Also in zone 7 in Tennessee (Chattanooga area)...finally had a couple of days of NORMAL seasonable weather (the last weather segment I caught, the TN valley has been more than 7 degrees below normal for the month of February). The only sprouts I've gotten thus far are cold-weather veggies (broccoli, radishes, lettuces, spinach, red onions, celery) over the past couple of weeks, one English daisy pretty early on (which I'm convinced is a fluke, since the other English daisy containers have done nothing, and there's only one sprout in the one that has a sprout), and poppies. We've had at least four days with snow this year, including two of those days with at least an inch of accumulation, and my entire yard was under snow for at least a week at one point, which is highly abnormal. I definitely have spring fever as a result of the weather the past couple of days! I was so happy to go out to run errands without having to put on a jacket today!

CE - just found your note and wanted to follow up. At the GC's suggestion, we waited until they were ready for the final coat. They came and did the one room that was separate from the rest of the house. After 3 days of curing, I went in to wipe it down (with a wet cloth), to verify it looked ok. It was a nightmare - not only had pieces of lint and dust gotten into the finish, but they also managed to seal over areas where the painters had managed to drip paint on the 2nd coat - it wasn't a lot of paint, but small drips and smudges permanently sealed under the poly. And they were scheduled to come the next day to do the rest of the 1st floor. I sent pictures to the GC and told him that either the painters or the floor guy needed to verify that all the paint was gone from the rest of the floors before putting down the 3rd coat in the rest of the house and that we needed to meet to discuss what to do about all of the paint, hair, lint, etc. that was already sealed in the poly. I then spent the rest of the night, washing the entire 1st floor on my hands and knees, marking all of the paint, dust, hair, etc. in both parts of the house. The next day the painters came and cleaned all of the paint that was on floors that didn't have the 3rd coat applied. The floor guys came and scrapped by hand all of the places where they had sealed in the paint and where lint and dust landed on the floors. the day after that they came and redid the separate room and the rest of the house. After all of that, there were still a few places with paint in the original room that they had missed. They used a special lacquer pen of some sort to mark over the few spots and you can't tell there's paint under the poly. The floors finally look great, but, I firmly believe only because I spent the time on my hands and knees marking every spot. The floor guys blamed the painters for being so sloppy and the GC for removing the paper covering too soon (before the painters were completely finished, as they had to return about 16 times before we would sign off on their work - lint in the paint (I think they quit cleaning their brushes at some point), areas where they didn't prime the wood before it was installed, so they just painted it, and it raised the grain, so they had to go back and sand then repaint), areas where the switch/outlet covers weren't flush with walls (painters were responsible for finishing the drywall) - and when they did things like just try to fill in around plate covers without removing the covers, we removed the covers and had them do it again. A lot of work on our part, but it seemed to be the only way to get them to do the work correctly. And the GC just left it up to us to identify anything we didn't like. I did get tired have having them come back again and again, but I also knew that if they didn't fix it, I was going to be the one who was going to fix it, because I certainly wasn't going to live with having to look at all of the flaws in their work. After a very long 9 months, we're very nearly finished with the project. Whew...

I originally thought your first two pics might be progress photos and that there was more Kerdi yet to be installed. But your later photos show tile going over an unwaterproofed niche, the upper part of the door jamb with no kerdi, and your last photo shows bare wood behind the durock at the niche corner. In addition to what has already been written about, I am also a bit curious about the waterproofing at the shower entry, at the curb-jamb intersection as seen in the bottom right corner of the third photo. It may indeed be there, but I don't see any overlapping of Kerdi with residual schmears of thinset in the curb-to-jamb corner. If there is incomplete waterproofing in that spot, that'd be a huge issue, because that area will likely see pooled water every time the shower is used. These are the thought processes that I do not understand; the installers that take an advanced product like Kerdi and only install half as much as needed to properly waterproof a shower. Some of what they install seems to have been done with care and concern. In other areas it's done with ignorance or apathy.

I did consider bullfrogs . But in seven years of obsevering my yard and eight months with a swampy gold fish pond i have never seen or herd bull frogs . The tree frog i mentioned was bitten bye the turle the night i posted lol and has not returned. Prior to lebrons intoductiom to tje pond i had always wished for bullfrogs niw i am happy it never happened