Work on the tiling project resumed just after breakfast this morning. The plan was to quickly cut and install 3 more strips of cement board to cover the step-over, do a little caulking, mud the seams, and start tiling.
The strip-cutting didn't move so quickly. Our last good masonry blade broke just as we started the final cut of the 3rd strip. "We still have the two cheap-o blades that came with the saw," I told The Husband. He said we might as well try them. Whereas the "good" masonry blades had gnawed through the cement board at an agonizlingly slow pace, those cheap-o blades sliced through it like a hot knife through butter. Who knew??? If we'd broken all of the good blades sooner, we'd have finished the sawing in half the time. With the cement board in place, it was time to start tiling.
One of the videos that we had watched had recommended nailing a straight-edged board one tile width (plus an extra 1/4" for grout) from the floor, tiling upward from that point, using the straight-edge as a baseline, and then going back to install the bottom row later. The reason for this is that the mortar bed might not be perfectly level, and if we'd started laying the tile along an unlevel floor, the whole thing would've been crooked. We used a level to draw a straight, level line, and then we nailed yardsticks along the line. The first row of tiles would nudge against the yardsticks. Rubber spacers would keep the vertical spacing even for that first row, and they would keep both the horizontal and vertical spacing even for the following rows. When we go back to install the bottom row, we'll use the spacers to maintain even spacing above them, and fill in any un-level areas below them with grout, after we lay the floor tiles.
We'd just finished nailing the yardsticks in place when some friends dropped by for a visit. We spent a couple of hours talking to them, but hurried back to work as soon as they left.
Smearing that first blob of adhesive on the wall and setting that first tile is the scariest part. We stood there for a moment, staring at the blank wall, dreading that leap. Finally I said, "Gimme that trowel," and went to smearing adhesive. With the first tile in hand, the question became, should we start in the middle of the back wall and work outwards in both directions, or should we start in a corner and work across? I expect the answer to this question might differ from one project to the next, depending on the size and location of the space, and the angle from which the space will most often be seen. We decided to start in the right-hand corner because it is the corner that is most visible. Working from right to left required us to cut a narrow strip of tile to fill in the left-hand corner, but, when the project is finished, one will have to be in the shower to notice the narrow strip. If we'd started in the center and worked out in both directions, it would have been necessary for us to cut narrow strips for both corners, and they would have been very visible from outside the shower stall.
As I was set the tile, The Husband worked the wet saw, cutting the strips for the corners. I laid about three rows of tile, then stood up to stretch and drink some water. The Husband offered to take over the tiling while I took a break. I shoved a few more boxes of tile within his reach, opened another bag of rubber spacers, and left him tiling while I went for a glass of water. A few minutes later, he came out, throwing up his hands in frustration. Something was amiss, it seemed. I quietly went into the bathroom to see what the problem was.
The spacing was off. I checked to see if all of his tiles were snugged up against the rubber spacers. They were. I peeled off a few tiles and jacked around with the spacing, lining up the edges of the tiles as best I could, but something was still wrong. The tiles weren't level anymore, and the spaces weren't even. It was then that I noticed that some of the rubber spacers were smaller than others. At the tile store, we'd grabbed two bags of spacers from the same hook, but one bag contained 1/4" spacers, and the other contained 3/16" spacers. He'd randomly used some of the 3/16" spacers, and that measly 16th of an inch difference skewed the pattern. Once we figured out the problem, we ditched the smaller spacers, re-set the tiles using the 1/4" spacers, and moved on.
We're using 6" tiles on the walls, so the work moved pretty fast when we worked out the glitches. In the four hours that we worked at the tiling, we managed to do a little less than half of the shower. Though The Husband finds this part of the work to be tedious and nerve-wracking, I find it kind of relaxing. (My quilting hobby might account for this difference; I am used to working with small squares and 1/4" seams; it's a lot like tiling, minus the adhesive.) I expect he will be more than happy to turn me loose with the trowel tomorrow when we get back to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment