Incoherent Mutterings

We’re finally done. I finished caulking yesterday (three more tubes needed. wow) and got the furniture moved back in. Ahhhhh. None of my furniture was as heavy as boxes of tile. Really. Futon? Pshhh. Couch? Just awkward. The TV is louder and so lovely. I have missed my TV. And the consoles. I missed you too guys. Never shall we be parted that long again.

Now to repopulate the living room with all the crap we should have thrown away in the first place.

We finished laying ALL the tiles, walkway accent included, by 8pm Wednesday night.

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Then grouted Thursday.

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Friday we said “fuck it” and went to Fry’s, then to Rug Decor to find an area rug. They have great rugs! I just didn’t want to spend that much. 🙁 Looks like it’s back to Lowes for me.

Saturday we cleaned. I am soooo tired of walking around on grit.

Sunday I sealed the grout and the slate:

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I also bought a new vacuum because i think I killed my last one. My mom gave it to me when I moved out. in 2001. It was old then. but still did the job. I now have a brand spankin’ new Eureka Smart Boss. I started by vacuuming the other area rug. A pen was about 9 inches away. The force of the suction PULLED THE PEN TOWARDS IT. Hot damn!

It is now Monday. I am still not done. I now have to use caulk around the edges (where the tile meets the wall/step). This is supposed to aid in keeping the tile from breaking when the house settles. I bought one tube. I’m an idiot. I still have 3 sides of the room to do. Erg. Tomorrow it’s off to Home Depot for more. Because I am an idiot who can’t think ahead.

What I learned:

• If you have never tiled before, don’t fucking start with 20″ tiles in a big ass living room. Although, if you’re gonna do something, go big or go home.
• 20 boxes of 20″ tile are HEAVY.
• One 20″ tile is HEAVY. But only on day 1. Then next few days, you’ll be tossing them around like dolls.
• Don’t let the person who can’t draw a straight line with a ruler cut the damn tile. Seriously. If you come over, don’t look too closely.
• Your walls are not straight. None of them are. A 3/16″ grout line WILL turn into a 1/2″ or MORE.
• Cordless drills cannot mix thinset.
• 8 year old poorly treated corded drills will throw smoke and still not mix the thinset.
• Screw kneepads.
• Screw sunken living rooms.
• Bags of thinset weigh 50 lbs. Each. You need 6 for a 236 sqft room. That’s 300 pounds. From the floor of Home Depot to the basket, from the basket to the car, from the car to the house, from wherever the hell you put it in the house to outside.
• Bags of sanded grout weight 25 lbs. Each. You need 2 for the same 236 sqft room (stupid sunken living room). That’s 50 pounds. You know the drill.
• One tube of caulk is not enough. Because I’m retarded.
• If your hand is swollen on day 1 (carpet removal was actually day 0 and what caused my pain) and you power through it, you will pay. All week, and the week after. Heat helps.
• When you pull up the nails from the tack strips (nasty, rotten things) you will pull up concrete. Those same nails will break their heads. Because they are rusted and over 30 years old. Beat them until they break. Very cathartic.
• Aleve, aspirin, Vicodin: do whatever you gotta do because you WILL be sore.
• STAY HYDRATED! Best advice I was ever given. The first day of real tiling, I went through 8 bottles of Gatorade. I do not care for Gatorade.

It is now the next week. I cannot bend over completely without my legs screaming, my back is still stiff, my hand still hurts. But my livingroom is about 10 degrees cooler and all echo-y.

So there you have it. Our tiling adventure.Will I do it again? Probably. I still have 7 boxes of tile and an entryway to do. Fuck.

I learned to use a wet tile saw! And not the one I borrowed (unfortunately). The one we borrowed needed some special tool to get the blade off. We didn;t have that tool. Tico needed to go to Lowes to replace the cheap ass scraper I had bought (bad me) so I tagged along and bought a saw. $88. Great! Folks, there’s a reason this saw is $88. It looks like it should have had Playskool or Fisher-Price written on it. The assembly instructions sucked ass and the bottom was made of plastic. But it cut a full day’s worth of tile. Seriously. I was still cutting at 6 or 7 Tuesday night. Anyway, Tico (hopped up on Vicodin and Aleve) measured tile, I cut tile, all was good. We laid the tiles out then began cementing into place. Didn’t finish but got a lot done.

No images.

It is 11:34pm. We have been working since noon with one break around 6 for something that resembled dinner. I wished for my feet to fall off.

We got the “field” tiles laid. These are the bulk of the floor and required no cuts. At the last minute I decided to lay the straight shot of accent tile (6″x3″ slate). I could do this sitting down. Which was great. Went through about 80 tiles. I think I destroyed a recycling bin. It is not meant to hold a hefty human. So now we go to bed and sleep the sleep of the exhausted. Tomorrow I get to learn how to use a wet tile saw.

Pictures tomorrow. If I haven’t died.

Edit: so my pictures are late. Whatever.

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We have decided to tile the living room. Okay, *I* decided I wanted to tile the living room. We picked a week (memorial day week), took vacation, bought the tile and stuff, and here we are. It’s really happening. I bought all the stuff. I’m not hauling 350 pounds of mortar and grout and quite possibly half a ton of porcelain tile back to where I bought it. So. This is happening.

Click an image to see it in a mini slideshow.

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So that’s where we are now: carpet removed, padding removed, tack strips loosened. Now I am headed off to actually remove the tacks strips and nails, clean the concrete and do some patch work on the step.