Author: Steve Hardin

Day 10 and rockstars we are!

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It is an amazing accomplishment, we are done with the planned tiling that had an allotted 24 days to complete on day 10. I never could have done this without Mr Experience. He has been invaluable and I have learned more about laying tile. We will probably be the only ones that notice the errors. We do have several of them. The grouting is done and now we are going to give the grout its 72 hours to cure.

We are taking tomorrow off from house remodeling. I will be doing some outside work if it doesn’t rain. The tile looks great. Now I am going to have to get the box built around the air intake. It stands out like a crappy metal box amidst that beautiful floor. That will be a priority, I have already started to plan it in my head. I need to build it about 50 times in my head in a variety of ways before I find one I like.

All I wanted last night was to go to bed and be asleep by 2100. I was exhausted! No one else was onboard with this plan. The big dogs had to sleep in the laundry room as they could not walk up to their kennels. The outsides cats started to throw a hissy fit then they started to fight then they started to scream. I finally got up around 2135 and ran outside with my Walther P-22 and found nothing. I could hear something so I turned the dogs loose in the yard. They tore around the yard and didn’t find anything but their mere presence quieted the night. I went back to bed and fell asleep until Annmarie called me slightly tipsy and wanting to talk. She had gone to dinner with school friends at the end of her week long intensive. I finally got to sleep around 2300. When my alarm went off at 0500 I could not remember why I had it set so early and fell back asleep. At 0600 when I did get up I remembered that I needed to brown the mutton (ram meat) for the slow cooker so we could eat it for lunch. I did this and at lunch we ate the ram in tacos. It was amazing! He tasted very good.

Day 9, grouting is gonna take a few days

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Well we are well underway and it will not all be done by tomorrow. We needed to take it slow and steady to make sure it is done right. I figure two more days to complete the entire living room/dining room area. The picture below has the first three boards all the way across the wall grouted and complete. We will move the couch and dining room table out of the kitchen tomorrow. This will make cooking and moving around in the kitchen much easier. After finding the 50 dog toys trapped under the couch and loveseat we are making a 2×4 frame to sit under the furniture that stops the toys from rolling or being pushed under the couch. I am using waterproof deck stain on the boards and will cut them to form a square under the furniture so you won’t really see them. I stained them today so we could make them tomorrow. We are also installing 1/4 inch plywood onto the bottom of our couch and loveseat to cover the torn cloth and again prevent any further damage to the furnishings. The couch is made out of OSB and stapled together! We have to reattach a support leg in the middle of the couch also. It is cheaply made but not cheap to purchase, go figure.

I was able to get the lip completed on Annmarie’s cutting board so she will now be able to use it as a bread board also. It works great with just a 1/4 inch board on the underside to prevent the board from slipping when placed on the edge of the countertop. I glued it and placed the five 1/4 inch walnut pegs yesterday. Today I cut them flush, sanded it down and wiped the whole board down again with olive oil. I really need to get my wood shop up and going.

Zeke got out of the yard again and ran down to mother-in-law’s house to dig through her trash. I went down to get him after she stopped by and he snuck up to the house through the dry creek bed. She had the trash picked up by the time I got there to do it. He stayed on the run all day. I really need to get the front fence fixed but I want the floor done first! We are taking Sunday off and I will probably go out and fix the fence and drag the driveway with the tractor if it is above freezing. Our driveway is starting to fill up with lots of water filled potholes.

There is snow up in the mountains but none down at our house. I thought I saw snowflakes hitting the windshield last night but it never did anything or showed up on the ground.

Day 8, grouting in progress

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Good Morning! It’s really day 9 now but since this is about yesterday and the sun is not out yet I think it will be okay. I finished up early, 1630, yesterday then went out to dinner and at dinner was reminded that there was a volunteer fire department meeting I needed to go to. I ran home, did the chores and went to the meeting. Which worked out for them as we ended up doing case reviews. By the time I got home I called and talked to Annmarie and then it was time for a shower and bed. I thought I would check my email just before falling asleep and had a reply from a friend who is in China so I wrote her back. I should have just gone to bed. If Annmarie were home I would have. Oh well, I will sleep good tonight.

We cleaned up the tile, vacuumed, cleaned out the grout gaps with a cool diamond cleaner we picked up and then cleaned some more. Mr Experience had told me about the pastry approach to grout application. I had ordered two bags from Amazon but on Wednesday at Home Depot I bought another for $5. He inquired and I said never trust the shipping time, when you want and need it you get burned. Luckily, we had one as our other ones had not arrived yet. It is literally a literally just a pastry bag for grout. It totally saves on cleanup. It is a learned technique as you cannot clean it up until it has hardened but if you wait too long then its hard to work. It is much faster and much neater and uses way less grout. I purchased the recommended amount and I bet we will only use 50% of it. Ugh. It was a custom order. I will know now and we may just pick a tile color for the upstairs that allows us to use the same grout color and call it continuity!

The entire entry way is done. The dogs are tired of getting moved around. This work has totally disturbed their schedule and sleep location. The big dogs have slept in the laundry room twice this week to keep them off the tiles. All dogs were kenneled during the day once and Gizmo had to spend several hours outside yesterday and came in shivering, he thought he had turned into a popsicle.

I wanted to fix the front yard fence yesterday but I got distracted. This is my single biggest weakness. I have so many things I want to do that I occasionally get distracted. Annmarie might say more than occasionally but we know that is a biased opinion. I think all wives would think that. So I got “side tracked” into finishing her cutting board revamp. I had a custom cutting board made for the kitchen to go into the premise slot. I measured it, sent pictures of it to a friend who does custom woodworking. He was swamped so he farmed me out to another guy. This guy did a great job except I wanted the pull part to turn down so that Annmarie had a stop to prevent the board from moving on the countertop when she pulls it out to make bread. Now if I would get our new custom island built I want to put a whole intact slab of granite on it so she can do her cooking counter work on it. Anyways, I needed to add a lip. Since I had measured the opening incorrectly (yes, I know I only had one job to measure it!) I had two 1/2 inch pieces from each edge. I sanded down one side glued and then drilled out five holes and glued in oak pegs. I will just need to cut them flush today, sand down and oil them and it will be done. It works perfectly with only a 1/4 inch lip, I tried it out.

I am unsure if we can get it all done today. Mr Experience says yes, we will see. No side jobs today, I am going to stay focused. I really want to be able to set the house back up by 1600 on Saturday when Annmarie comes back from her trip but it is going to be a close thing. We might not make it.

When I was out feeding in the barn yesterday morning I spotted a tuft of fur on the ground. I thought it was someone’s ear! The sheep catch their head on stuff all the time and rip out their ear tags. I bent over to pick it up and it was not an ear, it was a scrotum! The rubber bands were both still in place and intact but some little boy was now a whether instead of a ram, a job well done. I did stop and watch the lambs jump and play. I even snagged one and got some lamby time. They are super curious at this stage and are easy to grab.

Day 7, tile down.

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We started tiling immediately this morning in hopes of being done by noon. Mr Experience needed to make a couple of stops and go to Hermiston and I needed to go to Hermiston to pickup the supplies for the kitchen and pick up our grout.

I decided to let the sheep out of the barn area today and allow them to roam in the entire barn lot. There is some green grass and the lambs can play king of the hill on the large dirt piles. I told Mr Experience that they would be out and about and he would see them when he was outside. Once he commented they were out on the hillside. I looked out and spotted them in the barn lot and gave it no more thought. As we are leaving the yard to go to Hermiston I spot the sheep and horses on the back hillside where they should not be. There is only one way to get there and that is through an open gate! We have had some young male visitors that had left open two separate gates allowing the animals to escape. The dogs love this as they actually get to work the animals. Once the sheep spotted me with the dogs they ran down into the upper prime pasture on their own. I was trying to move them into the barn lot but Mouse was running on Mouse directions not sheep dog directions so he got the dominance treatment of pining down by throat and staying next to dad while Zeke got to run around and chase sheep. Mouse did get to run around the barn lot in the evening and he even followed a “go left, circle around” command. Now he did it at an all out dead run but he did do it. There were no sheep it was just to make sure and to give him the practice of listening.

We did our errands and picked up the grout, while at the new flooring store I spotted some granite and inquired about the price. If I do the install I can get a sheet for $30/sq foot, this means I can build a custom breakfast nook in the kitchen. I am adding that to the list of needed items. Upon our return to the house we decided to just finish! We figured it would only take a couple of hours. We were wrong it took four hours.

I am so happy with the results. Hopefully, tomorrow we can get it all cleaned up and ready and the grout installed. I want to get all the furniture back in place and ready for Annmarie’s return at 1600 on Saturday. We will see if I can make it .

I tried to show her a picture of my new hat last night and she asked me if I was gaining weight! Who would think that I am binging on cookies, candy, pop, chips, no veggies and lots of beans!? I was offended. I told her it was all muscle from the hard work. She told me 6 days was not enough time to build up that much muscle. I may eat a carrot tomorrow in her honor.

Day 6 and it is amazing

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We are KILLING IT!! Annmarie left on Saturday and is due back this upcoming Saturday. I expect to have the downstairs done and the furniture back in place! We will start on the kitchen directly after that. We will lose two days of work next week due to commitments but the kitchen will probably only take us 6 days! I

I cannot believe how fast we are going. It is amazing when things just happen and we don’t have to keep asking for things. Mr Experience feeds me the mud, and lays out tile and we anticipate each other. It has made the job go incredibly fast. I am starting to plan out the upstairs bathroom and downstairs bathroom projects. I was pretty hesitant to start them but with this level of help each one will only take one week.

Before starting this morning we planned out our day. I called and ordered four more boxes of tile for the kitchen. We did the math and figured that was all we needed. I also ordered a Grout Bag. I had no idea what it was but Mr Experience said it was a cake decorating bag for stonemasons. Makes sense to me, he said we could lay all the grout in a day with it and not have to wipe up tiles 15 times to get them clean. I had to use a razor blade last time to scrape them clean. I ordered them from Amazon it was $5, he said I would only need one for the rest of my life. I ordered two they were cheap and he doesn’t know how easy I lose tools.

By 1030 this morning we were already on our third bucket of mud and making great inroads. I had to give up on my new expensive knee pads as they were not working well and they were cutting off the blood supply to my lower leg with all the pressure behind my knee. My old ones work much better.

Getting the last 2 feet installed against the outer wall was painful. I had to lean out over the tile and not touch it. My butt is killing me, my knees feel better today. I think they are just used to the dull ache now. But my abdominal muscles and butt are killing me. I just keep telling myself its only about 10 more days of suffering and the side benefits are amazing.

The picture below is the amount of tile we laid today. The blue painters tape was to let us know where we ended yesterday so we knew where we could safely step.

This is all that’s left to finish tomorrow. Mr Experience says we will be done by noon. This works for me as we can eat lunch and then drive to Hermiston to get our grout and grinder discs. We may need some more subfloor for the kitchen also, we will check first. I think there are 12 sheets left.

The safe is going to cause us problems. It weighs 600 pounds and has steel wheels on it. We cannot just roll it across the tile floor to its home next to the couch. I am going to have to make some hardwood coasters to go under the wheels and we will have to run it over sheets of plywood to get it in place. Its going to be painful. Now if only someone would crack the safe without damaging it! We still need the combination. I have a $100 reward to the first person that can figure out the combination. Its a four number combination and the dial goes to 100 that much we have been able to figure out from internet research based on the brand and markings.

There was a small panic midday were we thought we had not ordered enough tile. This required a job stoppage, triple recount and remeasurement of the existing job and kitchen with double checks on the math before we agreed that we would have 1/2 box extra or 4 tiles. This is not a lot of room for error.

It has been raining here and we have not had any new lambs in 5 days. I am thinking about opening up the barn so that the sheep can get out into the main barn lot. This will be good for everyone so they can run around and terrorize the horses and cats. I will give it a couple more days before changing the direction of the Y gate.