I Did That

There is an area of the floor tile that is starting to pop loose.  It is unfortunately in a very heavy traffic area very near the back door and dining room door in the kitchen.  I’m not entirely sure what the problem is, but my initial guess is that the mortar was either spread too thin or was too wet/dry at that point.  It is near the area that I stopped for the day at one point, so I’m leaning towards the dry mortar explanation.

What I will do to resolve the problem is pick a square area that encompasses all of the popped tile (I think there are five of them) and remove all of the tile in that area and scrape away the dried mortar and grout.  I will then relay that entire area and regrout it.  That should take care of it.

It is entirely possible (but not likely) that there is a problem with the floor at that point that allows the tile to flex too much, but I never noticed much deflection when walking across it previously, so I doubt it.  Once the tile is up and everything is scraped away, I will examine it closely to make sure.

If you noticed, my goals involved finishing the tile in the kitchen today and installing the Hall light fixtures. In reality, we got halfway through tiling the kitchen. Period. Nothing more, nothing less.

Shocked? Me neither. It does look great so far though.

I love to set goals for my projects that I probably won’t (and never do) accomplish.  It’s a sickness I know I have, but I rarely if ever try to do anything about it.  Most of the time my first reaction at not meeting my goals is to set more unattainable goals.  In that spirit, here are my goals for this 8 day break starting Thursday (not all of these are me specifically, some will be completed by others):

• Thursday-finish tiling through the kitchen (originally supposed to be completed by last Saturday), install Hall lighting fixtures.
• Friday-finish tiling the den (orig. to be completed last Sunday), install MBR light fixture, perhaps start grouting tile (probably not)
• Saturday-demolish the MBath (with my buddy Todd’s help), grout tile in Laundry, Kitchen and Den, eat Thanksgiving dinner with my Mom (I know that one will get done), install light fixture in kid’s BR.
• Sunday-finish anything on the list prior to here that is not completed, alter cabinet to accomodate new wall oven, install light fixture in guest BR.
• Monday-have appliances delivered, install wall oven, dishwasher and set refrigerator in place, go to Lowe’s to order countertops, set bathtub (or at least frame for it).
• Tuesday- (everything for remainder of week refers to Mbath) set bathtub for real, put up drywall and tub surround waterproofing.
• Wednesday-sand drywall, tile tub surround.
• Thursday-tile floor, have furniture moved in.

That’s my impossible goals.  I’m not sure what fraction of them I will actually achieve, it depends partly on how much help I have and what distractions (and there will be many) come up.

As of today we have accomplished the following things in the kitchen:

1. Repainted the cabinets and walls
2. Removed the countertops

As I mentioned in the first post, we now have a 1960’s era ranch house that is sorely in need of updating.  My wife and I bought the house fully aware of it’s various needs (and our various wants).  We have tackled the updating of an older ranch house before, so this was a eyes wide open sort of purchase.

We estimated the cost of the renovations at roughly $10,000.  This includes (but is not limited to):

1. Updating the kitchen
2. Painting every room
3. Updating every bathroom

The kitchen renovations can be broken down further:

• Paint paneled walls and cabinetry
• New countertops
• New appliances
• New fixtures (lighting and plumbing)
• New hardware for cabinets
• Install ceramic tile on the floor
• New backsplash

 That seems like an awful amount of work, but it’s not really that bad.  We’ve already tackled several of them and I will tell you more about that later.