Project Laundry Room
Before I get in to picutres and the sordid story of Project Laundry Room, I want to give a big internet hug to the Wife. I looked at her at dinner tonight and she seemed to have the weight of the world on her shoulders. There's been some stuff going on at work and she's crazy busy at home between the boys, Longaberger, other family stuff, teaching faith formation, thank you's for the Autism Walk, you name it. I've been trying to help her out but I can only do so much. So please give her some interent love (the non-creepy, asexual type).
On with Project Laundry Room. Ok, the plan was to begin on Thursday with the boys at school, and continue Friday and today with the boys at home on vacation from school for the Columbus Day holiday (Friday was Superintendent's Day so the kids were off). First the pictures. I'll concentrate on the laundry tub area as that's where the big changes were.
Before (everything plain white):
After painting (color biscuit) and tile and grout:
Totally put back together with laundry tub:
Now for the story. Painting actually went quite well. I managed to get EVERYTHING out of the room, wash tub, washer and dryer, and not have anything in the way in the hallway outside. A major miracle if you saw how small the hallway is. Painting took a little longer than expected, but then again there was never a coat of paint on these walls except the flat white the builder put on. While I was at it I put another coat on the walls in the hallway since they were the same color and had gotten dirty from gubby little boy hands. All complete before the boys got home at 4. Sweet.
Day 2, begining of the tile project. I had done some pre-work the night before, figuring out the layout and where I would have to do my cuts and decided to start with a full tile on the second row, as the molding I was butting them up against on the floor was not quite level. I had some tile provided by a friend of the family that's in the tile business, and my dad had given me so extra tile from a project of his that looked to be the same color. So far everything looks pretty good. Now it's Friday morning and I'm starting the project. First thing I need to do is double check the bullnose tile (the curved finishing tiles you put on the edges). Right off I realize there are no corner bullnose tiles. Bad juju as you the two end corners need the edge top and side. So, I'm off to Home Depot to find corner bullnose tiles and get a tile cutting bit for my Dremel tool. Turns out the corner bullnose at Home Depot are a slightly different size and thickness. No good. So I'm off to Lowes to look for the same. Same problem there, no corner bullnose. However, I buy the bit for the Dremel. Already I'm starting to be a not happy camper, with two boys in tow. Last chance, I go to the tile store where we purchased the tile when building the house. They have corner bullnose tiles that are the right size, but slightly whiter in shade. Fuck it, they'll have to do. So I get them.
Now, I was expecting to start putting up tile at about 9:30 am. It's now nearly 11. I'm WAY behind. So I go to find my trowel to put the glue on the wall, and I realize that I don't have a wall trowel, I only have a floor trowel. What's the big deal you ask? Floor trowel's have 1/4 inch notched teeth and wall trowels have sawteeth maybe 1/8 inch thick. The glue would be way to thick on the wall if I used that trowel. So back to Home Depot to buy a trowel. Now it's WELL after 11 and I'm FINALLY getting the first row up. I start with the tile my dad gave me so I can get as much up as possible and maximize the tile hieght on the wall. I get 3 rows of it up, including all the cuts for the bottow row and go to put on the first tile of the lot from the tile guy. And guess what? The tile is a fucking different size. They don't match up. So now I have to take down all the tile I put up and start all over from the beginning, including figuring out anew how many tiles I'll get on each wall.
With that worked out, I FINALLY start getting the tile on. It's going well, and I get to the point where I need to cut the tiles to go around the water lines and the drain line. I go to find the nice new Dremel bit to cut the tile, and guess what? I've somehow managed to lose the damn thing. I spend maybe 15 mintutes looking for it, and now fuck it, BACK TO HOME DEPOT to buy ANOTHER FUCKING DREMEL BIT. Grasshopper made the mistake of complaining that he didn't want to go out again. Bad move on his part. I totally lost it on him and gave him an earful, including some colorful language. Bad, I know, but I was beyond unhappy camper at this point. He and Maverick were very quiet for the duration of that trip.
So I finally get back home with my Dremel bit, get the tiles cut, and finish the job by 2:50 pm. Oh, did I mention, I had to leave the house at 3 to get Maverick to a doctor's appointment? No? And how I left the house on time but still ended up getting there late because I couldn't find the new office where the doctor was? All in all a VERY bad day for this dad. However, all the lines in the tile were STRAIGHT! And I had warned the Wife on the phone that she was going to go into the laundry room and the only comment on how wonderful it looked. Or else. She was most compliant.
Today was the grouting job. I wasn't looking forward to it because I HATE grouting. The way my dad does it is a very messy and time consuming process. When I went out to get grout this morning, I noticed the had a nice squeegy/trowel looking tool to put the grout in. So I got it. OMG what a time saver it was. It made it easy to put the grout in, get the excess grout off the tile, and score the lines so it looks very nice. In the past, I've had to go over tile 8 or 10 times to get all the grout off of it. With this, I went over it with a damp spounge twice, and polished it 2 hours later with an old diaper. And it looks wonderful.
I mentioned to the Wife that the laundry room as DONE, but she reminded my she now wants cabinets and shelves in there. So I rephrased that this phase of Project Laundry Room is done and she chuckled. It was a damn bit of work, but it came out good. This is a good object lesson to me why you really should hire people to do shit like this. As a good friend of mine once said, it's more than makes up for the amount of acida you go through doing it yourself.
On with Project Laundry Room. Ok, the plan was to begin on Thursday with the boys at school, and continue Friday and today with the boys at home on vacation from school for the Columbus Day holiday (Friday was Superintendent's Day so the kids were off). First the pictures. I'll concentrate on the laundry tub area as that's where the big changes were.
Before (everything plain white):
After painting (color biscuit) and tile and grout:
Totally put back together with laundry tub:
Now for the story. Painting actually went quite well. I managed to get EVERYTHING out of the room, wash tub, washer and dryer, and not have anything in the way in the hallway outside. A major miracle if you saw how small the hallway is. Painting took a little longer than expected, but then again there was never a coat of paint on these walls except the flat white the builder put on. While I was at it I put another coat on the walls in the hallway since they were the same color and had gotten dirty from gubby little boy hands. All complete before the boys got home at 4. Sweet.
Day 2, begining of the tile project. I had done some pre-work the night before, figuring out the layout and where I would have to do my cuts and decided to start with a full tile on the second row, as the molding I was butting them up against on the floor was not quite level. I had some tile provided by a friend of the family that's in the tile business, and my dad had given me so extra tile from a project of his that looked to be the same color. So far everything looks pretty good. Now it's Friday morning and I'm starting the project. First thing I need to do is double check the bullnose tile (the curved finishing tiles you put on the edges). Right off I realize there are no corner bullnose tiles. Bad juju as you the two end corners need the edge top and side. So, I'm off to Home Depot to find corner bullnose tiles and get a tile cutting bit for my Dremel tool. Turns out the corner bullnose at Home Depot are a slightly different size and thickness. No good. So I'm off to Lowes to look for the same. Same problem there, no corner bullnose. However, I buy the bit for the Dremel. Already I'm starting to be a not happy camper, with two boys in tow. Last chance, I go to the tile store where we purchased the tile when building the house. They have corner bullnose tiles that are the right size, but slightly whiter in shade. Fuck it, they'll have to do. So I get them.
Now, I was expecting to start putting up tile at about 9:30 am. It's now nearly 11. I'm WAY behind. So I go to find my trowel to put the glue on the wall, and I realize that I don't have a wall trowel, I only have a floor trowel. What's the big deal you ask? Floor trowel's have 1/4 inch notched teeth and wall trowels have sawteeth maybe 1/8 inch thick. The glue would be way to thick on the wall if I used that trowel. So back to Home Depot to buy a trowel. Now it's WELL after 11 and I'm FINALLY getting the first row up. I start with the tile my dad gave me so I can get as much up as possible and maximize the tile hieght on the wall. I get 3 rows of it up, including all the cuts for the bottow row and go to put on the first tile of the lot from the tile guy. And guess what? The tile is a fucking different size. They don't match up. So now I have to take down all the tile I put up and start all over from the beginning, including figuring out anew how many tiles I'll get on each wall.
With that worked out, I FINALLY start getting the tile on. It's going well, and I get to the point where I need to cut the tiles to go around the water lines and the drain line. I go to find the nice new Dremel bit to cut the tile, and guess what? I've somehow managed to lose the damn thing. I spend maybe 15 mintutes looking for it, and now fuck it, BACK TO HOME DEPOT to buy ANOTHER FUCKING DREMEL BIT. Grasshopper made the mistake of complaining that he didn't want to go out again. Bad move on his part. I totally lost it on him and gave him an earful, including some colorful language. Bad, I know, but I was beyond unhappy camper at this point. He and Maverick were very quiet for the duration of that trip.
So I finally get back home with my Dremel bit, get the tiles cut, and finish the job by 2:50 pm. Oh, did I mention, I had to leave the house at 3 to get Maverick to a doctor's appointment? No? And how I left the house on time but still ended up getting there late because I couldn't find the new office where the doctor was? All in all a VERY bad day for this dad. However, all the lines in the tile were STRAIGHT! And I had warned the Wife on the phone that she was going to go into the laundry room and the only comment on how wonderful it looked. Or else. She was most compliant.
Today was the grouting job. I wasn't looking forward to it because I HATE grouting. The way my dad does it is a very messy and time consuming process. When I went out to get grout this morning, I noticed the had a nice squeegy/trowel looking tool to put the grout in. So I got it. OMG what a time saver it was. It made it easy to put the grout in, get the excess grout off the tile, and score the lines so it looks very nice. In the past, I've had to go over tile 8 or 10 times to get all the grout off of it. With this, I went over it with a damp spounge twice, and polished it 2 hours later with an old diaper. And it looks wonderful.
I mentioned to the Wife that the laundry room as DONE, but she reminded my she now wants cabinets and shelves in there. So I rephrased that this phase of Project Laundry Room is done and she chuckled. It was a damn bit of work, but it came out good. This is a good object lesson to me why you really should hire people to do shit like this. As a good friend of mine once said, it's more than makes up for the amount of acida you go through doing it yourself.
Comments