Permit the Frog: Big day, Sunday. Epic.

The night before, we had all the pieces of the wooden threshold cut and laid out. After we had quit, I had second thoughts about this one, narrower piece of moulding that we were using on the short side of the kitchen floor. We decided to use a 1x4 in place of it, which matched the rest of the design better. We also decided to cut it on a 45 degree angle (and cut its mate the same way), which would look a lot better. The bevel and mitre cuts went off without a hitch and we were ready to start nailing it down.

We set the 2x4 first, and glued it instead of nailing or screwing it. The reason was simple: we couldn't be 100% sure that we weren't going to nail right into one of our heating tubes under the floor.

(I really like that the above pic shows all the parts of the threshold, including the blocky shims.)

With the 2x4 glued down, we placed our thick shims and then nailed down the 1x4 on the high side, covering the nasty cracked linoleum. Last, we nailed the doorstop trim to the 2x4.

Okay, threshold's in place...what's next!

We nailed down the hardwood floor along the edge of where the second stone threshold goes. Erika cut some plastic for a vapor barrier under the stone. We screwed down the plywood on top of that. Rushed outside, mixed up a batch of thinset, came back in and started spreading.

Erika worked the trowel and cement, I set the stone, we wiped the excess from the edges. It's the prep work that takes most of the time; setting the stone itself went pretty quickly.

We gobbled up some lunch and discussed color options for the wood threshold. We wanted it to match the exposed wood around it, which is mostly dark brown. After lunch, we hit the hardware store and bought some brown paint. Chesapeake.

Back home, we had more domestic tasks to accomplish ahead of the company we're expecting for Thanksgiving. I mowed the lawn at a brisk pace, Erika buzzed about transforming the back porch from recycling/landfill-esque area to a nice and clear back entrance to the house. She also picked up around the yard and elsewhere.

Still a little light left, so we hit the dump with our recycling and all. Back to the house, deep cleaned and rearranged some stuff. I broke out the vinyl collection (finally!!) and set it up. With the house clean, there was one thing left to do: paint the threshold. Masked it off and painted it up. One more coat, tonight.