Saturday, less work today

I'm learning that during a remodel, you usually don't get a day off. Today was no exception. We went to the house today to check out the landscape plan and work on the non-electrical wiring (TV, computer network, phone, speaker). C has volunteered to take this on himself. He thinks it won't be too hard and that we can get exactly what we want by doing it ourselves. Now is the time to do it too, while the walls are all open. He was quite the trooper, and even crawled under the house in the yucky crawl space and in the cramped attic.

While he was under the house, we located the pipe that is draining water under the house. The trouble is, we can't locate the origin of it. There are no visible drains anywhere in the yard. I can only guess that there is perhaps an underground French drain with a basin that is catching the water. We really need to correct this since the moisture under the house is causing mold.

We got our wiring plan settled, at least as far as the location of each outlet. After being at the house, we came home and discussed the kitchen floor. As much as the laminate is a practical solution, I'm just not crazy about it. One idea I really like is making your own flooring out of plywood. I've seen it on a few TV shows and people have discussed it on the forums. It's really cheap, performs well and I think it is cool and original looking. Here is a link on HGTV to see how it looks: plywood floor.

Well, I finally got settle on doing plywood, and anyone who knows me knows I can complicate anything and can't do anything halfway. So, I came up with the great idea of using the plywood to make hexagonal floor tiles. Wow. C loves hexes, and I really wanted to incorporate that pattern somewhere in the house. I thought it would be bathroom tile, but I couldn't find what I wanted. This seems like a great idea, and nobody will have a floor like this! We spent a few hours trying to figure out how to lay them out (e.g. does the grain go from side to side or point to point, what direction does the grain go on adjacent tiles, how to cut the tiles from the plywood, etc). Using hexes makes it significantly more complicated than squares or rectangles, but I am very excited about the idea and the kitchen floor is about the last thing I'll do, so it won't hold anything up. We can even move in before it's done.