Saturday, June 25, 2011

Temporarily Interrupted Gardening

Having worked hard in the garden earlier in the week, I don't have much to do in the dirt this weekend except plant 4 more Roma tomato plants that I bought yesterday.  Thursday evening I sprayed fungicide on the tomatoes and, just to make it look more like a "real" garden, planted two short rows of corn, strategically located in the middle of the garden for visual balance.  ;)  As I was doing my final walk-through before coming home to hit the shower, I noticed several squash ready for picking.  I'd told Nanny that she could have these first fruits.  If she hasn't already gotten them, I'll pick them and leave them on her back doorstep when I go down there in a few minutes to plant the tomatoes.

Unless some garden emergency arises (e.g., a sudden appearance of tomato worms), I'm done in the garden for a bit, and ready to tackle an indoor project, tiling a shower.  This shower was previously a one-piece fiberglass insert.  Some time ago, the floor developed a crack.  We puttied it and taped it and did all sorts of things to it, but the crack kept getting larger.  We decided that instead of installing another fiberglass deal, we'd tile the shower.  We pondered various materials, got several estimates for turn-key jobs from professionals, and somewhere along the way decided that this should be the kind of project that we can do ourselves.  The only part that I was nervous about tackling was the removal of the old shower and the preparation of the liner pan and mortar base for the floor, so we did hire a professional to do those things.  The plumbing pipes also needed to be recessed into the wall just a tad, and he did that, as well.  As soon as the mortar base is dry, the shower will be ready for us to install the tile backer board and begin tiling.

We've picked out our tile, but haven't bought it (or the other supplies) yet.  We'll make a run to the tile store later today to get everything we need.  By tomorrow, the mortar base should be dry.  I'd like to think that we can tile this small shower in a day - a professional probably could - but we've done enough of these little projects to know that they take about twice as long as we've estimated, so it'll probably be next weekend before we're finished.  I'll show you a picture when we're done!

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