Sprinting to the Finish

We've moved in fully, so I wanted to give a tour of the finished product. There's some miscellaneous projects left to do, but for all intents and purposes, the interior of the ADU is complete. We've moved our stuff in, including furniture, decorations, and tons of other stuff.

Each time I move residences, I always groan at how much stuff I own, most of which I rarely use. This move was no exception. Except, this time, the limits of the small living space forced my partner and I to be more deliberate about deciding what items enter through these doors. Only the best of the best stuff gets through. Hopefully, we'll sell many of our remaining items this fall.

Part of the push to get fully moved in and decorated was in preparation for a news crew that used the ADU last week as their set. KATU, the local news station, came to film a short piece about the Build It Green Tour that will air on Tuesday, September 20th, at the 5 o'clock news hour. They said that they'd be posting the piece online afterwards; I'll link to it once it's posted.

KATU filmed a promotional piece for the Build It Green Tour

Here's a five minute walk through of the finished ADU. I am very happy at how everything is looking. It feels like a home now, and the most luxurious home in which I've ever dwelled. After a week, I can say that I love being in this space.



Meanwhile, I've decided to rent out the main house as a fully furnished, self-hosted, Bed and Breakfast on AirBNB. I am going to give this a try for a month or two to see whether it works better than a normal long term rental. It's a great house for groups of 4-10 who are coming to visit Portland and would prefer to stay in a sweet old house for less than staying in a hotel.

Mosaics and Tiling in the Bathroom

Tiling the bathroom has been Deb's main focus in the ADU for the last month. All her work has paid off; the bathroom is one of the loveliest looking spaces in the ADU now that its wall have been designed so skillfully. Deb chose an Oregon mountain scene as her inspiration: one wall in night, and one wall in daylight.

Here's time sequence pictures of the wonderful mosaic being installed. 


We used a double-sided self adhesive tape product called Simplemat to stick the actual tiles to the wall. Historically, a cement product called "thinset" has been used to adhere the tiles to the bathroom wall, but this sticky product makes the mosaic process much easier.

Once Deb has laid out the mosaic tiles, she covered the tiles in grout. Then, she cleaned and scrubbed the grout. Once the grout has fully dried (after 72 hours), we'll put a sealant on the walls and then they'll be complete. Here's a video that shows the grouting process in action.



I showed off the tiling for the bathroom floor in earlier posts. Here's a picture of the finished bathroom floor, now that the toilet has been installed.

We have a couple more tiling projects left to do in the bathroom and kitchen. And, because we like the look of the look of tile so much, we've decided to use it on the stair risers as well. Here are some pictures of tiles being used on stair risers, so you can see this approach in action.

Flooring and Tiling (Continued)

The flooring has taken about 30 man hours to do so far, and we're about 3 hours from being done. We used reused flooring, so it was slightly harder than using new flooring. We have laid approximately 500 sq ft.

I've been doing this with my father, who has been cutting the wood pieces to length. Meanwhile, I've been installing the pieces.

Deb has been doing the tiling. She says that the process so far has taken about 24 hours. But, as you can see, she's included a lot of artistic flare, using many smaller tiles, which takes much longer than a conventional tile job.

Flooring and Tiling

This is an update on the ADU progress.

First, I shot a quick video of the new electric service being added. The ADU will be separately metered, which is apparently a new City of Portland regulation. Bummer, since it cost me $2,000. But, by adding new service, there is ample power for both units and both units will not experience power outages as frequently.



But, mostly, we've been flooring, tiling, and siding. These three processes are time intensive, but the products are all beautiful in their own right.