Everyday Stupidities

You know you've been preoccupied with life when the folks on Flickr notice you haven't been around lately. Thanks, folks! Anyhow, there wasn't an installment to the renovation saga on Thursday because I only took one picture and was busy until 4am cutting tile. Before we started work, one of Paige's coworkers offered us the use of her tile saw, and when we got looking at the 2" tiles we are using we thought "nah, we can get by without it." Mistake. The big stores will cut the tiles but not as small as we need (the empty area on two sides of the vanity requires 1/2" pieces) and they were sort of bitchy about it when asked, plus wanted us to line out where to cut rather than just setting a guide on the saw and accepting that every tile for near the tub and toilet wall and closet wall needs to be 1 5/8" wide. Last night at 8pm we went over to that person's house, thirty miles away, and took her up on the offer, but not before I'd tried my hand at using tile nippers and a grinder bit for the drill to complete the task with unsatisfactory results. As for Friday, we were letting the mortar harden, regluing tiles that didn't stay in, and cleaning up the floor so that we can put on the grout -- which we will do tomorrow morning -- so not much transpired today, actually. We did however buy a new toilet, and in a week after we've sealed the floor I will be sitting on a shiny new throne. Attention Jamie: My old toilet may get lonely, however it will not be abandoned. We've long wanted to replace the toilet in the other bathroom -- it's one of the older high-volume (make the shower go hot and weak for three minutes) pots and it's YELLOW -- so the old lo-flow crapper on our back porch will be headed to the back bathroom in the future. The yellow crapper? Uh, no joke, Paige is investigating prices of sledgehammers. So on with the show; here are three photos from the tile laying extravaganza and a bonus funny picture found in a different Blogspot blog.

We filled tile in the main areas, as you saw in the previous entry, but held off on the closet until we could cut tiles to fit the door frame contours and inner nooks. Here are the full tiles going into the closet (that's Paige kneeling before it)...

...and here is the closet after the cut tiles were added!

Now I cut the tiles for around the vanity. Notice the awesome L-shaped one in the corner. The next bit of silliness we will face is that the vanity has a recessed panel across the front [see wood-yellow area on the left] to make it pretty -- but doesn't since this isn't sitting flat on the floor, it's on a slab of plywood. We're considering grouting the exposed area of the board so it will be grey.

Funny time! I'll be updating the Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul page any day now, so in the meantime here's a picture I've given a couple captions:
a) Brenda was visibly excited to meet Hilary Rodham Clinton. Ms Clinton was not the only perky person in the office that day.
b) Hilary pulled Brenda the intern aside and said to Bill, "If you're going to get into monkeybusiness with an intern, this is what the intern is supposed to look like!" Bill scribbled some notes furiously.

Okay, checking the schedule... Saturday morning, grout. Saturday afternoon, a street festival. Saturday evening, paint the ceiling and other half of the bathroom. Sunday, start putting the room back into order so it can be somewhat usable: things that need to be done include putting the vanity top on, putting the sink fixtures in, hooking the plumbing to the sink back up, mounting the medicine cabinet, putting the light back up, buying some new trim strips for around the door frames and putting those up, and mounting the doors. Sealing the tile will take place on Saturday of next week, probably right before we go to the Packwood rummage sale. Putting in the new toilet will take place on Sunday. Putting up the cove tiles, and caulking around the tub (but not the toilet!) and under the cove tiles, will presumably follow that, and we need to put a reducer strip on the threshold as well... then the bathroom will be back in full service again! Yaaay!