Good Morning, Everyone,
Welcome to another round of Saturday Morning Home Repair, where experts and amateurs gather to share advice, war stories, and encouragement. Every so often, there's a little mockery, but only of homeowners long past as we fix up their stupid messes.
Today, we're talkin' tile. Armstong Excellon Companion Square in Party White to be exact.
More..
down here.
Things are happening so fast around the house that I really can't believe it. I can't believe that the kitchen floor is done.
A little background: When we moved into this house in 2002, we went through the house - room by room - and made a huge master list of things that we eventually wanted to do with the place. In its first incarnation, the list was 6+ notebook pages. Single-spaced. Some things were as simple as, "Tighten the screws in the light switch plate." Some were a bit more complicated like, say, "Replace the floor."
Over the past 10+ years, we have slowly picked at that list. We also had a massive list for outside. Recently, both lists are shrinking at a rate that is just amazing to me. It doesn't hurt that I'm married to a guy that both loves and "gets" home ownership. Owning a home is a journey for DIYers like us. It requires patience and determination and vision. I've always had the determination. He's always been best with the patience end of things, and we're both pretty good at the vision part.
HAHA! MrCJB just read that part and said, "No, it's simpler than that. You're the starter, and I'm the finisher." There is some truth to that. Let's consider me to be Research and Development, and him to be Production. It works.
The other thing that helps is that we are lucky enough in our careers to be doing pretty well. When we had KidCJB, who is 16 now, I left the work force to stay home and we were pretty poor, so I know the money thing from both sides.
Anyway. We realized that we were getting close to the "Replace kitchen floor" line item and put it in the queue for funding. We have a big box credit card just for rolling credit through to keep our credit score where we want it. We wait for a "zero percentage for X months" deal. We charge a project. We pay it off over a couple of months. We charge another, then pay it off. We did this because our credit score dipped at one point for "Not enough accounts that are current." WTF? Everything was current. House, car, regular credit card. I don't think any account had ever so much as had a late payment. Of course in this country/economic system, more credit is good credit. I don't mind. It gives us an excuse to play with the property. :-)
So, I ordered the tile. Picked it up. It sat around for about a month as we did some other stuff, but finally the 3-day Memorial weekend gave us the time we needed. Following are some pics of the process.
Here's the old floor. A roll of cheap vinyl.
Here is a nice little toe kick we uncovered when we took the door molding off of the floor. (Another nice "re-purposing" by previous idiot boy.)
Now. Here is a great moment. We have been trying to do a decent 40s/50s retro on this kitchen. This picture very poorly captures that we WIN!! The upper part of the pic is under the sink and several layers down. It is a lino covered with a layer of yellow glue. Under that yellow glue and some dirt is a linoleum that so closely matches the tiles we're using that I thought MrCJB was gonna cry. Discovering that was a great moment in DIYdom.
Mr CJB measuring the cement board. We installed over the old lino to save having to deal with the glue. I know, I know... But what's another layer in a 100 year old house?
MrCJB's loves him some handmade tools.
Down goes the adhesive for the first installation.
First set of tiles in.
Cutting and trimming and snapping tiles. Lots of that.
Nice bit of work around the gas pipe fitting.
And there you have it.
Another weekend - another great result.