Since I am between work contracts I have had plenty of time to watch all those home renovation shows and come up with projects to do in the house. What can I say, it keeps me from eating bonbons while watching soap operas. Project #1 was to clean all the baseboards in the house. I finished the front hallway. Then got distracted…
I decided that the fireplace surround needed to be retiled. This wasn’t a hard decision. The fire place had black tile with a black mantel. The room is bright yellow. It looked like a giant bee’s butt.
The husband, Rob “I got degrees so I could pay others to do this kind of work”, said to go to it wifey! And so I did…
Step One: Pick out Tile
I took my pal Kimberley went to Home Depot to look for tile one afternoon. We found a sample of laminate flooring that looked similar to what we had in the sun room, picked out sample tiles, mixed and matched and found the perfect tile. Yay! Step one complete!
Step Two: Remove Tile
What this really should say is “get pissed off and remove tile.” Luckily, a lady at my former work kindly obliged by insulting my son one day when we were visiting the office. Next time I punch her. This time, I came home and removed all the tile from the wall in about two hours. With Rob helping out with two tiles due to my overwhelming need to put big gouging holes in the wall.
Step Three: Pick out Tile
Upon reflection, or upon our friend Jeff pointing out that we could cut WAY less tile by using a 8x8 inch tile – Rob and I went back to the store to pick out new tile. Couldn’t find any 8x8 tile except at Rona which sold the most hideous looking tiles I have ever seen. Deciding that I did not want bright teal tile was easy. Spending a few hundred dollars at a specialty tile store to buy slate tile was hard. Oh but it is so pretty!
Step Four: Repair Gouges in Wall
See step Two. What can I say, I was pissed!!!
Step Five: Start Tiling
Step Five sounds easy. It was not! We measured, remeasured and measured again. Note that for some reason all measuring tapes are in inches and feet. I work in metric. Oh, and I almost failed grade 10 math and promptly stopped taking it as a course. Thank god for Rob and his mathematical/scientific mind! He did the calculations and we started to tile.
Step Six: Call for Reinforcements
We quickly learned that this was a three person job. One person to do the tiling, one to criticize the person doing the tiling, and one to watch K who would sit at the French doors to the sunroom and cry “mamamamamamamaaaa”. Once Poppa was convinced to join the fun, the tiling began again.
Step Seven: Kick Out the Perfectionist
Tiling a wall sucks. The tile tends to slide down screwing up your grouting lines and those pesky tiling spacers insist on popping out. We had to send the perfectionist out of the room and have the “good enoughers” finish the job. Once Rob was safely cleaning the garage, my dad and I could focus on the job at hand. First things first, got rid of the stupid spacers. They were just an exercise in frustration. Nope, we found nails did just as good, if not a better, job. Second, swear a lot. Third, get a case of the giggles. This is mandatory.
So the tiling is done and now we have to do the grouting. Ta da!!!
Step Eight: Pray
Now, I just hope they are all where I left them when I get back from Lake George…
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