Saturday, August 26, 2006
You need a new toilet for your livingroom?
Today's title was (mis)spoken by a Lowe's plumbing department worker. We agreed that the concept would keep one from missing anything on TV.
We reached a milestone: we completed the grouting of the floor! It turns out that while the books say it will take novices 8 hours to grout a 100 square foot area (our bathroom is less than 50 square feet), the 25 pounds of mixed grout in the bucket only stays workable for about 30 minutes... This will definitely speed up your performance, or make you drag the bucket back to the porch and add a cup of water then mix it again before it's too late. For those not familiar with grouting: After spreading the grout goop over the tiles with diagonal sweeps and going over it several times to both further drive grout into the cracks and scrape the excess off the tops of the tiles, you let it dry for about fifteen minutes, and then you use damp sponges to first wipe the excess off the tile tops, then go over it again nearly a hundred times (so it seems) to get the grey 'haze' off the tiles, which in the process creates those swell curves on the grout lines which makes the surface hygienic (according to the video that came with the tile saw). Thus you can see there's a lot of work that has to be done expediently, followed by a lot of repetative swabbing. It's a hell of a lot of fun!
So here are today's pictures, and we nixed the idea of painting tonight (we may do some other task mentioned yesterday between "painting" and "sealing", it's still early for us) so that will be Sunday's task. The Garfield Street Festival was small but okay, and since we agreed to finish the grout before we went there, it was around 5pm that we showed up so not everything was still around... not to say there was a lot there to miss in the first place. I did appreciate the punker dude in his 30's or 40's with the spiky Mohawk whose sew-on patch on his back accurately said "Anachronist". (Not "anarchist", since I'm sure he has a day job serving The Man and kids to put through college.) You get five photos today:
We started with the closet as our competency test area. This is the doorway of the closet, after cleaning and de-hazing, so you can compare the grouted area to the not-yet-grouted tile.
The closet is done! Now to go do the toilet nook...
Action photo #1: Mushy laying grout next to the tub.
Action photo #2: Paige de-hazes the tile next to the tub. (There you go, Jamie -- a photo of Paige, and she hates this one because she, like Natalie Portman in the previous entry, wasn't wearing a bra.)
The end result, after an hour of removing and re-removing the haze from the tiles: a grouted tile floor, yaaay! We have this great sense of accomplishment, but I won't really feel it's done until it's done and one can brush their teeth then take a shower and a poo in here (not at the same time, hopefully), and that moment won't come for at least a week.
We now resume our regularly-scheduled complaining about the stupidities of the world. Expect more bathroom photos once there's something to show: the vanity top and stuff that hangs on the wall sometime soon, and the truly finished floor with cove tiles around the perimeter on/after the first Monday in September. Thanks for watching the progress!
We reached a milestone: we completed the grouting of the floor! It turns out that while the books say it will take novices 8 hours to grout a 100 square foot area (our bathroom is less than 50 square feet), the 25 pounds of mixed grout in the bucket only stays workable for about 30 minutes... This will definitely speed up your performance, or make you drag the bucket back to the porch and add a cup of water then mix it again before it's too late. For those not familiar with grouting: After spreading the grout goop over the tiles with diagonal sweeps and going over it several times to both further drive grout into the cracks and scrape the excess off the tops of the tiles, you let it dry for about fifteen minutes, and then you use damp sponges to first wipe the excess off the tile tops, then go over it again nearly a hundred times (so it seems) to get the grey 'haze' off the tiles, which in the process creates those swell curves on the grout lines which makes the surface hygienic (according to the video that came with the tile saw). Thus you can see there's a lot of work that has to be done expediently, followed by a lot of repetative swabbing. It's a hell of a lot of fun!
So here are today's pictures, and we nixed the idea of painting tonight (we may do some other task mentioned yesterday between "painting" and "sealing", it's still early for us) so that will be Sunday's task. The Garfield Street Festival was small but okay, and since we agreed to finish the grout before we went there, it was around 5pm that we showed up so not everything was still around... not to say there was a lot there to miss in the first place. I did appreciate the punker dude in his 30's or 40's with the spiky Mohawk whose sew-on patch on his back accurately said "Anachronist". (Not "anarchist", since I'm sure he has a day job serving The Man and kids to put through college.) You get five photos today:
We started with the closet as our competency test area. This is the doorway of the closet, after cleaning and de-hazing, so you can compare the grouted area to the not-yet-grouted tile.
The closet is done! Now to go do the toilet nook...
Action photo #1: Mushy laying grout next to the tub.
Action photo #2: Paige de-hazes the tile next to the tub. (There you go, Jamie -- a photo of Paige, and she hates this one because she, like Natalie Portman in the previous entry, wasn't wearing a bra.)
The end result, after an hour of removing and re-removing the haze from the tiles: a grouted tile floor, yaaay! We have this great sense of accomplishment, but I won't really feel it's done until it's done and one can brush their teeth then take a shower and a poo in here (not at the same time, hopefully), and that moment won't come for at least a week.
We now resume our regularly-scheduled complaining about the stupidities of the world. Expect more bathroom photos once there's something to show: the vanity top and stuff that hangs on the wall sometime soon, and the truly finished floor with cove tiles around the perimeter on/after the first Monday in September. Thanks for watching the progress!
Comments:
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Hooray!! A photo of Paige!!
It's a pleasure to see you, Paige, even if your "girls" were hanging freely. My "girls" aren't large enough to do much hanging, so don't be embarrassed about being bra-free, be PROUD, my dear!!
I love the term "toilet nook."
It looks better with grout than without. Maybe you should have chosen a wild grout color like hot pink or turquoise. It would have been unique.
On second thought, it's good that you didn't.
You guys are almost finished!!
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It's a pleasure to see you, Paige, even if your "girls" were hanging freely. My "girls" aren't large enough to do much hanging, so don't be embarrassed about being bra-free, be PROUD, my dear!!
I love the term "toilet nook."
It looks better with grout than without. Maybe you should have chosen a wild grout color like hot pink or turquoise. It would have been unique.
On second thought, it's good that you didn't.
You guys are almost finished!!
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