Day 3
To start things off, I went by the tile store after work and picked up another dozen boxes of tile and a bag of thin-set mortar. Once I got through traffic and made it home, I unloaded all the supplies into the garage and got changed.
The first thing I did was start cutting tiles for the surrounding areas of Lillian’s room. I thought I’d start with the most complicated areas first so it would get easier as I went along. By the time Barbara and Lillian got home, I hadn’t made it too far. Since it was starting to get late, and we wanted to put down some grout, I stopped after I finished the cuts for the closet tiles. None of these tiles are set, just dry fit:
After a quick dinner, we started grouting the bathroom. Well, Barbara grouted the bathroom while I looked over her shoulder. It looks pretty nice, too (the grout will lighten to match the tile once it’s dry):
And a nice close-up:
Since I hadn’t mixed grout before, I didn’t know just how much to mix for the bathroom… I mixed too much. So, we grouted the field tiles in Lillian’s room. Looks nice too:
And that’s everything we did tonight. Not everything we had planned to get done, but not bad either. We’re still on track to have this side of the house done by the weekend, I think.
Oh yeah, Lillian did some testing of the grouted bathroom tiles. :)
Day 4
On Day 4 I finished cutting all the tiles for the surrounding areas of Lillian’s room. That took me from about 4:15 until 7:30 – then we had dinner and I went back to set all those cut tiles. By the time I was done for the day and getting into bed it was about 10:30.
I’m going to have to slow down on the tile installation, because I’m wearing myself out coming home from work and putting in another six hours of manual labor. Anyway, here’s some action shots of the progress:
And here’s what Lillian’s room looks like now that all the tiles are set:
This is what the bathroom looks like now that the grout has dried and the toilet and doors have been re-installed (Barbara put the doors back on their hinges and took care of other details to finish the bathroom):
That’s everything we did on Day 4. The plan now is to grout Lillian’s room Wednesday night, then Barbara wants to paint the walls while the room is empty and then we move everything back in on Thursday or Friday.
This weekend, I want to get the guest room cleaned out and tiled. I’m thinking I can empty the room on Friday (including the carpet) and possibly lay a few tiles. Then Saturday will be for tiling, and Sunday for Grout. By Monday we should have that side of the house done with nice new tile floors!
Of course, that’s the plan… so it’ll probably happen completely different than that. ;)
Day 5
Lillian’s room is finally completely tiled! We made a Lowe’s run to grab a few supplies – caulk for the toilet, a sponge mop, quarter round and the new paint for Lillian’s room – so we started much later than usual.
The tiles set from last night until tonight and then we grouted. Tomorrow night Barbara will be repainting the walls, and on Friday I will move all Lillian’s things back in. For now though, the room looks like this (note the missing outlet covers – prep for repainting):
One step closer to finishing this side of the house!