As I was finishing my first cup of coffee this morning, I looked out my window and saw Nanny on her way to the garden with a picking bucket. I suited up and rode down on my bike to join her. Two hours later, we'd picked a canner full of butterbeans, a 5-gallon bucket full of purple hull peas, and several two-gallon buckets of squash, zucchini, eggplant, okra, and cucumbers. I left the peas and okra with Nanny (she's got folks coming for dinner tomorrow), and I brought home the rest.
Among the bounty was a zucchini as big around as a baseball bat. I washed it, scraped out the big seeds, and grated the meaty part, rind and all. This grated stuff went into a batch of cranberry zucchini bread. I'm fixin' to give you the recipe, because it is da bomb.
Makes two loaves.
Oven: 350
3 cups of self-rising flour
2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
[Mix those together and set them aside.]
2 cups of grated zucchini
2 cups of sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil (I used olive oil)
1 cup of dried cranberries (I'm estimating, here. I had part of a bag left over from another project. It all went in. More wouldn't hurt.)
1 cup of pecans.
1/4 cup of Limoncello *
[Mix all that stuff together, then add the dry ingredients. I added the pecans after stirring in the dry ingredients.]
Pour into greased loaf pans and bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes.
Yum.
* Now, I know what you're thinking: "Like I have limoncello in my pantry." I normally wouldn't have it, either, but I made some limoncello a few months back, and it's been sitting in my refrigerator ever since, waiting for me to either drink it or do something with it. I tasted the raw bread batter before the limoncello, and after. It was o-kayyyy without it, but it was way better with it. I really can't taste the lemon, but it gave the batter an extra little zing that lit up a bunch more taste buds. Lemon juice might do the same thing, but I might add another 1/4 cup of sugar with plain juice.
While I was making the zucchini bread, I saw a TV chef making "meatballs" out of grated zucchini, bread, and eggs. (Hmmm...I think we call 'em "fritters" here.) He ate them with marinara sauce and pasta, just like meatballs. He did the same thing with cooked, mashed eggplant. He said you could either fry them or drop them raw into the marinara. I shall try this with the next baseball bat I pick. ;)
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Beans & Peas
Thursday evening, Nanny called to ask if I intended to pick the green beans, squash, cucumbers, and okra. She said she'd picked all that stuff mid-week, but it needed it again. To be honest, at that moment, with the summer heat raging, I couldn't have cared less if they never got picked, but I said I'd have a look at them after supper. When we finished eating, The Husband and I got on our bikes and rode down to the garden. There wasn't enough daylight left to do everything, so we picked the easy stuff, and I said I'd be back Saturday morning to get the green beans. As we were preparing to ride back home, Pop-Pop hollered out the back door that if we would put the soaker hose in the tomatoes and turn it on, he'd come out later and turn it off. The Husband dutifully complied.
Saturday morning, I woke up at 6:30, drank a cup of coffee, put on my gardening clothes, and headed to the garden for my appointment with the green beans. I'd been working about an hour and a half when Nanny came out to help. We finished off the green beans, picked a "mess" of purple hull peas for Nanny's supper, and checked the other vegetables. The squash, cucumbers, and okra needed picking again, so I went to the shed to get a knife to cut the okra while Nanny started on the cucumbers.
Now, I haven't mentioned that Pop-Pop recently strung wire for an electric fence around the entire garden, except for one little gap near the tomato plants. No, I didn't get shocked, for he hasn't electrified it, yet. But the wire is waist-high - too high to step over, too low to bend under - and so right now the only convenient entrance into the garden is through that gap by the tomatoes. Coming back with the knife, striding full steam ahead, I took about two steps before sinking ankle deep into mud. I hollered, "Whoaaaaa!" and started windmilling my arms - reverse the engines, Captain! - to regain my balance. Hearing me holler, Nanny looked up and said that Pop-Pop had forgotten to turn off the soaker hose Thursday night. It had dripped all night long, deeply saturating the ground around the tomatoes. Friday's blistering sun had dried the top layer, making it look deceptively safe to walk on. When I tried to pull my feet out, the mud sucked off both of my plastic garden clogs. I stepped out of them and left 'em where they were until I finished cutting the okra, then I pried them out, hosed them off, and rode home with my bounty.
Back at home, I canned 7 quarts of green beans and 3 pints of pickled okra. The squash and zucchini went into the food dehydrator. Having fooled with various ways of preserving squash over the past few years, I've learned that we like it best dried. I sprinkle the squash slices with a seasoning blend and dry them until they're brittle. They make pretty good chips for dips, but my favorite thing to do with them is toss a handful of them into soups and pasta dishes. They re-hydrate fairly well, and they bring a little taste of summer to winter meals. I suppose they'd be ok stored in an air-tight jar, but I like to put them in bags and freeze them. A 5-tray dehydrating nets about a scant quart bag full of dried squash. Since they're dry when they go into the bags, they don't stick together, and I can just reach in, grab what I need, and put the rest back in the freezer.
With this canning, I think we have about all the green beans we need. Unfortunately, the green bean plants do not know this and will continue to make, especially if we get a shower or two along the way. Thus, if you live nearby and need some green beans, grab your pickin' bucket and come on over. I'll even help you pick them.
Note to my sister: another week and the eggplants will be ready. Come & get 'em!
Saturday morning, I woke up at 6:30, drank a cup of coffee, put on my gardening clothes, and headed to the garden for my appointment with the green beans. I'd been working about an hour and a half when Nanny came out to help. We finished off the green beans, picked a "mess" of purple hull peas for Nanny's supper, and checked the other vegetables. The squash, cucumbers, and okra needed picking again, so I went to the shed to get a knife to cut the okra while Nanny started on the cucumbers.
Now, I haven't mentioned that Pop-Pop recently strung wire for an electric fence around the entire garden, except for one little gap near the tomato plants. No, I didn't get shocked, for he hasn't electrified it, yet. But the wire is waist-high - too high to step over, too low to bend under - and so right now the only convenient entrance into the garden is through that gap by the tomatoes. Coming back with the knife, striding full steam ahead, I took about two steps before sinking ankle deep into mud. I hollered, "Whoaaaaa!" and started windmilling my arms - reverse the engines, Captain! - to regain my balance. Hearing me holler, Nanny looked up and said that Pop-Pop had forgotten to turn off the soaker hose Thursday night. It had dripped all night long, deeply saturating the ground around the tomatoes. Friday's blistering sun had dried the top layer, making it look deceptively safe to walk on. When I tried to pull my feet out, the mud sucked off both of my plastic garden clogs. I stepped out of them and left 'em where they were until I finished cutting the okra, then I pried them out, hosed them off, and rode home with my bounty.
Back at home, I canned 7 quarts of green beans and 3 pints of pickled okra. The squash and zucchini went into the food dehydrator. Having fooled with various ways of preserving squash over the past few years, I've learned that we like it best dried. I sprinkle the squash slices with a seasoning blend and dry them until they're brittle. They make pretty good chips for dips, but my favorite thing to do with them is toss a handful of them into soups and pasta dishes. They re-hydrate fairly well, and they bring a little taste of summer to winter meals. I suppose they'd be ok stored in an air-tight jar, but I like to put them in bags and freeze them. A 5-tray dehydrating nets about a scant quart bag full of dried squash. Since they're dry when they go into the bags, they don't stick together, and I can just reach in, grab what I need, and put the rest back in the freezer.
With this canning, I think we have about all the green beans we need. Unfortunately, the green bean plants do not know this and will continue to make, especially if we get a shower or two along the way. Thus, if you live nearby and need some green beans, grab your pickin' bucket and come on over. I'll even help you pick them.
Note to my sister: another week and the eggplants will be ready. Come & get 'em!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Blight & Beans
I sprayed the tomatoes for blight and bugs this evening. Looking back through my previous posts, it looks like I haven't sprayed since the end of June. I should not have waited so long between applications, but we've had a few little showers these past few weeks, and it seems like one came up every time I decided to spray. And then we started the tiling project, and everything else sort of fell to the wayside.
Speaking of showers, The Husband finished the grouting yesterday. One of these days, we're going to seal it, put the fixtures back on, and try it out.
While the grouting was happening, I was canning the green beans I picked on Saturday morning. Ended up with 8 quarts - not a bad haul for the first picking.
Speaking of showers, The Husband finished the grouting yesterday. One of these days, we're going to seal it, put the fixtures back on, and try it out.
While the grouting was happening, I was canning the green beans I picked on Saturday morning. Ended up with 8 quarts - not a bad haul for the first picking.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Picking & Canning & Grouting (Tile Project - Day Who-The-Eff Cares)
Oh, the agony of de feet...and de hand...and de back....
Been fooling with fruit and vegetables today.
Netted 13 cute little half-pint jars of peach jam (laced with Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey), and as many jars of blackberry jelly. The blackberry jelly might not set. Operator error. Technical malfunction.
Note to the unsuspecting: When you're using Sure-Jell fruit pectin, the Sure-Jell goes in at the beginning of the cooking process; you boil it, and the sugar goes in at the end. When you're using Certo, it's the other way around; the sugar goes in first, and the Certo goes in at the end. This reversal in procedure is not immediately obvious from casual glances at the instructions on both products.
I cannot yet vouch for what happens when you discover this after you've already added one pack of Certo to a double batch, then added the sugar, boiled it, then added the other pack of Certo at the end. Right now, it's looking like I might end up with blackberry syrup instead of jelly, but let's give it a couple of weeks before we call it.
Another note to the unsuspecting: just because your big pan holds a double batch of peach jam without boiling over doesn't mean it'll hold a double batch of blackberry jelly without boiling over.
I started and ended this day with green beans. Picked them this morning - almost a whole water-bath canner full. Took me two hours. When I put the last batch of jelly in the canner, I started working on the beans. It took me another two hours to wash and snap them. I would have liked to have canned them tonight, but that would take another hour, and I just ain't got it in me.
While I worked in the kitchen today, The Husband assumed responsibility for the grouting of the shower tile. We'd bought two bags of grout. About halfway through the job, he opened the second bag and while mixing it noticed that it seemed to be a slightly different color. He checked the labels, and, sure enough, we'd bought two different colors instead of two of the same color. It was about 5 p.m. when he made this discovery. It would take an hour to get more, and he'd be plumb out of the mood (read "plumb stove up") by the time he'd get back with it. We agreed that we should just STOP for the day, clean ourselves up, go get the grout, and take ourselves to dinner.
But I left the kitchen a mess. We set about cleaning it up when we got home. Pots and pans piled as high in the sink as they could pile. Sticky purple stuff everywhere from when the double batch of blackberry jelly boiled over. Wiped up all that mess, and turned around, and there sat the green beans. "No way," I said to them. "I'll deal with your butts tomorrow." I picked up the big old pan they were in and took it to the refrigerator...and, of course, the refrigerator was way too full to accommodate the pan, which meant we had to clean off a shelf, all the way to the fur-lined containers in the back.
The Husband is now in his recliner, washing down ibuprofen tablets with beer, icing down his carpal tunnel hand after his encounter with the grout float. Tomorrow night, after he grouts his way down to the floor, he'll probably need ice on his knees, too.
As for me, I'm going to bed, if I can walk the 14 steps it'll take to get there.
P.S. - The shower is looking good. Another month, and we'll have this thing licked. ;)
Been fooling with fruit and vegetables today.
Netted 13 cute little half-pint jars of peach jam (laced with Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey), and as many jars of blackberry jelly. The blackberry jelly might not set. Operator error. Technical malfunction.
Note to the unsuspecting: When you're using Sure-Jell fruit pectin, the Sure-Jell goes in at the beginning of the cooking process; you boil it, and the sugar goes in at the end. When you're using Certo, it's the other way around; the sugar goes in first, and the Certo goes in at the end. This reversal in procedure is not immediately obvious from casual glances at the instructions on both products.
I cannot yet vouch for what happens when you discover this after you've already added one pack of Certo to a double batch, then added the sugar, boiled it, then added the other pack of Certo at the end. Right now, it's looking like I might end up with blackberry syrup instead of jelly, but let's give it a couple of weeks before we call it.
Another note to the unsuspecting: just because your big pan holds a double batch of peach jam without boiling over doesn't mean it'll hold a double batch of blackberry jelly without boiling over.
I started and ended this day with green beans. Picked them this morning - almost a whole water-bath canner full. Took me two hours. When I put the last batch of jelly in the canner, I started working on the beans. It took me another two hours to wash and snap them. I would have liked to have canned them tonight, but that would take another hour, and I just ain't got it in me.
While I worked in the kitchen today, The Husband assumed responsibility for the grouting of the shower tile. We'd bought two bags of grout. About halfway through the job, he opened the second bag and while mixing it noticed that it seemed to be a slightly different color. He checked the labels, and, sure enough, we'd bought two different colors instead of two of the same color. It was about 5 p.m. when he made this discovery. It would take an hour to get more, and he'd be plumb out of the mood (read "plumb stove up") by the time he'd get back with it. We agreed that we should just STOP for the day, clean ourselves up, go get the grout, and take ourselves to dinner.
But I left the kitchen a mess. We set about cleaning it up when we got home. Pots and pans piled as high in the sink as they could pile. Sticky purple stuff everywhere from when the double batch of blackberry jelly boiled over. Wiped up all that mess, and turned around, and there sat the green beans. "No way," I said to them. "I'll deal with your butts tomorrow." I picked up the big old pan they were in and took it to the refrigerator...and, of course, the refrigerator was way too full to accommodate the pan, which meant we had to clean off a shelf, all the way to the fur-lined containers in the back.
The Husband is now in his recliner, washing down ibuprofen tablets with beer, icing down his carpal tunnel hand after his encounter with the grout float. Tomorrow night, after he grouts his way down to the floor, he'll probably need ice on his knees, too.
As for me, I'm going to bed, if I can walk the 14 steps it'll take to get there.
P.S. - The shower is looking good. Another month, and we'll have this thing licked. ;)
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Titty Tomatoes
Yeah, "Titty."
As in breast, boob, hooter.
Here's what happened:
My son-of-another-mother and his sweet wife came to see me last Saturday evening, bearing a basket of peaches and a basket of tomatoes. He set them on the counter, and I pawed through them, squeezing and sniffing. When I got to the tomatoes, I picked one up and asked, "What kind of tomatoes are these?" Their skins were smoothe and red, and they were shaped like upside-down onion domes.
"Granddad calls them 'titty tomaters," he replied.
I could see the resemblance.
Because the peaches were very, very ripe, I dealt with them first. Sunday morning, I scalded, peeled, and chopped them. There was enough fruit for 2.5 batches of jam (per the fruit pectin box recipe). I cooked them in two batches. To the second batch, I stirred 1/4 cup of dark rum into the jam mixture before I put it in the jars. Boy, oh boy, was it ever good!
It was Monday before I got to the tomatoes. There was probably enough of them to make a few jars of salsa, but I had not yet had my fill of fresh sliced garden tomatoes on sandwiches, and I decided to eat them now rather than preserve them for later. Talk about a slice of heaven....
Last night, I chopped up two of the tomatoes and tossed them in a skillet with squash, zucchini, and onions that I'd already browned in olive oil. I added a couple of chopped basil leaves and let the mess simmer until the squash was soft, and then I tossed in a few kalamata olives, a handful or two of cooked, peeled shrimp from the freezer, and some cooked bowtie pasta. Finished it off with a squirt of left-over red wine (I would have preferred white wine) from the fridge, salt, pepper, a pat of butter, and a grating of parmesan cheese. Truthfully, it was not my best work, but it was quick and filling and tasted like summertime.
So, thanks, Granddad, for the titty tomatoes. I'll be sending a jar of jam your way, next time I see our boy.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tiling the Shower (Days 7 - 11)
I bet you've been dying to hear what's been going on in the shower since Thursday.
The answer is, "Not much." Nothing, in fact.
By Friday of last week, I was plumb pooped. I got up that morning and went to the office for a while. Got home around 11:30 a.m., and was planning to finish up the few stray bits of tiling that remained to be done. I'd made a detour by the lumber company on the way home to buy a manual tile cutter, for the pieces that remained to be cut were little bitty things that I was afraid to cut with the wet saw. The tile-cutting thing did not come with any instructions, and I could not get the blasted thing to cut a tile without breaking it in the wrong spot. I was bone tired and short on patience, and I said, "Screw this," and went to read a book for the rest of the afternoon.
That evening, when we went for our regular Friday margarita night, we were sitting there, having the first sips of our frozen margaritas, when this lady came walking through the restaurant, wearing the big birthday sombrero, shaking a basket of tortilla chips, calling, "Chips! Salsa!" She passed by our table, then turned around, and behold! It was my friend, come all the way from Georgia for a surprise weekend visit! Though she said she brought her "grouting clothes," I spared her. Truth was, I was pooped, and did not want to start the grouting job. Her visit was a welcome excuse for a respite from the tile project.
But I am slowly preparing for the grout job. Went to a different tile store today and found some trim for the final spot that had me stumped. Bought a giant beater-thing that goes in the drill to mix up the grout. Maybe we can glue up the trim strips during the evenings this week, and start the grouting this weekend.
I've not done much in the garden in a week, except to peek under the squash, zucchini, and cucumber plants and inspect the tomatoes for worms. Everything is looking good. Nanny's already made a couple of batches of cucumber relish. The tomatoes are starting to ripen. Beans and peas are putting out runners and blooms. Okra is about ready to bloom.
And it's 100 degrees in the shade, here - way too hot to work in the garden except for early morning and dusk. A small measure of relief from the heat is in sight for the weekend, but there isn't much to do except wait on the veggies to grow.
The answer is, "Not much." Nothing, in fact.
By Friday of last week, I was plumb pooped. I got up that morning and went to the office for a while. Got home around 11:30 a.m., and was planning to finish up the few stray bits of tiling that remained to be done. I'd made a detour by the lumber company on the way home to buy a manual tile cutter, for the pieces that remained to be cut were little bitty things that I was afraid to cut with the wet saw. The tile-cutting thing did not come with any instructions, and I could not get the blasted thing to cut a tile without breaking it in the wrong spot. I was bone tired and short on patience, and I said, "Screw this," and went to read a book for the rest of the afternoon.
That evening, when we went for our regular Friday margarita night, we were sitting there, having the first sips of our frozen margaritas, when this lady came walking through the restaurant, wearing the big birthday sombrero, shaking a basket of tortilla chips, calling, "Chips! Salsa!" She passed by our table, then turned around, and behold! It was my friend, come all the way from Georgia for a surprise weekend visit! Though she said she brought her "grouting clothes," I spared her. Truth was, I was pooped, and did not want to start the grouting job. Her visit was a welcome excuse for a respite from the tile project.
But I am slowly preparing for the grout job. Went to a different tile store today and found some trim for the final spot that had me stumped. Bought a giant beater-thing that goes in the drill to mix up the grout. Maybe we can glue up the trim strips during the evenings this week, and start the grouting this weekend.
I've not done much in the garden in a week, except to peek under the squash, zucchini, and cucumber plants and inspect the tomatoes for worms. Everything is looking good. Nanny's already made a couple of batches of cucumber relish. The tomatoes are starting to ripen. Beans and peas are putting out runners and blooms. Okra is about ready to bloom.
And it's 100 degrees in the shade, here - way too hot to work in the garden except for early morning and dusk. A small measure of relief from the heat is in sight for the weekend, but there isn't much to do except wait on the veggies to grow.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Tiling the Shower (Day 6)
I should've paid that guy to tile the shower. Now that I've done this, I see why folks charge so much to do it.
Yesterday morning, all that remained to be tiled was the doorway, the floor, and the step-over. Tiling the doorway would require a lot of sawing, as it was all narrow spaces. The floor I expected to be a piece of cake, since the tiles are on mesh sheets. Because I had some errands to run, it was 11:30 before I could get started. It was nearly 11 p.m. when I quit, and there's still a little more to do before we can grout.
Before leaving to run the errands, I had stood in front of the shower, inspecting my work with a fresh, critical eye. There was another spot that bothered me, a foot above the floor in the front corner. The wall wasn't *quite* straight in that spot, and we'd had to cut the tiles progressively wider as we moved up the wall. The lower three tiles in that corner, the first ones we'd cut, were too narrow. Since I had not yet tiled the doorway, there was nothing to disturb to the left of the tiles, and I could get a pry-tool in there, using the doorway for leverage. I made up my mind to try to pop those three tiles out and replace them with wider ones before I started anything else.
This proved easier than I expected (which kind of makes me worry about the strength of this adhesive). I pried off the three tiles, replaced them with tiles that were 1/4" wider, and felt much better. It was so easy that I turned around and eyed that spot on the opposite wall, the one I said will probably annoy me for the rest of my life, thinking I might just...nah, better not.
Now, onto the rest.
Our shower is in a corner, not angled across it, but squared-up in it. To the left of the doorway is a 7"-thick wall that separates the shower from the vanity. I'd decided to tile the face of this narrow wall in the same design as the shower, itself - square tiles from the floor up to a border, then diagonal tiles from the border to the ceiling. We are using 6" tiles (they are actually 5.75", or thereabout). This meant that the 7" wall would only hold one row of tiles, with a little over 1/2" to spare on either side. At the tile store, we'd looked for trim pieces - we wanted narrow L-shaped things to put on the corners of this wall - but they didn't have any that matched our tile. We had left the store without trim, thinking we'd cross that bridge when we got to it. Well, I was to that bridge, and there was nothing to do but make my own trim. All I could think to do was cut 1/4" wide strips to border the tiles.
Let me tell you, cutting a 1/4"-wide strip of tile is a pain in the butt. First, a strip that small will snap in two halfway through the cutting process if you're not careful (and even if you are). And if you do manage to cut a strip without breaking it, there's still the problem of a raw, slightly-jagged edge that must be ground smoothe. Working with pieces that small, that close to a running saw blade, is a nerve-wrecker. Before I'd cut too many of those strips, I was wishing for a gin & tonic to relax my shoulders, but was scared to have one, for fear of relaxing enough to lose a finger to the saw. It took a long time, but I cut those narrow strips - nearly 30 of those m*th*rf*ck*rs, not counting the ones that broke in the saw - and glued them end-to-end up both sides of the tiles, leaving a space for grout. It doesn't look too bad, but I'm scared one of those strips is going to fall off the first time somebody bumps the wall. We'll see.
The floor was fairly easy. The Husband took over this part of the job. Since the tiles are so small, they contoured themselves nicely over the slope around the drain. Since they are on a mesh strip, spacing them was not a problem. Best of all, we didn't need the saw to cut the rows apart. I'd envisioned tiling the step-over with the same 6" tile we put on the walls, but when we discovered that we'd have to crank the saw back up to do this, we opted to use the tile mesh, instead, no cutting required. It looks good.
Incredibly - how long have we been at this now? - there's still a little stripping and cutting to do today, to finish places we were just too tired to tackle last night, like places where 1" tiles will have to be halved to fit into the space, and one place where I still haven't come up with an idea for finishing the edge. Those places will need to dry overnight before we can start grouting, and then the grout will need to dry for a couple of days before we can seal it, and then the sealant needs to dry a couple of days before we can use the shower. We might be showering by next Saturday, two weeks from when we started.
Yeah, I can see why they charge so much to do this.
Yesterday morning, all that remained to be tiled was the doorway, the floor, and the step-over. Tiling the doorway would require a lot of sawing, as it was all narrow spaces. The floor I expected to be a piece of cake, since the tiles are on mesh sheets. Because I had some errands to run, it was 11:30 before I could get started. It was nearly 11 p.m. when I quit, and there's still a little more to do before we can grout.
Before leaving to run the errands, I had stood in front of the shower, inspecting my work with a fresh, critical eye. There was another spot that bothered me, a foot above the floor in the front corner. The wall wasn't *quite* straight in that spot, and we'd had to cut the tiles progressively wider as we moved up the wall. The lower three tiles in that corner, the first ones we'd cut, were too narrow. Since I had not yet tiled the doorway, there was nothing to disturb to the left of the tiles, and I could get a pry-tool in there, using the doorway for leverage. I made up my mind to try to pop those three tiles out and replace them with wider ones before I started anything else.
This proved easier than I expected (which kind of makes me worry about the strength of this adhesive). I pried off the three tiles, replaced them with tiles that were 1/4" wider, and felt much better. It was so easy that I turned around and eyed that spot on the opposite wall, the one I said will probably annoy me for the rest of my life, thinking I might just...nah, better not.
Now, onto the rest.
Our shower is in a corner, not angled across it, but squared-up in it. To the left of the doorway is a 7"-thick wall that separates the shower from the vanity. I'd decided to tile the face of this narrow wall in the same design as the shower, itself - square tiles from the floor up to a border, then diagonal tiles from the border to the ceiling. We are using 6" tiles (they are actually 5.75", or thereabout). This meant that the 7" wall would only hold one row of tiles, with a little over 1/2" to spare on either side. At the tile store, we'd looked for trim pieces - we wanted narrow L-shaped things to put on the corners of this wall - but they didn't have any that matched our tile. We had left the store without trim, thinking we'd cross that bridge when we got to it. Well, I was to that bridge, and there was nothing to do but make my own trim. All I could think to do was cut 1/4" wide strips to border the tiles.
Let me tell you, cutting a 1/4"-wide strip of tile is a pain in the butt. First, a strip that small will snap in two halfway through the cutting process if you're not careful (and even if you are). And if you do manage to cut a strip without breaking it, there's still the problem of a raw, slightly-jagged edge that must be ground smoothe. Working with pieces that small, that close to a running saw blade, is a nerve-wrecker. Before I'd cut too many of those strips, I was wishing for a gin & tonic to relax my shoulders, but was scared to have one, for fear of relaxing enough to lose a finger to the saw. It took a long time, but I cut those narrow strips - nearly 30 of those m*th*rf*ck*rs, not counting the ones that broke in the saw - and glued them end-to-end up both sides of the tiles, leaving a space for grout. It doesn't look too bad, but I'm scared one of those strips is going to fall off the first time somebody bumps the wall. We'll see.
The floor was fairly easy. The Husband took over this part of the job. Since the tiles are so small, they contoured themselves nicely over the slope around the drain. Since they are on a mesh strip, spacing them was not a problem. Best of all, we didn't need the saw to cut the rows apart. I'd envisioned tiling the step-over with the same 6" tile we put on the walls, but when we discovered that we'd have to crank the saw back up to do this, we opted to use the tile mesh, instead, no cutting required. It looks good.
Incredibly - how long have we been at this now? - there's still a little stripping and cutting to do today, to finish places we were just too tired to tackle last night, like places where 1" tiles will have to be halved to fit into the space, and one place where I still haven't come up with an idea for finishing the edge. Those places will need to dry overnight before we can start grouting, and then the grout will need to dry for a couple of days before we can seal it, and then the sealant needs to dry a couple of days before we can use the shower. We might be showering by next Saturday, two weeks from when we started.
Yeah, I can see why they charge so much to do this.
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