Front porch, closets and floor (that's a lot!)

What a big weekend!

Brent's brother Bryan came to help again this weekend. This time, rather than painting, he shared another of his wonderful skills - carpentry. He finished out one of the closets in the downstairs bedrooms.

Bryan and Brent with the closet in Skylr's room-to-be. Dang, they're a good-looking couple of men :-)

Meanwhile, another something really wonderful happened; the front porch appeared and we can now use our front door! After all those pictures of this spot, we can finally walk up to the door. And the view from the door is incredible - just like we dreamed.

The front porch

And, even better, we got to uncover Brent's salvaged plywood floor and see how our stain pick ties in with everything.

Uncovered, sanded floor.

Brent applying stain. What a big job!

Here's a look at the beautiful grain in the plywood.

Brent spent his entire day working on the stain prep and application. We had windows and doors open but the fumes were pretty intense. We were thrilled, though. The color of the floor really ties in with the dark lighting fixtures and sets off the warm brown of the kitchen cabinets. The mass walls will be a very dark brown that will coordinate with the floor color. It's pretty wonderful to see an idea come to life. Brent made this bunch of manufacturing scrap into a floor that anyone would love - and there isn't another one like it anywhere!

The next step is the urethane. That should intensify the grain and deep brown tones and protect the floor from damage. It will take 2 days.

Unfortunately, we were unaware of the scheduled return of the cabinet maker to repair the gap in the island countertop and the microwave cabinet tomorrow. So we will be covering the floor back up in the morning. We will do everything we can with RamBoard to protect it. Then we will cross our fingers and hope that nothing gets scraped or scuffed too badly as they work.

The urethane seal will happen as soon as they are done. We will repair any damage that happens tomorrow then seal this beautiful finish for good.

Wow! Nice job mio marito :-)