When a plan comes together...

...it's a work of art.

The chill of the added cost of trenching for a new gas line gets very quickly overwhelmed by the beauty of the textures and colors of the cobbles going in on the front, or tiles going in the great room.

The subcontractors are really artisans, adding beautiful touches to our house. Around noon, I stopped by to grab some papers to get a gas meter release from the city. (We need the meter for heating, and heating to acclimatize the wood flooring next week.) When I showed up, the tile sub, George Garcia and his crew, wanted confirmation on the pattern for the great room.

After I re-confirmed we'd stick with the offset/basketweave we'd picked just Friday with the Hammerschmidt team, George started asking about preferences for variations on texture, color and flow of the slate patterns. I described how we expected to arrange and use the space. The only specific request I made was to try and pick tiles with low elevation changes to use around the dining area - to make it easy to move chairs back and forth to the table.

I swung by again around 4, just because each visit brings me new joy. Since the front door was blocked for work in the courtyard on the cobbles, I swung around back to peek at the tiles. When I came through the back door, I was treated to this:

Wow. As I admired this work, the guys pointed out how they'd chosen to weave in patterns of color and texture about 8 - 12 tiles apart. Far enough, that the eye doesn't seize on the repetition, and close enough that the overall effect blends into an integrated whole. Wow. We feel extremely fortunate that John Hammerschmidt has found and picked subs like these for our new home.