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I got the tile in my hot little hands. I placed the order yesterday and they managed to get it in today. How could it come in that fast when last time it took two weeks? Who knows. I'm not asking questions 'cause I got the tile and I'm gonna lay it tonight! Woo hoo!
I was laying the tile out Monday and making all the cuts t go around the walls and pipes, when I realized I'm short a few sheets. Now I have to place another order for more tile which will take another couple weeks to get it. Sucks. I was actually thinking about setting up the bathroom this weekend is all went well. Now, I've got to figure out something else to do. Paint maybe?
I can't figure out how it happened either. The math doesn't make sense. I needed 48 sq ft (9' x 5' 4" room) and I got 50.75 sq ft. Yet I'm short 8 sq ft. So I actually needed 58 sq ft. How is that possible? Why should I need almost 20% more? Even after all the cuts I've made, there really isn't a lot of leftover scraps. Where did it go?
Oh well. At least seeing it all laid out on the floor like this, I can tell it's gonna be totally sweet when it's done.
Yesterday I started to try laying the tile but I didn't get very far. I bought some 1/8" tile spacers from Home Depot even thought I didn't think they looked like the right size. They are supposed to fit in between your tiles so they're all evenly spaced. 1/8" was the closest they had, but sure enough, they're too big. Greg says he thinks Regina just eyeballed it when they layed their 1" hex tiles in their bathroom.
I had some trouble cutting these tiny tiles, too. The little tiles come in a big sheet and you can just pop tiles out of it. But making a clean cut for the door way is going to be harder. I bought some new tile nippers today so I'll see if that works. I found this Tile Your World bulletin board that's pretty nice. They even had a couple discussions on the best ways to cut 1" hex tile.
Last night I finished laying down the backer board for my bathroom. It was pretty fun. Except for the mixing part. I ran into a few snags there.
First of all, I started with mixing half a bag but ended up needing more so I had to mix the rest later. I tried using a paddle mixer to mix the thin set adhesive but it was too thick and even my cordless 18v DeWalt drill couldn't keep up. I ended up mixing it my hand. Literally. I stuck my hand into it and felt around crushing up dry clumps of the mortar. Like playing in the mud. My hand got incredibly tired trying to move through the mortar tho. On the upside, my hands are silky soft today.
What I should have done it started out with a bucket of water and added the mix as I mixed with a paddle mixer. I also should have used a corded 1/2" drill. My cordless batteries kept getting drained trying to mix it. Also, I should have started mixing at the top. I was worried I was going to add a lot of bubble mixing it if the paddle wasn't deep in the mortar, but it's way too thick for that. You learn something new every day. I'll try my new techniques out when I have to lay the tile with the same stuff later.
I used the Hardibacker 500 that's 1/2" thick. I wanted to use the 1/4" stuff at first but I was afraid the screws would go through the bottom of the floor boards. Also, I wanted a little extra weight because I was worried the floor wasn't flat enough. Looking back, I bet I could have gotten away with the 1/4". Although I bet it would have been easier to just use regular cement board instead.
I messed up a couple cuts on the Hardibacker board before I got the hang of that. Not as easy as they make it seem. They say it's just like cutting drywall but really it's no where near as easy. You have to really score it deep and on both sides to split it. Also, there are warnings on it about not dry sweeping the dust because it contains silica dust that is known in California to cause cancer. Great. One day this stuff could be ranked up there with asbestos and someone will be cursing me when they have to tackle Hardibacker abatement in this house.
I was getting tired of not being able to get wide enough photos of my house so I thought it might be cool to see the before and after drywall photos as panoramic Quicktime movies. Turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. I tried virtually every kind of software for the mac for stitching together multiple photos. I also did a lot of tedious hand photo retouching with 30 plus photos or each panorama. And the final result is kind of okay. Or maybe they're great and I've just lost perspective after staring at them for so long. Now they just make me queasy to watch spinning around.
The good news is I found a very nice and elegant program called Double Take that stitches together multiple photos to make wide angle shots. I think the wide angle shots are a lot easier to look at.
This morning I went to go look at a vintage stove somone advertised on Craigslist. As part of my obsessive appliance search, I've been keeping an eye on all the appliance listings on Craigslist. It's a Tappan Deluxe stove from 1948. It's a big Cadillac of a stove. Well maybe more like a '57 Chevy. It's sporty red and white mammoth of a stove. Over 40" wide. And it has knobs that light up when you turn on the burners. It was an absolute steal at $175. Especially since it works perfectly and is in spotless condition.
This guy loved it so much, he moved it from Vermont. It came with a house he lived in up there. But it didn't fit in his house here so he had to store it in the garage. Now his family is moving to Portland so it was finally time to part with it.
He posted the listing at 2PM on Saturday. I went to look at it at 9PM the next morning (today) and bought it right there. Then my Dad just happened to be coming up with his truck to help me with the house. So I got Bryan and my Dad to help me pick it up that same afternoon. Everything was falling into place.
We loaded the stove into the truck and he said "Well, enjoy the stove. My wife is probably inside crying."
I said, "I will. I'll take good care of it. I'll try to love it at least as much as she did." And drove away.
But only a few blocks away from my house, the stove tipped over in the back of the truck and the top of the stove and all the grates came flying off. Bang! I looked in the side view mirror and saw stuff bouncing down the road. Two of the steel grates broke apart and the top piece, the piece with the timer and lights got a huge scratch in the porcelain and ripped out the wires. I think it landed on its face too because the two knobs that control the clock in the front got smashed. It was really sad.
My Dad felt really really horrible because he was driving. I kept telling him it wasn't his fault. Which it wasn't. I mean, the top wasn't even screwed on like it was supposed to be. We should have taken the top off and the grates off so there weren't any loose parts sitting on top anyway. I could have strapped the thing down or rode in the back with it to keep and eye on it. But I said, "It's fine. It weighs like 500 lbs. It'll be fine!" Who knew.
But the good news it that there's a few places on the internet that restore old stoves. Yu can send them parts and they'll restore them for you. This website called Antique Gas Stoves even says they can repair broken grates and re-coat them in porcelain. So all hope it not lost. In the end, this stove may come out better because if it.
Haven't posted in a long time. First I was too busy to post. Then I was too lazy to post. Now there's so much to write about, it's hard to sit down and start to go over it all. Keeping up this blog almost takes as much time as working on the house.
Even tho there's no activity on the blog, it seems like more progress has happened in the last three weeks than the last three months! Everything has snowballed. That's the way I work apparently. There's lots of thinking in the beginning. Then slowly but surely I pick up the pace until I'm a gettin-stuff-done machine, furiously working up to the deadline. Pretty much when you've got the plan and you know what you're doing, stuff can just fall into place (hopefully).
But now that the drywall is being hung upstairs and I have to focus on the kitchen, I'm kinda lost again. I'm doing a lot more research and thinking again than doing. I'm also shopping a lot for appliances even tho I don't have a place for them yet. It's too much fun. I can't help it. I think I've reached a new point in my life when I find myself getting really excited about good dishwashers or really efficient refrigerators. Dork.