Let There Be Light

Today was a Monday with a vengeance. I woke up this morning with the beginnings of a cold, and found three emails waiting in my inbox with bad news about three different family members who had suffered injuries, followed by another from Rob informing me that our tile guy had a death in the family and wouldn't be able to start work until later in the week. I later got a call from my dad saying that his uncle is on his deathbed. If bad things happen in threes, someone doesn't know how to count.

I had a lot of work to do, but I thought I'd take a break this afternoon to drop my sister off at the Metro and see what was happening at the house. At first glance, it seemed pretty quiet.
But then I spotted Rob up on the roof, apparently wrestling with a solatube.
I went inside and was greeted by Justin, who suggested I go upstairs to check out the newly-illuminated bathrooms, now that the solatubes have been installed. As I walked into the small second bathroom, a bunch of debris came flying through the hole in the ceiling. Apparently Rob thought I was Justin, and was very apologetic when he discovered it was me instead. I ended up having a whole conversation with Rob through the solatube tunnel -- I still have a bit of a kink in my neck. Then Justin appeared to help him install the tube, so I went off to explore the rest of the house.
The master bathroom has certainly lost its cave-like feel now that there are two solatubes in there. Once they install the window, it's going to be so bright we'll only need to turn the lights on when there's a lunar eclipse.
Here's what the solatubes look like from the outside. The outer dome collects sunlight, which is reflected off the shiny metal tube below, and then diffused by an interior dome installed in the ceiling. (Those haven't been installed yet.)
Justin had also installed our new built-in, fold-down ironing board in the laundry room.And downstairs, the stucco guys had started re-plastering the face of the fireplace.
The rest of our tile had also arrived from Fireclay Tile in San Jose, CA. It was carefully packed in sawdust, and -- on cursory inspection -- appears to have arrived intact.
Here's the basic color scheme for the bathroom on the main level, which will have sort of a Spanish theme for our Spanish bungalow.
I also spotted the infamous "I Heart Josh" keychain that I gave Rob back in February when we moved out of the house. It has our spare house key on it, which he used to make copies for the crew and occasionally lends out to subcontractors if they need to get into the house when he's not there. I wondered why he didn't put the key on a less embarrassing keychain, but I figured it was like one of those cumbersome restroom keys they give you at coffee places. People are much less likely to walk off with it. I can't imagine the plumber is going to want to hang on to a big, plastic, glow-in-the-dark keychain indicating strong affection for someone named Josh. Rob mentioned that he once thought he had lost it, and while he has his own key to the house, he wasn't sure how to go about replacing the keychain. It would be challenging enough to find one just like it, but then he'd also have to actually buy it. Considering the condition it's in, I may have to demand he buy me a new one anyway... ;-)