Yes, we can talk tile very well

Hello all. Having done such a bang-up job tiling the upstairs bathroom, we were emboldened to try our luck again. This time in the laundry room. As in the bathroom, we decided to tile over the existing linoleum. It was a nice, hard, and level surface without any chipping or peeling.

What it lacked was any sense of style. Not too surprising since it doubles as a mudroom off the back deck. After painting the walls the same yellow as the rooms around it we could turn to the flooring. We opted for large ceramic tiles with a faux stone look which is much easier to maintain than actual stone tiles.

Here's an action photo. Note the "crouching action!"

Here's the floor with all the tile down...

Then we hit a small snag. Remember the problem we ran into with the hardwood? Well in this case we thought that one of the tiles didn't go with the others. Something all of us learned decades ago, right?

Fortunately there's a reasonably straight-forward fix. Isolate the tile with some tape to minimize the risk of damage to the surrounding tiles, then patiently use hammer, chisel, drill with the right bit, tile scorer, dremel with the right blade, and anything else you can think of to break up and remove the offending tile.

Then it's a simple matter to mix up cement again and lay a new tile.

One we had done that we could install the baseboard, and we really were nearly done.

Of course the title of this post is our homage to this classic flick.

Until next time.

Finishing a kitchen in 4 easy steps - #3

Hello all. With the tile portion of the countertop done we could turn to the butcher block sections. We had a little excess on which to practice because we needed no kidding clean cuts. With a straight edge clamp in place we used the 90-degree angle to double check.

In the only corner where the counter would go we discovered (surprise!) the walls were not square. Rather than trim the counter to fit we picked the easier option of digging out some of the drywall to create a notch for the countertop. All this would get covered over with backsplash anyway.

With that in place we could get an exact measurement for the other piece that filled the gap to the sink.

This third piece needed only a little trim but otherwise little futzing even for the backsplash.

With all this done we could take a step back to see how everything--cabinets, tile, butcher block, sink--looked together.

We know we're biased, but to us this is light years beyond where we started.

This concludes our miniseries on the kitchen, one episode early. As with so many home projects we finished early and under budget! (If you've done home renovation you know how big a joke that is.)

Until next time.

Finishing a kitchen in 4 easy steps - #2

Hello all. With the cabinets done we needed to turn to the countertop. We decided on a hybrid approach. Around the sink where water is ever present we would tile and elsewhere we'd install butcher block.

With our base of plywood and hardiboard locked down we could get out the thinset, wet saw, and start tiling. First up was to create the outer border that, aside from looking nice, would cover the ugly edges of the plywood and hardiboard.

This required some deft teamwork because it needed more than one pair of hands. After cutting a bunch of strips with the wet saw, we started attaching each piece but needed to hold them in place until they wouldn't slide down to the floor.

Then we could turn to making the top. We picked out a nice tile that had bullnose pieces for the ends that we mitered at 45-degree angles.

The plastic helped protect the cabinets. After all the work we'd put into them, we had some hope of keeping them nice.

The final result after rounds of grouting and cleanup looks great. After some debate we also settled on what to do for the backsplash. It will mirror the hybrid tile/wood of the countertop.

Here's a teaser for our next post because you can see a bit of the butcher block as well.

Until next time.