The Tub Gets Dressed; the Wires Get Tucked

Days forty-seven and forty-eight. The cured leveling floor opened the gates: every finish trade advanced at once.

The tub’s final layers. The masonry tub completed its armor sequence: leftover leveling mortar smoothed the tub floor (waste not), then two full coats of Gomas sealed the interior — the black rubber skin drying matte like poured obsidian. Over that, at last, the tiles: interior and exterior faces begun to the planned design. Brick, render, rubber, tile — four materials deep, and finally the tub looks like a place a person would want to be rather than a fortification.

Tiling elsewhere. The kitchen’s walls are now fully tiled, edges closed with trim strips, the finish line set exactly to the future sink cabinet’s height. In the main bathroom the shower partition went up — a ceramic board panel that will itself be wrapped in tile later, so today’s “done” is really scaffolding for another layer.

Combing the house’s wiring. Before the finish carpenters arrive, every wire needed to be exactly where wood will expect it. The long-deferred master bedroom finally got its wiring pass, completing the whole-house cleanup: lighting and outlet runs separated by function, each bundle sleeved in CD conduit, and — the detail that matters — conduits pressed flat against the wall lines with deliberate slack left at the ends. The carpenter building light boxes over these runs should meet cooperative cable, not a fight.

The hardest plaster, closed out. The established recipe (thick X18 → mist → brush) ran across the last exposed mud-wall zones: ceiling edges, wiring penetrations, and the botak — the ledge above the main beam. One bag of cement, and the rough earthen patches that had haunted every room-corner photograph became quiet white surfaces that let the timber frame do the talking. The one holdout: deep voids where hands don’t reach — those get Moldine to freeze the crumbling earth, then two or three patient thin coats. Some walls negotiate; you learn their terms.