Completed balcony; soapstone countertops; first look at the tile in the master bathroom

Here it is, the RBB's Juliet balcony:

To the left, you'll notice a tiny, semi-built platform and railing.  There's going to be one just like it on the floor above too.  It's the rebuild of a couple of rusty old fire escapes that were on the red brick building when we bought it.  Initially we were going to just have them taken off, but the top floor one is outside my boyfriend's daughter's room and she liked the idea of being able to climb out her window and perch on a little ledge so we had it rebuilt with railings to match the big(ger) balcony.  The mini platform in the photo above is off of the kitchen, so I was thinking of putting a big pot or window box there with some herbs for snipping.

My next update is about the soapstone countertops for the tenants' kitchens.  We rushed and rushed to get them and they arrived with one piece broken and with the hole for the sink cut too small.  The fabricator fast-tracked us again and sent us all new countertops in less than a week.  The ones in Unit 1 were installed yesterday (pardon the mess):

The ones in Unit 2 are just resting on the base cabinets and haven't been secured yet:

They didn't take back the old countertops, so now we have a lot of extra soapstone.  My boyfriend would like the use it in our kitchen, but I was planning on copper (or else just butcher block) and I'm worried the soapstone will look too cold.  We have an oil rubbed bronze Rohl faucet and copper pendant lights on their way for the space.  I think the soapstone would be better at the beach house when we redo that.

In other news, our tile guy has been hard at work in our master bathroom and the room looks great:

He's got a couple more days in there at least, since he needs to tile the wall that has the window on it and do the little recessed nook that's going to have glass shelves for shampoo/soap/razors etc.  The floor is getting the same thin brick treatment and of course, then it all needs to be grouted.  He promised us another worker on Monday to help speed things up by starting the travertine tile flooring in the headhouse.

On Sunday there's a big marble and granite auction organized by the same auctioneers who we bought the travertine tile and the tenants' Carrera marble 3x6"s from.  We're hoping we might find something nice for the guest bathroom there.  I also ordered a few tile samples from a company in New York.  Those should be arriving early next week.

Meanwhile, the wood flooring guys are still hard at work.  They're planning to put in a 14 hour day today: finish laying the floor on our living room/dining room/kitchen level, then sand and finish the tenants' units and that floor.  Friday they're planning to finish laying the bedroom level in our unit and then sand and finish those over the weekend.  If all goes well, I'll have photos of some of those areas for you tomorrow.