Here is the finished (almost) product. I haven't put the grout in yet. After the grout, I will add a sealant to the grout and then it will be done. Then, I will be able to put the baseboard back on and finally get the cabinets painted and appliances installed. Yeah! Not much longer! Our first home cooked meals in the new house are coming soon.

The color in the bottom closeup picture appears on my screen to be closest to the real colors. I didn't color correct for the lighting on all of the pictures.

This is a better view of the tile space testing. It all seems to be fitting together nicely. Very thankful for square walls.

This is a closeup of the Schluter Ditra. The thinset fills the little squares and is combed to 1/4" on top with a square notch trowel. The tile rests in that thinset. Hoping to get the tile down this weekend. The laundry room has become a phase 2 project.

All of the Schluter Ditra is down and cured. The instructions said I could lay tile immediately following the adherence of thinset below the Ditra. I am not that quick or prepared. These pictures show the measuring method I used to see how to start the tile laying portion of the project. The room fit the tile very nicely with only minor cutting. The far side of the room only had an inch or two taken off. It just didn't seem necessary to split the difference with so little removed. Especially since the far side of the room will be mostly hidden behind the breakfast nook table. There are quite a few tiles that had to be cut to fit around things on the perimeter. Heating vents, desk supports, stair handrail posts, and bay window angles all had to be marked off and cut out.

Christie was happy to have finally gotten the old living room light down and replaced. What do you think of the replacement. Home Depot and Lowe's have some really cool inexpensive fans these days. Big difference in appearance. The light is nice too. The old fan didn't have a light fixture.

Here is the kitchen with the new flooring down. The orange roll is a new product I found that should help to keep the grout and tile from cracking. It is called Schluter Ditra. The underside is covered with a thin layer of fleece. The top side is a plastic grid of squares and ridges. It decouples the flooring from the tile allowing the wood below the tile to expand and contract with the environment without disrupting the rigidity of the tile.

It comes on a big roll that you cut to fit the floor space. It is then applied to the flooring with a layer of thinset. Finally, the tile is applied to the top of the Ditra layer with another layer of thinset. The little squares fill with the thinset creating a column like effect. This is the engineering part that is cool. The column effect is basically a bridge support for the tile above. Very strong and effective.

Here are some more pictures of our first snow. Breezer, the Snow Schnauzer made the 6pm news for these pictures. Channel 4 WYFF has a place to upload pictures of the weather, so I submitted these of Brea and she was used on the evening news!

This is the view from the front porch of our new house with the first snow of the year. We ended up with 3 to 4 inches! The tree is our Peach tree that Christie wants to get rid of. Maybe when she sees the pretty flowers, she will like it. But on the other hand, after the fruit drops all over the walk way leading into the house and brings flies and gnats, I may be ready to get rid of it too. Who knows? It is low on the priority for now.

This is the view from Mom & Dad's place in St. Louis on New Year's Eve.

This is the kitchen with the old linoleum coming up and the original flooring below also being removed. The black is the tar paper that goes between the subfloor and the flooring. The old flooring had to come up in order to get some of the height back for placing the new tile. The original owners put in a thick flooring and then linoleum to match the height of the 3/4" hardwood flooring in the foyer and dining room.

I have also removed all of the cabinet doors and drawers. All of the cabinets will be sanded down to degloss the surface and then be repainted and antiqued. This is by far the most difficult task. The popcorn ceiling removal was messy, but not quite the strain on the body that the floor removal has been.

We arrived home from Christmas to a leaking water heater. There were 2 or 3 places within the water heater that were leaking internally. The leak wouldn't have been detected had it not been dripping on the pilot light. Christie said the water wouldn't get warm, so I checked the garage and found it to be slowly puddling. Unfortunately, the overflow drain pan also had holes in it. So all the water was going onto the floor. All was fixed the next day though. Home Warranties on a newly purchased home are well worth the cost. We have had HVAC and water heater replacements now.