Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Blazing a trail and laying the groundwork
Welcome to Wednesday's journal entry, posted at 2am Thursday. I've called it a day after tiling most of the floor, and Paige is on her knees doing the last little bit (strips of 2 and 3 tiles' width along the walls near the entrance) before we hit the hay. Tomorrow's agenda: We'll start with the grout tomorrow evening if the other stuff is ready, or Friday if we think the soft-serve, er, thin-set needs more time to cure... the mortar's package says 24-48 hours but the experts say it should be ready "later that day".
First, another out-take, in response to a comment made by Jamie Dawn:
> Your poor toilet is probably feeling like a fish out of water.
I offer further proof that the previous owners were crack addicts -- the inside of the toilet tank lid was painted. Like the inside surface of my white metal door being painted with white latex wasn't enough?
The first thing we did today was created chalk lines on the subfloor and laid one column of tiles following those lines. We came to discover that the chalk doesn't stay visible for very long, but we are able to use this column as the guide for laying all the other tiles. The span to the right of the column and left of the tub is precisely 12" so we're going to get some tiles cut down from 2" to 1.75" tomorrow to put along the tub. The span between the column and the wall is a bit less and I can snap some tiles in half to fill along the wall. (The tile cutter I have is great for cuts down to 0.5" and anything less than that is a mess, ergo us having the tiles along the tub cut by professionals. We WERE going to borrow a tile saw but then didn't.)
Once the column was in place, I moved into the commode corner. I am happy to say I can cut triangular tiles pretty well, and the toilet's footprint is adquately covered. There will NOT be caulk applied under the toilet, because as Ginger @ Lowe's said, if there's a leak or other problem you'll never know it until it's too late. Note to Illiterate: You may find yourself trying to find patterns, and there are a few hidden, but it's the opposite you should be looking for -- rows and columns where it's solid light green without a dark green to break it up. There's one such row from the toilet to the tub, I just noticed.
Here's where I took a break to clean the tools, and Paige said she'd take over and finish what's left. We're saving the closet for tomorrow, since we have to cut / get cut some tiles for the perimeter anyway. Don't it look GREAT?!
So I guess that despite some setbacks of previous days we're still on target to have the floor ready to walk on by the weekend, and we can seal it in a week or two per sealant package directions (though the experts we've talked to say it can be done "later that day" after the grouting sets but they don't say it like they'd do that if it were their own homes). All this and I still had time to win some unusual Christmas lights on eBay.
First, another out-take, in response to a comment made by Jamie Dawn:
> Your poor toilet is probably feeling like a fish out of water.
I offer further proof that the previous owners were crack addicts -- the inside of the toilet tank lid was painted. Like the inside surface of my white metal door being painted with white latex wasn't enough?
The first thing we did today was created chalk lines on the subfloor and laid one column of tiles following those lines. We came to discover that the chalk doesn't stay visible for very long, but we are able to use this column as the guide for laying all the other tiles. The span to the right of the column and left of the tub is precisely 12" so we're going to get some tiles cut down from 2" to 1.75" tomorrow to put along the tub. The span between the column and the wall is a bit less and I can snap some tiles in half to fill along the wall. (The tile cutter I have is great for cuts down to 0.5" and anything less than that is a mess, ergo us having the tiles along the tub cut by professionals. We WERE going to borrow a tile saw but then didn't.)
Once the column was in place, I moved into the commode corner. I am happy to say I can cut triangular tiles pretty well, and the toilet's footprint is adquately covered. There will NOT be caulk applied under the toilet, because as Ginger @ Lowe's said, if there's a leak or other problem you'll never know it until it's too late. Note to Illiterate: You may find yourself trying to find patterns, and there are a few hidden, but it's the opposite you should be looking for -- rows and columns where it's solid light green without a dark green to break it up. There's one such row from the toilet to the tub, I just noticed.
Here's where I took a break to clean the tools, and Paige said she'd take over and finish what's left. We're saving the closet for tomorrow, since we have to cut / get cut some tiles for the perimeter anyway. Don't it look GREAT?!
So I guess that despite some setbacks of previous days we're still on target to have the floor ready to walk on by the weekend, and we can seal it in a week or two per sealant package directions (though the experts we've talked to say it can be done "later that day" after the grouting sets but they don't say it like they'd do that if it were their own homes). All this and I still had time to win some unusual Christmas lights on eBay.
