Tile Tribulations

Ever since I was a child, I've always loved old fashioned bathrooms with gorgeous black and white hex tile (although by my math, they really appear to be octagons) and clawfoot tubs. My dreams are finally a little bit closer, although we have an interesting story about the colors that we chose. Several months ago, I started looking at tiles, and happened upon the hex tile with blue accents at our local Lowes. I really liked the blue tiles, they weren't flat blue, they have kind of a dimension to the glaze and they gave a little bit more interest to the floor. However, when we went to buy them to start tiling the bathroom, every tile that they had in stock was broken. They had plenty of black and white, most of it also cracked, so we had our store check the Gaithersburg store to see if they had any in stock. A shower and a very rushed ride down I-270 later, and every blue and white tile at the Gaithersburg Lowes was also broken. I convinced myself that I'd always liked the black and white better, and Aaron as well, so we bought black and white tile and came back home. The next day, we ended up back at the first Lowes, and were nearly mowed down in the parking lot by an angry consumer. (He actually honked at us as we crossed on the main crosswalk into the store- I didn't realize that it was protocol to run! We were moving at a normal pace.) Apparently not dragging the man from his truck and taking out a week of home improvement frustration on him paid off on the karma balance sheet, because Lowes had gotten in 10 more boxes of new, unbroken blue and white tile. We promptly snatched it up and came home. (Ironically, I had stopped to let that idiot cross in front of me when I was parking the car.)

I laid the blue and white hex tile all afternoon, which really sucks. Those are a lot of sides to line up, and they look like they can go down 2 ways, but it's really only one way, because of the fiber mat that the tiles are attached to. I also had a few minor panic attacks because the walls weren't square (but Aaron will shim out the wainscoting to make up that difference), and because a couple of tiles wouldn't squish down perfectly flat because some of our nail heads from the backerboard didn't sink properly (we used 1.5" Ramset fasteners in there, but switched to 1" to avoid this problem again this weekend). It was worth all of the hard work, though, because it looks great. There is a slight undulation in the line of blue tiles under the tub, but if you are laying on my bathroom floor with a level looking at the row of blue diamonds under the tub, then you've got bigger problems than I and you may want to check yourself into some sort of treatment center.

As long promised, pictures of the hex tile in the bathroom:







Tiling adventures continued this weekend. We're finally getting the planning for the weekend part of the equation down... although I really do need the workweek in my nice, air-conditioned office to recover from our weekend warrior activities. We had all of our materials in place, as well as diet Coke and sandwich supplies, so I didn't go to Lowes or Home Depot once all weekend long! Isn't that awesome. I don't think that we've ever accomplished that feat before.

Saturday we were up early (thanks to the five windows in our east facing bedroom, it's very difficult to sleep in on a sunny day), which was good, because we're really starting to get some hot summer weather. We got started laying out all of the backerboard in the basement. We were disappointed to find that due to the various corners, angles, and bumpouts, every single piece needed cutting. We ended up spending all day on Saturday fitting the backerboard around various objects in the laundry/bar area. At 4:30 we optimistically rented a tile saw from Rentals Unlimited. We rented Mixmaster Mike from them so many times that they actually still remember us, even though we haven't been in there in about 4 or 5 months. We walk in, and the guy at the counter said "Hey, do you need the cement mixer AGAIN?", so we told him no, now it's the tile saw, to which he replied, "What next, hardwood floors?" No, I don't think so, not over concrete- although I've pointed out to Aaron that they would have been easier (we did them in our old house). Sunday morning, we used the thinset to stick down all of the backerboard, and the Ramset to secure it all to the floor. We used 1" Ramset fasteners this time, as opposed to the 1.5" fasteners in the bathroom, and this worked a lot better. If you are questioning why we didn't just stick the tile on top of the concrete, the answer is that pouring your own basement floor is much harder than we expected, and we didn't get the floor perfectly level. The backerboard helped this a lot, although we still have to be very careful as we install the tile to get everything even. A couple of high spots remain. Sunday afternoon we got over 1/3 but less than 1/2 of the tile installed by 7 pm, when we decided to stop for the day. I wanted to water the flowers and clean up the yard a little bit before it got completely dark. Also, my fabulous neighbor Kelly gave me some impatients that she couldn't use, so I wanted to get those in the ground before dark, too. I made up some nice little containers with them, they will help the barren wasteland of a backyard that we currently have until we can get the patio contractor lined up.

We've decided to keep the tile saw this week and work on the floor all week long. We're through several of the worst areas, around the closet, the transition into the living room area, and around the stairs, so it may move faster now. The saw is very loud, so we'll only be able to work until about 8 pm every night, as that is our neighbor's little boy's bedtime. Our neighbors have been very tolerant of the noise that we make all the time, so we really try to keep from upsetting them too much and stop hammering, sawing, etc. at 8 pm every night. No pictures of the tile yet, I'll keep you in suspense until it's more complete.