You bet your sweet ass you can.
More on this project later.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
They Said it Couldn't Be Done
Can you fit a whole pile of ten foot conduit and rebar in a Prius?
You bet your sweet ass you can.
More on this project later.
You bet your sweet ass you can.
More on this project later.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Tile!
Tiff and I tiled the kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms a few weeks ago, and today I did our entryway. It's a big damn project, and worth commenting on.
What do you need to do tile? Here's the hardware:
Do you need grout and mortar additive? It really depends on what goes underneath. I laid my tile directly on linoleum, expect in the case of my entryway, where I laid backer-board. Supposedly the additive works better than water, and will make the whole setup more resistant to temperature change.
Grout and grout sealer - Don't bother with the spray-on grout sealer. Why? The color the grout comes out will have NOTHING to do why what's advertised on the package. It's a cruel trick. Just get some traditional colored sealer and paint it on.
For both grout and thinset - Get about 50% more than the package suggests.
On the measuring cups and scales - If you're living in your house, you'll probably have to do things a little piecemeal. That is, unless you really plan your day out very well and have ALL your prep work done, you're not going to be able to go through a whole bag of thinset or grout. That means you'll have to do the math for figuring out some fraction of the bag and the liquid, and you'll need to weigh and measure.
Caulk - When your baseboards go back on, you'll need to make them look pretty.
Use a butter knife to get your baseboards off. Screwdrivers will just break them and leave nasty indents.
The tile pliers - These have a flat edge, and leave a little space when you squeeze them. They're for breaking off danging bits of tile to clean up edges.
Earplugs - I'm not kidding when I say that the wetsaw is LOUD. It sounds like a screeching demon pterodactyl that's angry you've caged it up. Put those earplugs in before you throw the raw meat into its cage.
Some other notes:
If you've got to do a particular angle cut all the time, sacrifice a piece of tile. Use that one to get the angle exactly right, and put it up against the guide of your wetsaw to make that exact same cut every time.
Tile is expensive. Even the people buying your house will never, ever look under the fridge, the oven, or the dishwasher. Use those as an opportunity to creatively get rid of scraps.
Pretty much any tile you buy can have a 5% variance in size. This is a PAIN IN THE ASS! Why? Let's say you're using 18" tiles. Five percent of 18 inches is 18/20 of an inch. 18/20 of an inch is damn near a whole inch. So... Be on the lookout for exceptionally big or small tiles. You can always shave a little off the big ones.
Get a straight line going right at the start. Things like bathtubs and cabinets are bad for this. Walls are pretty good. Before you lay down any thinset, lay out some tile in a couple of directions using the spacers. That will give you an idea of the lay of the land - that is, if something isn't quite straight, and you'll need to account for it. Once you get a straight line started, life is much easier.
At some point, you will have to do an interior cut on a piece of tile. Let's say you have floor vents, for instance. The floor vent will force you to cut a U-shaped piece of tile. To deal with this, cut the outside lines, and then cut lots of little 1/4" strips. These you can knock out.
On interior cuts - your tile is square edged, but your blade is round. This means if you need a perfectly straight cut on an interior edge, you'll need to turn the tile over and cut again. You'll probably have to go so far as to hold the tile up at an angle and grind it down so it's smooth and straight.
The angle grinder - this particular thing is not necessary, but you'll need some way of dealing with your door frames. That is, you'll probably need to cut away the bottom 1/4-1/2" of doorframe.
When using the angle grinder for that, you'll want a box fan. That's because the smoke will set off your fire alarm.
The vacuum cleaner - Clean the floor before you lay down anything, you filthy pig. That angle grinder will make a lot of sawdust, and you'd be surprised at the ecosystem under your stove.
Anyway - pictures to come later.
What do you need to do tile? Here's the hardware:
- A wet-saw. This is like a table-saw with a sump-pump built in, to keep tile dust under control, and make consistent cuts in a medium prone to random breaks.
- A couple of big-toothed trowels. These make nice ridges in your mortar.
- Lots of little tile-spacers. I had a gallon zip-loc bag full that I got from the 'rents.
- A few grout trowels. This is a flat trowel with kind of a soft textured bottom.
- Some buckets. You know, the kind that are $2.34 all over Lowes. Get, like, three, and you won't have to clean them out so much.
- Assorted pencils, rulers, tape measures, and loose paper. There will be measuring, and you'll not want to lose anything.
- The contents of your toolbox - Hammers, screwdrivers, etc.
- A couple of stiff, thin boards. 1x2" boards a couple feet long work real well.
- A butter knife - You're going to need to take off all your baseboards, and you don't want to damage them.
- Some bad-ass pliers. Because some of those finishing nails won't come out with the hammer.
- Caulk.
- Concrete backer board
- A scale that can weigh a couple pounds at a time
- Multi-cup measuring cups that you're willing to sacrifice
- Ear plugs and safety glasses. The wetsaw is fecking loud, and it throws little bits of stone very fast.
- A set of tile-breaking pliers.
- An angle grinder - (And a box fan)
- A vacuum cleaner
- Couple of grout sponges
- A nice pile of towels.
- Tile
- Thinset
- Grout
- Grout and Mortar additive
- Grout sealer
Do you need grout and mortar additive? It really depends on what goes underneath. I laid my tile directly on linoleum, expect in the case of my entryway, where I laid backer-board. Supposedly the additive works better than water, and will make the whole setup more resistant to temperature change.
Grout and grout sealer - Don't bother with the spray-on grout sealer. Why? The color the grout comes out will have NOTHING to do why what's advertised on the package. It's a cruel trick. Just get some traditional colored sealer and paint it on.
For both grout and thinset - Get about 50% more than the package suggests.
On the measuring cups and scales - If you're living in your house, you'll probably have to do things a little piecemeal. That is, unless you really plan your day out very well and have ALL your prep work done, you're not going to be able to go through a whole bag of thinset or grout. That means you'll have to do the math for figuring out some fraction of the bag and the liquid, and you'll need to weigh and measure.
Caulk - When your baseboards go back on, you'll need to make them look pretty.
Use a butter knife to get your baseboards off. Screwdrivers will just break them and leave nasty indents.
The tile pliers - These have a flat edge, and leave a little space when you squeeze them. They're for breaking off danging bits of tile to clean up edges.
Earplugs - I'm not kidding when I say that the wetsaw is LOUD. It sounds like a screeching demon pterodactyl that's angry you've caged it up. Put those earplugs in before you throw the raw meat into its cage.
Some other notes:
If you've got to do a particular angle cut all the time, sacrifice a piece of tile. Use that one to get the angle exactly right, and put it up against the guide of your wetsaw to make that exact same cut every time.
Tile is expensive. Even the people buying your house will never, ever look under the fridge, the oven, or the dishwasher. Use those as an opportunity to creatively get rid of scraps.
Pretty much any tile you buy can have a 5% variance in size. This is a PAIN IN THE ASS! Why? Let's say you're using 18" tiles. Five percent of 18 inches is 18/20 of an inch. 18/20 of an inch is damn near a whole inch. So... Be on the lookout for exceptionally big or small tiles. You can always shave a little off the big ones.
Get a straight line going right at the start. Things like bathtubs and cabinets are bad for this. Walls are pretty good. Before you lay down any thinset, lay out some tile in a couple of directions using the spacers. That will give you an idea of the lay of the land - that is, if something isn't quite straight, and you'll need to account for it. Once you get a straight line started, life is much easier.
At some point, you will have to do an interior cut on a piece of tile. Let's say you have floor vents, for instance. The floor vent will force you to cut a U-shaped piece of tile. To deal with this, cut the outside lines, and then cut lots of little 1/4" strips. These you can knock out.
On interior cuts - your tile is square edged, but your blade is round. This means if you need a perfectly straight cut on an interior edge, you'll need to turn the tile over and cut again. You'll probably have to go so far as to hold the tile up at an angle and grind it down so it's smooth and straight.
The angle grinder - this particular thing is not necessary, but you'll need some way of dealing with your door frames. That is, you'll probably need to cut away the bottom 1/4-1/2" of doorframe.
When using the angle grinder for that, you'll want a box fan. That's because the smoke will set off your fire alarm.
The vacuum cleaner - Clean the floor before you lay down anything, you filthy pig. That angle grinder will make a lot of sawdust, and you'd be surprised at the ecosystem under your stove.
Anyway - pictures to come later.
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