Oops!

I totally forgot my discovery from T_______L____ today.  A man in front of me at the checkout was buying a piece of wood today and having the lumber store plane it down for him.  They apparently charge $2.00 per pass and each pass takes off an 1/8" of material.  That's exciting news because it means that I may finally have a solution to the case of my unfinished front entry.  I've been searching everywhere for 1/2" stock lumber to match the nosing already there.  It needs to come in 4' lengths, 6" wide.  I can only find 3' lengths and I refuse to piece lumber together as I think it will look cheap.  What that has meant is that my front entry, which I have installed tile on, has no edging and therefore cannot be grouted.  It's ridiculous really.  I'll still need to hand plane parts of the boards down as some areas are 3/8" thick and some 1/2", but, if the lumber store will plane it for me I'll pay them even if they have to make 4 passes per board.  I've been without a finished entry for long enough.  Having it done would also mean that I could finally replace the closet door and our coats, shoes and general mess could be hidden.  I don't even remember what that's like!

Yes, I know (belatedly) that this tile is/was asbestos.  There was nothing to be done except be really careful not to break any once I'd got this far into it.  Originally the whole front entry was broadloom, as was the entire staircase.  I'd removed the carpet, with a lot of help, but left the entryway as I didn't want to have people dripping snow all over what I thought was hardwood underneath.  The entire house was hardwood under broadloom except the entryway as I soon found out.  Winter had arrived and I was tired of snow dripping on the carpet and making it look uglier, so I removed it.  Then I found this ugly tile.  I was prepared to leave it as it was and deal with it later but they were in such bad shape it just couldn't be done.  In hindsight I should have installed the new subfloor over this mess, but I dind't.  Lesson learned.

                            This was after I'd installed the new subfloor.  At least it was cleaner.

I'd toyed with the idea of doing a pattern like this.  Although I think it looks great, the colour of the accent tile was just not something I liked.  There was very limited choice and if there had been a black option I would have loved it, however, there was not, and I decided to go with the version below.

Below is the infamous "lip" that I can't seem to find lumber for.  Once I find the right one I'll have to plane it to fit, cut to length and then router the edges to match the nosing underneath.  This will mean either I borrow a router/router table or I buy one.