All But Two Slivers

You can see at the left side of the door there are two half tiles that need to be installed. I need to get the door open to do that, which I can’t at the moment. I guess it was a little over 2 years ago when I re-enclosed this small area of the porch that had been opened up in the 1920s. At the time I new I was going to be doing some period style tile in here eventually. What I didn’t know at the time was that the tile would be a half-inch thick.

I had to do the last of the tile while sitting outside the backdoor. Well, after I got all of the tile in, guess what? The door wouldn’t close. It closed most of the way, but for the last few inches the outside corner dragged on the tile. I pulled up on the door as hard as I could and eventually forced it shut. I need to wait until the tile sets and then I can force it back open, and then remove the door and trim just a hair off the bottom. After that, I can then put in those last two half tiles.

I was happy with the spacing, though. I was afraid I would end up with ¾ tiles, or some other odd size at the end. I’m also happy with the fact that I don’t have a ridiculously crooked row at the door. After installing 15 linear feet of tile across the floor, the last row at the door is surprisingly straight. I would say there is less than a quarter inch difference in the width of the last tiles from one side of the door to the other. Frankly, I’m shocked.



I also got very lucky at the transition from the kitchen to the mud room. As you can see, I have all half and whole tiles up against the marble threshold. The tiles are a little crammed in to accomplish this. The grout lines go down to a hairs breadth at some places. I think it’s better than having a bunch of funky sized tiles at a very prominent focal point.

So that’s pretty much it. I hope I can start to grouting tomorrow. I need to deal with the back door first. I’ve decided I’m going to use the Antique White grout. I’m just really very tired, both physically and mentally, from dealing with the tile. I really don’t want to dig out and re-grout the area under the tub.



Above you can see what I call Reject Sill. There are little piles like this all over the place. All things considered, the loss wasn’t too bad. I opened 18 of the 20 boxes I salvaged, and I think all of the rejected tile would make up about 2 boxes. That means I was right at about 100 sq ft of tile installed.



Over all I’m very happy with the floor. It is a bit funky, I’ll admit. The uneven and tightly spaced grout lines I really like. The only thing I wish I could correct is the thickness of the tile. Given that they all aren’t exactly a half inch thick, there is a variation in the height of the tiles. It’s very subtle, but it is there.

I tried to correct for it when I noticed it as I was installing, but it was hard. During installation, I’m basically looking directly down on the tiles, and it was not always easy to spot the problem tiles. It could be an issue when sweeping the floor, but I don’t clean my bathrooms that often anyway, so it shouldn’t be an issue for me.

I’m hoping I can get some major plumbing things installed this weekend because next week I’m starting a very hectic pace in my life. I’m sure the blog is going to suffer tremendously, but I’ll be back.

Tiles In!

The bathroom anyway. I still have the little mud room. The bathroom is a little over 10X6, and the little mud room is just about 4X5. I’ve gone through 12 of the 20 boxes of tile, so I’m in very good shape. The goal is to finish up the mudroom tomorrow, then let everything sit on Wednesday, and then grout on Thursday. The grout has become a bit of an issue, but first, a picture

Ta-da!


As for the gout, the original plan was to do a light gray grout. I used gray mortar to set the tile and I bought an un-sanded grout called “Delorian Gray”. I first grabbed it because I thought it was called “Dorian Gray”. I think that would have been a cooler name for it, but who am I.

Anyway, I was all set for Delorian Gray until I had the problems with the tile under the tub. I wasn’t happy with my grout lines so at the last minute I switched to “Antique White”. It’s very similar to the color of the tile, or, at least the color some of the tile. There are variations among the different tiles. I was worried about this as well, but I think it’s very pleasant, and actually probably better than having all uniformly white tile on the floor.

Anyway again, I now have all of the tile in the bathroom, and if I was getting a report card on my installation the teacher would probably write “Much Improved”, and I would agree. With the exception of one area, I think the rest of the bathroom came out very nice and I think it would be nice to show off my razor thin, yet asymmetrical grout lines.

Unfortunately I’ve hooked my wagon to Antique White. It seems it would be very odd to have Antique White under the tub area and Delorina Gray in the rest of the bathroom. Don’t get me wrong, the antique white is not hideous. It’s not like I have gag reflexes every time I look at it. I just think the light gray would be better.

I’m left with 2 options. One, I could just do the whole bathroom in Antique White and be done with it. The other option is to move the tub out of the way. Get a grout knife and carve away at the antique white grout, and then regrout the entire bathroom in Delorian Gray. At this point, I’m leaning so far towards option one I’m practically laying on the floor.

Option 2 would push the whole project back a few days. You might be thinking that it’s already been 6 months working on this stupid, God forsaken bathroom, what could a few days possibly matter. Well, IT’S BEEN SIX FREAKIN MONTHS WORKING ON THIS STUPID, GOD FORSAKEN BATHROOM!!!! I’M READY TO BE DONE WITH IT!!!!

I have until Thursday to decide.


A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
Oscar Wilde

My Final Petch House Project

Yep, this is it. The bathroom will be the last project I ever work on on The Petch House. Oh, it’s not that I don’t want to work on any other projects. It’s just that the bathroom project will never end. I’ve come to the conclusion that I will be working on the bathroom until the end of time.

After some serious butt dragging I finally started installing The Oberon Saloon tile. Honestly, I never thought I would write that. One of the reasons for the butt dragging is because of one of my personality traits. I’ve been here before many times. This weekend I was at that point of no return on the tile installation. Once I started there was the chance it wouldn’t turn out well, so in my warped mind, if I never start, then I’ll never screw up. There’s that, and my whole attitude is in the crapper this week.

Well, I sort of pushed through that mental barrier and started this morning. Actually, it was more like this afternoon when I started. Anyway, it was very slow going at first. I’m doing the shower area first, and I will finish it with grout before I move on to the rest of the bathroom. Once the shower area is done I can move the tub in to that area and get it off the floor of the rest of the bathroom.

I started by laying one row of tile along the back wall to see about spacing. I was very close to having no partial tiles on the first row. I then laid two rows in mortar. After I laid the tiles in mortar though, it wasn’t as close as in my test run. I had to quickly try and nudge all of the tiles to make up a half inch near the wall. It didn’t work as well as I hoped, and some of the gaps between the tiles are wider than others.

I almost pulled it all up and started over but I decided not to. You won’t see any of this because it will be behind the tub. As I moved out away from the wall I’m able to slowly fix the problems with the first two rows.

I found one-sixteenth inch spacers at a tile store, so I started using them for this installation. I started and then I stopped. They are really time consuming to put in. There are 6-sides to each tile, and putting in all of the spacers really slows down the process. After 3 and a half rows I just started doing it by eye. I’m able to move faster and the results are the same.

I think that’s probably how they were put in originally. The original installation had an organic property to it. The tiles weren’t all evenly and perfectly spaced. I recall that when I was pulling up the tile, I thought the installation looked a bit amateurish in places. Now I see why. Even with the spacers, it’s hard to keep everything lined up perfectly. It’s hard to explain why. Maybe there is a little too much mortar in places and it prevents you from getting the tile in close, or it could be something else. It’s very odd.

Because I’m creating a giant honeycomb, subtle variations in the grout lines can get magnified over several rows. Just as quickly the variations disappear, or sort of move over and end up someplace else.

Definitely, the first two rows being a little wacky has caused problems in later rows. The good news is, I’ll get a second chance to start over. There will be a divider of quarter-round between the tub and the rest of the bathroom. I will pay closer attention to that first row once I’m on the bathroom side of the divide. The tub area is good practice.

This is all I have to show for my retched self.

Marathon Man

Quick, what’s 123X36X6? You give up? That equals 26,568 2-inch sides of pure, living hell.

One hundred and twenty three square feet of tile.
Thirty six tiles to a square foot.
Six sides on a tile.

Is that right? Does that really come to 26,568, or did I do that math wrong? That number seems too big, but regardless, the fucking tile is cleaned. I cleaned all of the Fucking, God Damned Oberon Saloon tile!

It’s done!


I finished!


Now I need to install it. My life is a chaotic mess at the moment, so it looks like Saturday, at the earliest.

Purchasing Punch List

I'm thinking Bathroom End Game here. I got the last of the Oberon Saloon tile out of the bleach today. I have exactly 1.8 boxes left to de-grout and then I can start the installation. I ended up with 123 sq ft of tile. I think I need about 90 sq ft, so I won’t need to worry about the stuff that either won’t come clean or is too badly damaged. I’m guessing that is close to 10 sq ft. I should be in great shape.

There are still a few more small purchases that need be made, though. They're small, but they add up.


2 Push Button Light Switches. I bought all of the other switches in the house from House of Antique Hardware when I re-wired 4 years ago. At that time I only paid $12.75 a piece for them. (I say "only" like $12.75 is a good price for a light switch) They are now $15.79 each at House of Antique Hardware. The interesting thing is, these are made by Classic Accents. When I bought them 4 years ago, House of Antique Hardware had a better price than Classic Accents. Today I tried to find the Classic Accents web site but couldn’t. Still, I’ll shop around. A lot of places carry these now. For now, I’ll say $30.


1 GFCI Plate Cover. This is also from House of Antique Hardware. It matches everything else in the house. I have a double switch plate and a standard outlet plate in the same design already, so I just need the one GFCI plate. $10.79. I don’t recall if this is what I paid 4 years ago, but I remember paying around $6 for all of the single switch plate covers in the same design. They are now $9.79.


3 Angle Stop Valves. These are the shut off valves for the water supply lines for the toilet and sink. All of the plumbing is exposed, so I want something nice. I’ll get these from Mac The Antique Plumber. The picture is brass, but I’ll get them in chrome. Nickel is not an option on these. They are $31.20 each, so that’s $93.60. DEA Bath carries them as well, but that are $39.00 each for the exact same thing.

Thinset, grout, and caulk for the tile floor. The caulk is the 3M stuff, so that’s $33.00. The grout and thinset are another $35, so together that comes to $68.00.


Soap Dish for the Tub. The ones in the picture are $36.00, but I think I can do better. I’ll say $25.00


Oak Toilet Seat. The one in the picture is $27. That seems about right.


Sink Clamps. The new vanity is missing the clamps to hold the under-mount bowl on. DEA Bath has them for $19.50

Drain Assemble. This is for the antique sink as well. I forgot to order it months back when my DEA Bath odyssey began. This is around $40.00, and this is another DEA Bath part. There are several to chose from on their site so this means I’m going to need to call and ask questions. I’m absolutely dreading it. The guys that run the front desk are just so incompetent. It’s just unbelievable.

I think I’m going to call on them Tuesday because by the time I get the order and return it several times it could be more than a month for me to get the correct parts.

I think that’s pretty much everything. There is still the window and door to trim out, and I need to hang the door, and put on the door hardware, but I have all of that. The light fixtures need to be hung, but they are all ready to go. Unless I forgot something, I have all of the other plumbing parts for the sink, toilet, and tub. I have all of the shelves, hooks, TP holder, and things like that. The two cabinets I built are complete and painted.

The total for the things above comes to $312.89. I’ll round up to $350.00 to cover any shipping or taxes, and I’m sure there will be more sandpaper and drill bits to buy. At least all of the spending of money on the bathroom is coming to an end. This has been one of the more expensive projects I’ve done. I think maybe only the kitchen was more. Bathrooms and kitchens….man, do they take a toll on the old wallet.

The Shower Drain

The idea here is to have a claw foot tub with a shower but not have that all encompassing shower ring that makes you feel as if you’re showering in a condom. At the same time, I don’t want the shower stall type installation with the 6-inch curb and the thick build up of a sloped cement floor. A large portion of the water will be contained in the tub, but some of it will splash off the body and go over the side. It is this water that presents the challenge. Keep in mind when reading this that it will be virtually impossible to walk on this floor, because the tub will take up all of the space. This is a tile floor made up of half-inch thick tiles under a claw foot tub.

First some ground rules for this series of posts. To all of the nattering nabobs of negativity who will be chomping at the bit to fire off a comment telling me I’m doing it wrong as you’re reading this, please save your keystrokes. With all due respect, just because you read something some place that tells of a different way to do it, does not necessarily make you an expert, so please keep your doomsday opinions to yourself because I don’t want to hear it. If anybody wants to leave a comment regarding any of the topics in the following list, you will be wasting your time. It’s not my fault that you lack the ability of creative thought and are afraid to try something that has not been explained to you by a professional.

Yes, I familiar with the John Bridge tile forum
No, I didn’t ask them what they think about the installation
Yes, I know about Terry Love’s tile forum
No, I didn’t ask them what they think about the installation
Yes, I know this hasn’t been certified by some ANSI geek in a lab coat
No, I don’t think I’m going to destroy my house
Yes, I know about “wet floor” installations
Yes, I know that a traditional shower stall could have as much as 3-inches of cement
No, I’m not using a Kerdi Drain system
Yes, I know how to properly mix cement and sand for this type of mud bed
No, it is not too thin of a mud bed.
Yes, my old redwood plank sub floor is thick enough
No, I don’t think plywood would have made a better sub floor


Now that we understand each other, let’s move on.

The first plan was to use 3M’s 5200 Marine Adhesive Caulk to caulk each tile instead of grout. As a note of interest, when I first mentioned this idea it was poo-pooed by a few readers. Some even sent me emails telling me this was a bad idea and would never work. The funny thing is, none of them said they had used or even heard of the product. I mean, if someone emails me saying they’ve used the product for the last 10 years and said this may not be a good application for it, I would thank them. To just fire off an email when you have no idea what your talking about, I find a little insulting. Another interesting point is that while I was researching the product I found a professional tile installer who regularly uses the 5200 caulk on marble tiles in shower stalls because he doesn’t want grout lines. That’s right, I said no grout.

I bought a tube of 3M’s 5200 Marine Adhesive Caulk. First off, it ain’t cheap at all. It is roughly 10 times more expensive the your average 30 year door and window caulk. I did tests with silicone caulk, polyurethane caulk, and the 3M caulk. I took several tiles and glued them together to see how each caulk held up.

The tiles are the Oberon Saloon tiles and they are a half inch thick, unglazed porcelain tile. Silicone caulk worked about as well as toothpaste on the almost polished edge of the tile. The polyurethane caulk was better, but failed very quickly. The 3M caulk would flex more than a quarter of an inch before peeling away from the tile. Given that I am doing 1/16 inch grout lines, that means the tiles would need to separate 4 times their installed tolerance before failure. I don’t think that’s possible, unless I were to be hit with a 8.0 earthquake.

The real problems with the caulk idea are the installation and the color. The installation would be beyond tedious. These are 2-inch hex tiles and it would take forever to install each tile and clean up the caulk that oozes out as I go. I don’t think it would be a good idea to let this stuff dry on the surface of the tile. After all I’ve been through with salvaging and cleaning the tiles, I’m not sure I could go through that. The other issue is the white color of the caulk. I’m doing gray grout, and it would look odd to have two different colors of grout in the room. So I ditched the idea.

Then Aaron over at HiP told me about an article in the March issue of Fine Home Building. They were doing something similar to me. They wanted a shower that had no curb. Theirs was not a claw-foot tub, but just a regular shower. What they did was frame the floor of the shower area 4 inches lower than the rest of the room. They could then build back up to the rest of the floor in the room and still have the slope towards the drain.

This is great idea, but it is better suited for new construction. For me it would have taken major reframing of the bathroom floor, and I wasn’t really prepared to do that. I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought and I thought….and then I thought some more. There must be away to achieve what I want. Then a few weeks ago while I was plastering the bathroom, an idea came to me. It was odd. I was in the yard hosing out the mixing tub and thought, why not lower the existing floor in the tub area just a few inches. I thought, what is the point of going down 4 inches and then building back up with cement.

The tub area is about 5 feet long. With the drain in the center, if I need a quarter inch per foot slope, then that is only about a half inch of slope I need. So I started to wonder what is the minimum thickness of the floor I would need. The drain for a shower stall has a main drain and then a supplemental drain. There is a membrane under the floor that catches water that inevitably gets under the tile. This water makes it’s way along the membrane and drains in to the supplemental drain.

You need to have a sturdy floor on top of the membrane to set the tile. You can't have any type floor that needs to be fastened with nails or screws, because they would poke a hole in the membrane. This is the reason for all of the cement. You build up the floor in layers. You start with a flat floor and build up a “pre slope”. This is for the membrane to sit on and it slopes towards the supplemental drain. Then you pour the main cement floor on top of this. This creates the main slope of a quarter inch pre foot slope so water drains properly in the shower.

So what is the minimum thickness of this floor. Well, at it’s lowest point at the drain it is 1.25 inches (or 1.5 inches, depending on who you ask). It gets progressively thicker as it moves away from the drain. I went to one of the tile forums and asked a serious of questions. I never really said what I was doing, because I would get a hail storm of people telling me I was crazy. I’ll be honest with you, I have no idea if this will work, but you know the old saying, no gut’s no glory. If this is a failure I'm perfectly secure in the fact that I tried and failed, and I will go to a traditional shower ring. But how will I know if it will work or not unless I try.

Anyway, I had a excruciating series of discussions with tile guys and it was eventually decided that if the floor was flat then an inch and a quarter cement surface was sufficient to set tile. That’s all I needed. I just need to come up with an inch and a quarter at the edges, and an inch and three quarters at the drain. I need the quarter inch per foot slope at the drain, that’s the reason for the extra half inch there.

The rest of the room has half inch cement board on it, so you can lop a half inch off all of those measurements. So now I only need to come up with three quarters of an inch at the edge and an inch and a quarter at the drain. If I can do that, I can cover the whole area with an inch and a quarter of cement; create the slope; have the membrane; have the supplemental drain. Wham-bam-thank you mam! There is also the issue of conatainment. Remember, I don't want the curb, but more on that later.

So starting on Saturday, I pulled up the sub floor and started shaving joists. I basically created the entire slope of the shower area by trimming the tops of three or four joists. I started with the most inelegant of tools – the reciprocating saw – and finished them off with a hand plane. It went pretty well. I had to add in some extra framing, but it wasn’t too bad. You need to consider that I’m starting with full dimensional 2X10 joists so even if I take three quarters of an inch off the top, I still have more wood than a modern 2X10. Still, the floor is open, and I had the lumber and piers from the 2 story addition I took down, so what the hell. One things for sure, this is now the firmest floor in the entire house.

It’s still a work in progress and I’ve been taking lots of pictures. Tomorrow I will put in the membrane and pour the final cement floor. It should be very interesting and I still can’t say how this will work. There are still a few question marks and I’m sort of making it up as I go along. As always, I expect the worst and hope for the best.

Triple Digits!

I cleaned another box of The Oberon Saloon tile today, so that brings the grand total of ready to install tile to 105 sq ft! I only have     t-h-r-e-e     m-o-r-e     b-o-x-e-s     left to do, one of which is still soaking in bleach. Oh, will it never end? I thought I had gotten it all out of the bleach a few days ago, but I decided to send some back for another rinse. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I don’t think I will get to any tile this weekend, so realistically I’m looking at Thursday or Friday of next week to finish up. (I plan on getting shit-faced to celebrate) That does mean that I may actually start to install some floor tile next weekend. It's all very exciting, even if a bit tiresome at the same time.

This weekend I’m going to finish the drains for the tub. I think I’ve come up with a pretty good solution for the problem of having a claw-foot tub shower with no shower curtain ring.

Stay tuned.

Hyperbole

I can be accused of being biased. I’ve also been known to exaggerate from time to time. Embellishments and stretching the truth are nothing new to me. However, I don’t think I’m too far off the mark when I say that I am creating what may be the best bathroom in the history of mankind.

Since the time when the first protohuman kicked dirt on to his droppings, all the way up until this very second, I think mine is the finest bathroom that has ever been built on this planet. I could say the finest in the Universe if it weren’t for those Rigellians and their bathrooms. Oh, how I hate them.

Anywho, back to reality…

I had a very busy weekend and I accomplished a lot. I know it’s hard to believe but I’ve had other things besides bathroom restoration work weighing on my mind lately. It’s one of the reasons for the sparse posts this past week, but it’s also the reason for all of the work I’ve gotten done. Aside from working on the bathroom, I find sweeping to be very therapeutic. The upstairs hall, foyer, and main stairs have never been cleaner. Of course, clean is still a relative term around here.

On Saturday I punched through the porch roof and ran the plumbing vent up the side of the house. I ran the bathroom exhaust out through the roof as well. Both were mostly uneventful. I did forget to cement one of the ABS fittings and didn’t realize it until after I had nailed the roof jack on. The fitting I forgot to cement was under the roof so I had to pull roof jack off and do a small section over. No biggy.

On Sunday I put in all of the trim that separates the tile from the plaster. Again, nothing disastrous happened, but it has had quite an effect on the over all finishedness (Is that a word? Spell-check says no. Oh well.) of the room. There are no more jagged edges of cement board and plaster showing.

Today I put in the medicine cabinet and trimmed that out. It looks stunning, if I do say so myself. All the while I’ve been ever so slowly cleaning the Oberon Saloon floor tile. I now have 99 sq ft of tile ready for installation and I’ve actually run out of bleach-cleaned tile to de-grout. I have two very full tubs of tile soaking in bleach that need to cook for a few more days.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to turn my attention to the tub area. I’ve come up with a plan for doing the secondary drain under the tub. More on that tomorrow or the next day. For now, let’s all bask in the glory of the incomplete bathroom that is the best that has ever existed…..on Earth

Day 119

I started The Oberon Saloon tile odyssey on January 9th. That was 119 days ago. Although I am starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel, it feels like I haven’t seen the worst of it yet. At the risk of appearing to be whining about it, I want to say once again just how unpleasant cleaning the grout off the tile is. It’s fun to complain about some things, paint stripping being way up on the list, but something like that just doesn’t even compare to how miserable a job this is.

I got the last of the tile in to the bleach bath today. This allows me to get the most accurate count yet of how much tile I have. Since most of it has now been stacked and counted I only need to estimate what is in the tubs. It looks like I’m going to come in right at about 125 sq ft of tile. I estimated the little mudroom and bathroom to be about 90 sq ft, so it looks very good. Even if you factor in 5% loss during installation that still leaves me with about 30 sq ft of extra tile. This means I won’t need to use a lot of the tile that wouldn’t come clean. Off the top of my head I would say that is less than 10 sq ft of tile.

As I mentioned a few days ago, when I first started pulling tile off the floor of the saloon I was using any box I found laying around. After the first or second day, I started using boxes that were all the same size so I could sort of estimate how much I was getting. Those first 4 or 5 odd sized boxes of tile were the last to go in to the bleach bath today. As it turns out, these boxes contained some of the best tiles. I hadn’t opened the boxes since I filled and closed them up last January, but I guess I was pretty picky those first days. The tiles are some of the cleanest of all and have virtually no chips. Sadly, they have just as much grout as the other tiles.

So, as it stands now, there are 7 more boxes that need to have the grout removed. That's seven boxes of de-grouting hell. Even if I work on it every day that is easily 2 weeks worth of work. Siiigh!!!


PS: It just dawned on me that I'm in Month Five of working on the bathroom. How can it be taking so long? I think I only spent 9 months on the kitchen. Maybe the kitchen was more like 15 months but I blacked out for several of them.

It’s Good To Be Broke

The dentist was one of many who had their hand out over the past week. I was pretty much picked clean by Friday and payday isn’t until Thursday, so my options were limited as to what I could do on the bathroom. As it is, it could be beans and rice by Wednesday here at the old Petch House. One good thing about being broke is that I took care of a few things that were, shall we say, revenue neutral. These are things that have been put off for one reason or another, but that don’t cost anything because I have the supplies on hand.

I did have enough money to buy some grout on Friday, so I was able to grout the subway tile in the bathroom. No pictures, but it came out really nice. I bought two boxes, and hoped I could return one if I didn’t need it. Wouldn’t you know, it took 1.1 boxes of grout to do the room. I used “Snow White” grout, which still looks a little gray, and that’s the reason for no pictures, and I’m planning on doing gray for the tile on the floor. I have no plans to do any more tile in the near future, so I now have 9 pounds of snow white grout that I don’t know what to do with. I suppose it will end up out in the garage with the other partial bags and cans of things until it turns hard as a rock and I throw it away in a few years. Oh, the waste.

One of the revenue neutral things I accomplished was painting the last wall of the house. After spending who knows how many months last year painting the house, you would think that I would have finished, but no. There was one wall with the new stained glass window that still needed to be painted. It was sunny and really windy today, which, while irritating, actually worked out well. The paint dried so fast I was able to get a coat of primer on and two top coats with three different colors. So the house is now finished…..except for the skirting and the front door, which is no big deal.

The really big thing I did, or at least started to do, was to finish the marble slab on the kitchen island. I had routed the edges with a simple round-over, but never really finished them, mainly because I wasn’t sure how. Someone left a message on the blog months back saying that I could do it with sandpaper, but I was hesitant to make the $350 slab of marble my guinea pig. I had already used it as a guinea pig for the router, and that went over with less than stunning results.

However, a month or so back I installed the marble sill in the bathroom window and I used it as a test piece for finishing the edges with sandpaper. It’s shockingly simple. I should have done it a year ago. All of this time friends have been coming over and seeing the unfinished edges of the marble on my beautiful island. I get this sort of polite, “Oh, it’s nice”, but all the while I’m sure they’re thinking, “It’s nice, but he butchered the marble”. Well, butcher no more.

I start with 100 grit and work through 150, 180, 220, and finally wet sand with 300. I think I must have honed marble and not polished marble, because the 300 grit gets it damn near perfect. I may go over it once more with 600 and see how that looks. So far I’ve completed 2 sides, so I have 2 more sides plus the sink hole. It looks pretty damn good so far.

Oh, and I cleaned some more of the damned Oberon Saloon tile. Oh, how I hate that tile - and love it at the same time. If it ever gets installed it would look great.

Affordable Tile Work

I now have 75 sq ft of salvaged tile ready for installation. There is another 31 sq ft that has either been bleach cleaned or is soaking in bleach at this very moment. That makes up the tile that was in uniformly sized boxes. There are another 5 boxes that have any where from 15 to 25 sq ft of tile in them.

When I first started prying up the tile from the floor of The Oberon Saloon I used just about any box I found laying around in the saloon building. I then found a supply of boxes that were all the same size, so I started using those so I could get some idea of how much I was pulling up, as I was pulling it up. While I didn’t count or stack the tile neatly in the boxes, I did fill them all to about the same level. I could then count one or two boxes and sort of take an average. There was no sense in pulling up the tile without knowing when I might have enough.

As I clean the tile I use the same boxes, but I count and stack the tile neatly so I can get an accurate count of cleaned tile. The variable is still what is a good tile and what is chipped or damaged tile. There are also still some tiles that don’t exactly come out of the bleach bath all pearly white. The original plan was to sort as I cleaned the grout off, but that didn’t happen.

The last box I did was the worst. I let the tile soak for three weeks and they still came out less than white. Not all of them, but enough that I’m going to try something else to get them clean. I can use some of them under the toilet and the built-in cabinets, so it’s not like they all must be cleaned for this to work.

At any rate, it looks like I’m going to have around 120 sq ft of tile when all is said and done. The bathroom and the little mudroom are 90 sq ft, so it would seem I’m in pretty good shape. I now kick myself for not getting more chipped tiles. Because these are hex tiles, I will need a lot of partial tiles at the edges to fill in the gap made by the outer edge tiles. When I was pulling up the tile I passed over a lot of tiles because they had major chips on one side, but these would be perfect for trimming down and using on the edges. Oh well, what are you gunna do.

The best thing about cleaning all of the Oberon Saloon tile is that it doesn’t cost anything. After months of spending every spare cent, and some not so spare cents, it’s nice to go a week without spending money on the bathroom. Tomorrow I’m going to go ahead and grout the subway tile. It’s probably going to suck, but I’m looking forward to it.

Impasse

I’ve reached a point with the bathroom were the only thing I can do right now is clean floor tile. It is ever so fun, too.

I can’t put the wainscot cap on until I grout the subway tile. I can’t put the medicine cabinet in or trim out the stained glass window until I get the wainscot cap on because both of these things need to sit flush on top of the cap. I also can’t put on any shut-off valves for the sink until the tiles been grouted. Thinking about tub, sink, toilet, or cabinets is so far out of the question there is not point in me even bringing them up, even though I just did.

The reason I’m holding off on grouting the subway tile is because I wanted to do it at the same time I did the floor tile. Also, I foolishly put down the cement board for the floor tile and I’m trying not to get it grunged up before I set the tile. Ideally, what would have happened is that I would have simultaneously finished cleaning the floor tile when I was finished plastering the walls, and then I could start in on the floor tile. Obviously that didn’t happen.

To keep with my perfectly planned order of things I need to finish cleaning the floor tile. I have 80 sq ft that has been cleaned in the bleach. Of that 80 sq ft, 71 sq ft has been de-grouted. There is an additional 30 sq ft that hasn’t been touched.

On a good day I can de-grout 5 sq ft of tile, but there haven’t been many good days lately. Also, I’ve kind of stalled on the bleach cleaning. I’ve only done about 5 sq ft in the last 3 weeks. That’s down from about 12 sq ft a week I was doing for a month or more. Part of it was the family coming to visit, and the other part was the plastering in the bathroom. There are only so many hours in the day.

The bleach cleaning doesn’t bother me so much. That goes quickly, and while it’s not the most enjoyable work in the world, it is very tolerable, because it goes quickly. I can do 10 sq ft in an hour and that’s pretty much all the tubs will hold. Once I’ve emptied the tubs, I fill them up again and they sit for a week. So, if there’s only 30 sq ft that hasn’t been touched, that’s only a few hours of work spaced over 3 weeks.

It’s the 40 sq ft of tile that needs to be de-grouted that’s the problem. Let’s say I can do 2 sq ft a day, then that’s 3 weeks worth of work. Even if I could do more, it still needs to go through the bleach bath. Anyway you slice it, if all goes well, I have 3 weeks left of tile cleaning before I can start setting floor tile. That’s 3 weeks where I can’t do any work on the bathroom other than clean tile. I’m a bit of a masochist, I’ll admit, but because the tile cleaning is so unpleasant, this is reaching Devil Queen level of old house restoration hell (Just kidding, John).

So now I’m thinking I need a way to be able to work on another bathroom related project, while at the same time continue with the tile cleaning. I need something that is going to show progress to off-set the tile cleaning hell. I think I can protect the cement board to a point where I can grout the subway tile. I could then put on the cap, install the medicine cabinet, trim out the window, install some shut-off valves, and maybe even hang the high-tank. At the same time I could be slowly but diligently working on the floor tile.

Besides, if I don’t find something else beside tile cleaning to do, it will be weeks and weeks of blog entries detailing with the excruciating process of cleaning all 6 sides of every single tile. It would just be hell for everyone.

The Count & The Amount

I’ve cleaned the house as well as it’s going to get cleaned for the impending family visit. Saying it’s clean is a bit if a stretch. It’s definitely clean-er. I’ll just say that’s its clean enough. My family is well aware of what I’m doing here and they’ve been here several times in the past few years. Even though the house is far from finished, it’s the best it’s ever been, so I can get away with it not being spotless. It’s all relative.

I really couldn’t do any work inside my clean house, and I was kind of tired of cleaning, so I turned my attention back to The Oberon Saloon tile. To date I have 40.5 sq ft of ready to install tile. There is another 45 sq ft that has been through the surface cleaning operation, but still needs the grout removed. Finally, there is another 30 to 40 sq ft that still sits as it was the day I pried it off the floor of The Oberon Saloon.

I’m not going to sugar coat this in the least. Removing the grout is just about the worst possible job imaginable. At one point today I was actually looking back fondly on paint stripping activities I’ve had in the past. It’s that bad. When I was searching for salvaged subway tile I was getting prices that started at $30 a sq ft and went up to $56 a sq ft. I now know why. Cleaning the salvaged tile is just the worst.

My tile, of course, is the 2-inch hex encaustic floor tile I salvaged from the 1902 Oberon Saloon. There is a two part process to cleaning it. First the surface is cleaned by soaking it in bleach for a week. That’s turned out to work well and not be too over-whelming. The next part is to remove the grout. It first seemed like it was going to not be too bad as well, but that was early on.

I bought a bench-top belt sander and that seemed to take the grout off well. The problem is, the belts wear out quickly. The coarsest belt they make for my sander is 50 grit. It does really well for the first 3 or 4 sq ft of tile and then after that it starts to degrade quickly. After about 6 sq ft it is like using a 100 grit belt. It just takes forever to get the grout off.

I got a comment from someone suggesting I use tile nippers, which I did. These work well too, but only when the grout is thick on the tile. And remember, there are 6 sides to each tile. When the grout is thick, say an eighth of an inch or more, you can snap all the grout off with one pass. It’s very satisfying when that happens. Most of the times it is not that thick though. Back in 1902 the style was thin grout lines, and most of the time there is a minimal amount of grout on the tile.

You would think it would be easy for the belt sander to get off the thin grout. You would think I could use the nippers on the thick grout and the sander for the thin stuff. You would think. Honestly, I try and do that, but there is this urge to try and get it all with the nippers. When you lock on to one of those thick chunks of grout and the whole thing snaps off cleaning with a sharp Pop!, you want to experience it again. You get to a tile with minimal amounts of grout on it and you think, if only I can get these nippers on that hair-line edge I will not have to spend so much time at the sander. It’s like an addiction.

Working with the nippers has other problems as well. You must hold them awkwardly and you seem to use muscles in ways they weren’t intended to be used. A half hour with the nippers is like doing 50 push-ups or something. I don’t know why exactly, it’s just very unnatural work.

I’m not sure I can continue working like this. I haven’t even de-grouted half the tile and the system seems unmanageable at this point. I have two thoughts so far. One, go back to the original idea of the dremel tool. I’m not sure how well this would work. I’m thinking at first I could add it to the repertoire of the nippers and sander and use it for the thin grout in the pre-sander part of the operation. I would have to invest in a dremel tool and some accessories.

The other option is to change belts more frequently. I have another 80 sq ft of tile that needs to be de-grouted. If I change belts after every 3 sq ft that’s 27 belts. The belts run $4.50 a piece, I think, so that’s $120 for belts. I’m not sure what a dremel tool costs, but I’m guessing once I buy the tool and enough abrasive accessories to do the job I need to do, it’ll be more than $120. Also, I bet if I went on-line I could find the belts cheaper if I bought in bulk. I think that’s what I’m going to do.

It’s a small price to pay, really. That is, if this works out with the tile. As I was working away with the nippers today I was adding up how much time I will have spent on this tile. I think once it’s installed I’m looking at about 3 hours per sq ft, if you include the salvage, cleaning, and installation. At $15 an hour that works out to be $45 a sq ft, which is in the ballpark of the prices of salvaged tile I was getting. Of course, the big difference is, as my Favorite American Patriot once said, a penny saved is a penny earned. And I will get a cool tile floor to boot.

Damn the grout. Full speed ahead.

Oops! Ran Out Of Tile

It didn’t come as any big surprise, and the new tile I ordered from Subway Ceramics is on it’s way. It would have been nice to finish up this weekend, but that’s OK. There’s plenty to do around this feculant hell hole.

It really is getting bad. Even though I sort of took a day off yesterday from working on the bathroom to get the place cleaned up a little, I didn’t get that far. I’ve been tiling until 6 o’clock every evening and that doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

To be honest, a day off sounds kind of nice, but there is always the salvaged hex tile from Oberon Saloon to work on. I can hear it calling me now.

Arbor Day

It’s like I’ve planted a tiny forest of toothpicks in the bathroom. I’m using the toothpicks as spacers on the Subway Ceramics tile on the walls in the bathroom. The toothpicks are a 16th of an inch in diameter and make for very good spacers. Because the Subway Ceramics tile has flat, perfectly square edges, I can get down to a very thin grout line for a historically accurate looking tile installation. I’ll probably use the same method when it’s time to put the Oberon Saloon tile down on the floor.





Being that I’m not a highly trained professional tile setter, I’m not sure that I’m the one to be giving tips & tricks for tile setting. Not being a highly trained professional has never stopped me before though, so what the hell.

I started setting tile on the least visible wall in the room. It’s a small bathroom, so really, everything is very visible, but I chose the wall with the sink and toilet on it. There is a learning curve to everything, so the logic is, when I get to the open wall opposite the sink and toilet I will be more proficient at tile setting.

The other thing I did was mix small batches of thin-set mortar when I first started. Using the notched trowel took a little getting used to. I’ve actually set tile before, but it’s been a few years. I didn’t feel as rushed with the small batches of thin-set and could take my time with the first few rows.

I set two rows at a time, so I snapped a chalk line 6-inches above the base tile as a guide for the first two rows. After the first two rows were in, I snapped another chalk line 6-inches above those rows, and so on. I made sure the base tile was level before I started, and then checked the tile again with a level after I finished every two rows. I’m dead on level after 10 rows. Whew!

I chose the transition from the 4-foot high tiled wall to the 8-foot high tiled bath surround as the focal point for the tile. It’s important to chose a focal point where the tile will look good. You don’t want to end up in a very visible spot and have a lot of odd sized pieces of tile. I didn’t want a series of 4-inch and 2-inch pieces of tile running up the leading edge of the bath surround. Choosing this as a focal point means that the leading edge on either side of the bath surround will have 3-inch and 6-inch tile as the first tile on every other row. It may not sound like that big of a deal, but it’s the little things that can sometimes stick out like a sore thumb.

I also laid down rosin paper (kind of like butcher paper) on the floor in the bathroom I’m tiling, and a path through the house to the working bathroom. The thin-set occasionally missed the mark and there’s no sense in tracking it through the house. Beyond that, setting the tile is a bit time consuming, but not exactly rocket science.

I was able to finish the base tile and set about 20 sq ft of the field tile today. I think that took about 4 or 5 hours. Working at floor level was slow, and I also had to cut tile to fit around the pipes for the sink. I think I can pick up the pace tomorrow. I think I might be able to finish this up by Tuesday or Wednesday, which in reality means Wednesday or Thursday.

Friday, I Swear

I was able to get the cement board seams taped and mudded today, and I skim coated the lower half around the tub area with thin-set. You would think that I’m ready to start setting tile now, but that would be too easy. The problem is with the floor tile.

The Oberon Saloon tile is a half inch thick. It’s thicker than a lot of other tile, and maybe even thicker than most all tile made today. The Subway Ceramics tile is 3/8th of an inch thick, which is normal, I would guess. The base tile for the Subway Ceramics Tile has a 90 degree cove at the bottom where it meets the floor. So at this point where the Oberon Saloon tile meets the Subway Ceramics tile, the Oberon tile will be higher by an eighth of an inch. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but could you imagine trying to sweep dirt from behind that little ridge for the next few decades. It’s something that would drive you nuts in the first year, and you would be ripping tile out in year two.



The cove on the base tile sticks out ¾ of an inch. So tomorrow I need to cut a bunch of shimming material that is ¾-inch wide, and an eighth or maybe 3/16 of an inch high. I need to raise the base tile enough so it will be even, or a hair higher, than the Oberon Saloon tile. Otherwise it will drive me, and anyone else who owns this house, crazy for ever.

The other thing I need to deal with before I start laying tile is the marble window sill for the window that’s in the shower. I’m also thinking about doing a marble window sill for the other stained glass window as well. I think that would be a very nice touch. I have that big slab of marble the guys gave me from the fabrication shop, but I can’t really go back to them. I thought about cutting and routering it myself, but I’ve got too much going on right now.

I can cut the pieces ok, but my router bits are all too dull to work on marble, and then I would need to sand and polish the edges, and I just don’t want to deal with it right now. I’d rather set tile. The trouble is, I can’t go back to the fab shop that gave me the marble because I told them I wouldn’t be needing any more marble, and that’s when he gave me the big slab of marble.

Instead, I’m going to cut the two sills to their basic sizes and then call a monument place in town and see if they will finish the edges for me. If they won’t then I’ll just do it myself. I’m going to try using the carbide grit jig saw blade I used on the cement board to try and cut the marble.

So, if I can get all of the shims cut and nailed in place tomorrow, and get the marble cut and over to the monument shop, then that should clear the way for me to start setting tile on Friday. I also need to contact Subway Ceramics and order more tile. I should have done that on Monday or Tuesday, but I’ve been in denial over it.

All Thumbs

I was able to get the cement board on the walls, but I didn’t get to the floor. It’s funny that on Tuesday when I got the email from Keith at Subway Ceramics I enthusiastically replied that I might start setting tile this weekend! Yea, well, that didn’t happen. I could have done the floor today as well, but Sunday has become tile cleaning day. This is The Oberon Saloon tile that needs cleaning, not the Subway Ceramics tile.

I really need to stay on the tile cleaning otherwise the whole project will grind to a halt for weeks because I will be stuck cleaning endless boxes of tile. I need to have all of the salvaged Oberon Saloon tile cleaned and de-grouted before I start the installation of the floor. Until it has all been cleaned and prepped I won’t know how much I have. It’s not like I can get more of this stuff any place. Last week I was walking through Old Town and I peaked in The Oberon. The remaining tile is all gone now. What I have is all there is.

So far I have 9 boxes of bleach cleaned tile and two boxes of de-grouted tile. I’m passed the halfway point on the bleach cleaning, which feels good, but there is still a lot of work to do. If I don’t do it a little at a time it will become this monster job that will drag on for weeks.

The next step for the cement board is to seal the seams. You finish the cement board in a similar fashion to sheetrock. You use the fiberglass mesh tape and thinset instead of joint compound. The carbide grit jigsaw blade worked very, very well for cutting the board. It goes through the cement board a little faster than a regular jigsaw blade goes through wood. It also makes cutting holes for outlets and pipes very easy. I highly recommend it. The dust is minimal and the edges don’t need to be cleaned up.

All of this productivity this week was not without a price, though. On Saturday I drove a philips head drill bit in to my left thumb. I had to put in some last minute additional blocking in the framing. I used 3.5 inch screws for this because it was a very tight fit to swing a hammer. I had a 19.2 volt drill at full speed with all of my weight behind it when the bit slips off the screw. The bit drives right in to my thumb. Major bummer. The damn thing has swelled up and the gash is nasty because of the spinning bit.



Then today, I wore a hole through my right thumb while cleaning tile. Remember The Two Thumb Method for cleaning tile? Well, it works great, but not without a cost. Last week I noticed a tender spot on my right thumb. It seemed as if my thumb print had been worn off on one side. I thought it was from the tile cleaning but I wasn’t sure. Then today I was about half way through the two pales of tile and it just started screaming at me. I wore a pin hole through the rubber glove and I had worn so much skin off my thumb it was now bleeding. Geez! I feel like one of those freaks that washes their hand so much they get sores.

Goal Tending

This is an official Petch House Goal. Everyone, please, mark your calendars for the date of April 13th, 2007. That gives me exactly 4 weeks to accomplish the following bathroom related tasks.

1) Install tile on the wall and grout.
2) Plaster the walls above the tile.
3) Finish cleaning and de-grouting the Oberon Saloon floor tile.

One and two are achievable, I’m pretty sure. Number three will be a stretch, but that is the whole point of goals, as I see them. You set the bar a little bit higher than you think you can reach, and then you try and reach it. If this were a prediction, then I would be screwed. Goals, on the other hand, don’t necessarily need to be met. They are just a point to strive for.

The reason for April 13th is that I’m expecting family the following week. If I can complete those items by the 13th then this will give me something to show off, and still leave me plenty of time to revert The Petch House from the feculent hell-hole state that it is currently in. In order to achieve those goals, the house must remain in a feculent hell-hole like state because there will be no time for the niceties of domesticated life that are needed to keep said house from being in a state of constant feculent hell-holiness. I except this fact, and to some extent, I wallow in it.

Peace - out.

On Foot Dragging & Tile Grinding

I’m in the beginning stages of making plans so that I can start the preparations for the final stages of the initial plans for starting the installation of the Subway Ceramics Tile. In other words, I'm foot dragging. It’s not that I don’t want to start the tile installation, it’s my fear of failure kicking in. I go through this with every project just before I start some major finish work. The idea behind the foot dragging is, if I never start, then I can never screw it up.

I actually did accomplish some things today, just not as much as I wanted. The room is clean. All of the tools, garbage, lumber, and other assorted crap is gone. The only thing in the room now is the itty-bitty little claw foot tub. Really, you hardly notice it, and it doesn’t matter, because it ain’t going no where.

The other thing I did was make sure the walls were level. One of the benefits of a mud job, which I’m not doing, I’m using cement board, is you can fix any irregularities in the walls. Normally, of course, framers don’t care about tile installers, and tile installers don’t do framing. If a stud is bowed or sticking out a bit, this is the sort of thing that can be fixed with a mud job. What I did today was went around the room with a factory edge of a piece of MDF and held it against the studs. It wasn’t too bad. There were two studs that I will need to shim a bit, and one that needed a not so gentle tap with a sledge hammer.

Tomorrow I have a little bit of framing left and then I will go and buy some cement board. Once I get the cement board I will begin mapping out my strategy for beginning the planning stages of the initial phase of my plans for installing the cement board. It’s going to be a long day. I wonder how many times I can check my email in one day? Is there any kind of record for that?

In other news, I tested out the new toy I bought over the weekend. This was the bench-top belt sander. I gave it an initial test with just a few of the salvaged Oberon Saloon tiles on Sunday when I bought it, but yesterday I really opened that baby up, and the results were less than encouraging. The unit shipped with one 80-grit sanding belt. It took off the mortar, but it was very slow.

I went back and bought a 50-grit belt, the most coarse belt offered for this model, and it worked much better. It took about an hour to do one box of 6.25 sq ft. It sounds like a long time, I guess, but I’m actually encouraged. It’s a lot of tile with a lot of sides and a lot of grout. The 50-grit paper works well.

The best part is, I didn’t damage any tile. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s possible for me to damage this tile. I had feared I would chip the edge of the tile on the sander. I started by making very, very sure that the work surface against the belt was a perfect 90 degree angle. At first I was cautious with the tile. I would ever so gently ease the tile in to the moving belt. Not too fast. Easy does it. After the first few dozen I realized there is no need for caution. After discovering how durable the tile is, it’s amazing to me how much loss there was during the removal process. The tile must have been under enormous stress when being pulled up from the floor.

When I press an edge of the tile against the belt I can feel the roughness as the 50 grit paper grinds away at the mortar. Once it’s all gone and the tile is in contact with the belt it feels very smooth. The sandpaper belt just will not grab a hold of the tile. It’s just too hard. It got to the point where for pieces with thick or stubborn grout on the tile I would repeatedly bang the tile against the moving belt to try and knock the grout off. At one point I swear I heard the tile giggle a bit as if it was being tickled by the 50 grit paper. Of course, it's possible I had just been in front of the belt sander too long. I guess we'll never know.

Once all of the grout is removed there is a very subtle light show that appears on the tile's edge. It’s not like sparks are flying, but something is going on. I’m not sure what it is. The tile heats up a bit, but not so hot that it would be glowing. It’s strange. Maybe they are sparks but they are just right at the edge. I came across one badly chipped tile and really tired to damage the edge just to see what it could take. It took a lot. After several repeated blows in to the moving belt, and after holding it firmly against the belt at an angle, I was able to remove less than a 16th of an inch of tile. I just barely rounded over the corner. This stuff could survive a nuclear blast.

Box One of Cleaned and De-Grouted Tile
(There is a lot of grout dirt on the tiles from the grinding)

New Toy

I went out and picked up the Binford 6100 belt and disk sander. I went and got it today because it was on sale, and as we all know, paying full retail is for chumps and losers. This is primarily going to be used for cleaning the Oberon Saloon salvaged hex tile. I need to grind off the mortar from all 6 of the lovely sides of each and every one of the 3600, 2-inch tiles. Let’s see, 3600 tiles, times 6 sides on a tile…..well I think that equals heaven, that’s what that equals. It should be loads and loads of fun.



Fortunately this is excellent tile cleaning weather so I can look forward to hours and hours of blissful tile cleaning as I listen to the calming hum of the motor on the new belt sander. It just doesn’t get any better. Siiigggghhhh!

I’m going to need to set up a work station so I can work at a comfortable level. Before I do that I need to clean up the shop, which is a horrendous mess. I haven’t see the top of the work bench or the floor of the shop in months because they are both covered with tools, debris, and sawdust.

I did fire up the sander and take it for a spin today. It did work very well. The amount of time it will take to clean one tile will vary depending on the amount of grout. When two tiles separated all of the grout seemed to stick to one of the tiles. Some tiles may only need a cursory bump against the sander, while others will require several seconds of grinding. The job is quite dusty.

Seriously, I can’t wait to get started, but I’m sure in a few weeks I’ll be having nightmares about tiles and be borderline suicidal. Yep, this is the life….Siiigggghhhh!