well, stuff. Our friend, Brian, is moving into the downstairs bedroom this weekend, and he is *probably going to need a place to hang his clothes. We purchased a 4-wire basket 'drawer' organizer from IKEA for the base of the new closet cubby space. 2 or 3 shelves will fill the space above. At one of several Menard's trips last weekend, we picked up a super tall closet shelving unit - the kind that can be incorporated with all sorts of other closet storage tidbits - we  attached a few closet rods + mounting a large mirror on the wall! (a mirror that was on the wall at the top of the stairs upstairs when we moved in...)
   We painted Brian's Room and closet (one coat of paint in the closet) "Silver Sage" - a lovely blue/gray color I swiped from Restoration Hardware. We had it matched at Home Depot of course :)

Up next =
- door frames + doors (that reminds me....we need to buy door knob hardware still....)
- base trim (Kevin stained and poly'ed all the trim + doors/frames already - currently taking up the entire garage - now it just needs to measured, cut down and installed..._
- new blinds for the office and bedroom - all added up = we need 8 sets of blinds (the 3 windows per bay window really add up fast)

Going on a Tile Hunt!

   It's time for tile hunting again! And much like ALL of our hunting, the price tag = a pretty important purchase factor. We are looking for tile to go into our new office/studio (in progress) and the new mud room (also in progress) The two tiles WILL meet each other, so its important that the tile are a pretty significantly different size and color/texture.
  So it's off to Building Materials Outlet (BMO) in Eagan. "The Handyman's Candy Store" We were previously pretty successful when we scored our new kitchen/front entry way tile on the cheap last year (and love it so much, that we used more of the SAME tile in our master bathroom...)

What do you have to offer today BMO?

Got Cabinets? Finished, Unfinished - a really good deal on oak cabinets going on...

Got tubs and vanities? I think BMO will be our first stop when it's time to tackle the downstairs bathroom re-do.

Got decorative corbels? What about windows and carpet squares?

Got sinks? This stainless steel single basin tub *might just work out in our mud room when we're ready for it...

Oh yea. This is why we came. Got tile?

Oh la la. We have a winner! These tiles are a lovely color: It's hard to tell in the photo, but there are gold/rust colored flecks on a warm gray.  Not too slick, and no deep ridges to collect dirt - at $0.99/sq ft - sign us up!

  Thanks BMO! We found our tile for the mud room, but will need to look elsewhere for our office/studio tile. It will be easy to pick out a smaller size tile (like a 12"sq or so) to contrast with these big 18"sq tiles.

...To be continued next weekend!