Day 6
We started off by clearing out the guest room (of course) and ripping up the carpet, tack strips and padding. Even just the bare concrete looks better than the carpet to us.
Turns out, if you wear your good jeans and slide around on concrete while removing tack strips, you get a dirty bottom. And it comes off on recliners….
Anyway, after clearing it all out I decided I ought to go ahead and lay the field tiles. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get most of the edge tiles done tomorrow. I won’t be able to get them all done, because we need to make another run to the tile store and they’re not open tomorrow. Here’s what the guest room looks like now that it’s partially tiled:
Day 7
I didn’t get started until around 9:45 or so, but I think I made very good time thanks to Barbara’s help. She would hand tiles over for me to mark while all I had to do was scoot over to the next spot. It seemed to save us some time. I also marked several tiles before I went to go cut, which also saved a little time (mostly because it was 3 or 4 tiles in one trip instead of 3 or 4 trips).
The first thing I did this morning was remove the spacers and scrape the tiles somewhat clean to start things off:
After that, Barbara had to go to Wal*Mart for some stuff so I hung out with Lillian for a bit. That’s why I didn’t get going until around 9:45. Anyway, we were able to get almost all the perimeter tiles cut and dry fit by noon (almost all, because we were short by a box or two – we’ll have to make another tile run after work tomorrow). After that was taken care of, I mixed up a batch of thin-set and put those tiles in place!
I think the guest room is looking pretty nice, even if there are a few more tiles that need to go in. The plan for tomorrow is to pick up more tiles so I can get the closet and the two tiles that will finish the space by the doorway. While I’m cutting and laying those tiles, Barbara will be grouting most of the tiles that are currently set. That way, we can move things back in on Tuesday (except for the closet stuff because we’ll have to grout that on Tuesday).
So, in 9 work days (and 10 actual days) we will have tiled Lillian’s room, the guest room, the guest bath, and most of that hallway (the tiles that lead to the living room are waiting for the carpet in the living room to come up). That’s not too bad, I think.
Day 8
Today, after my first day as a Software Engineer (awesome!), the tiling has been completed in the guest room. Most of the grouting is done as well; the newly laid tiles being the only ungrouted areas in the room.
During my lunch break, I went and picked up a dozen boxes of tile and a couple bags of thin-set. Barbara went after work and grabbed a dozen boxes of her own. Now that we have some tile in stock for future work, I got going cutting all the tiles for the closet and the last two perimeter tiles from the previous day. While I was doing that, Barbara grouted the rest of the room since it had set for a day.
In the recurring theme of two photos for this room, here are the results of today’s work:
It’s amazing what a difference grout makes. The missing tile from the doorway is because it would extend into the living room. We’ll be moving on to that area of the house next, which will allow us to really finish off the currently in-work section of the house.
Day 9
Thanks to the tile shortage, this is now the longest room to complete. It is done now though; we grouted the closet and those two tiles by the door and moved everything back into the room (except for the closet stuff, obviously).
