the summer of tiles, part 4.

Here it is, the long-awaited part four of the tile adventure!

Remember in part three how I mentioned a few loose tiles that needed to come up & be redone? Well. That was quite an understatement. In the process of taking out the dried mortar to redo those tiles, we inadvertently loosened others.  In the end, it was 26 tiles that we had to do over.  Gah.

Needless to say, motivation was hard to find. We worked on getting up the dried mortar, bit by bit, and it was rather discouraging.  But last week, we finally pushed through, thanks to a borrowed air chisel and the corresponding air compressor. Oh, and knowing we had houseguests coming on Sunday helped, too.

Matt using the air chisel.

Here you can kind of see a lot of the tiles we had to take up.  This was getting near the end of getting up the dried mortar.  Which was a huge job.  Yuck.

It's unbelievable how much mortar we got up.

See what I mean?  I don't even know how many buckets of dried mortar we threw away. :(

This was early last week.

Naomi helped on Thursday night with getting up dried mortar.  Matt & I were very impressed!  Working that air chisel is a little tricky, but she caught on right away.

Matt on the air chisel and Naomi hand chiseling in the corner, getting ready for laying more tiles.

Friday night.  Finishing up the last batch of tiles.

This was how we kept everybody (including the dog) off this lone tile by the pantry.

The last night's barricade to prevent human and canine ventures onto the freshly-laid tiles.

On Saturday, as we went through the tile store's parking lot, I couldn't help notice the warning we were ignoring. ;)

On Saturday, all five of us got on the floor with chisels and mallets to get the mortar out of the grout lines so we could grout late that night.

Sitting on one of the couches, not feeling like starting the grout.  But it had to be done that night to be ready for our houseguests the next night.  I think this was about 10:00 p.m.

Matt mixing up the grout Saturday night after we sent the kids up to bed.

We were working on grouting and doing the first wash on the tiles until 2:30 Sunday morning.

Part of the kitchen before we got the grout haze off.

We were pretty much done in.  Tired and achy.  Matt quickly washed the rest of the floor before we crashed in bed, totally exhausted.

And this is on Sunday evening, after Jesse finished getting the haze off.  It was so nice working together to put our furniture back and clean the dust off everything.

And Jesse's look here pretty much sums up how we all were feeling about having the downstairs back to normal.

And the photos below are on Monday morning. We were all so amazed that the main living area was complete. I just can't even explain to you what a peaceful, relaxing feeling I have inside, just knowing this is complete. Yesterday, I bought some fall-smelling air wick fresheners and a candle, and it smells like apple cinnamon in here now. It matches how I feel inside. Ahhh...

We were so enjoying our first morning with the house back together.  Joshua was doing a puzzle and Jesse was telling us all of a fantasy book he wants to write.  Monday was such a relaxing day.

And here is the view facing the dining area and kitchen.  I love it.

Matt says seeing this part complete motivates him to get the rest done. And so, this weekend we will ne working on the front entry.

So lovely, eh?

The half bath is going to look so good when we get the tiles in there. :)

And so, because we still have the half bath and front entry to tile, you know there will be a part five of this seemingly enless tile story.  But we truly are nearing the end.  And it feels so great. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to have the kitchen appliances back where they belong and to have our dining room table back.  I am so happy! :)

the summer of tiles, part 3.

Okay, back to the Arizona tile job.  When we got back from Michigan, within twelve hours of getting home we had issues at both of our homes... an overflowing septic drainfield in Marquette and a drip in the kitchen ceiling here that turned out to be a leaking drain in the shower directly above the kitchen.  

Besides those issues, Matt & were both sick and it was VBS week at our church and we were teachers.  I'd already mentally prepared myself that we weren't going to be tiling that week because VBS week is exhausting enough as it is. 

Our tile lippage leveling system had arrived during our vacation, so following VBS week, I decided to tackle the tile project myself while Matt was at work.  There are white tabs that fit under the edges of the tiles, red pieces that fit down over the tabs and a tool that you use to tighten the system and bring up the edge of the tile that is lower.  

This is a photo I found online that shows how it works.

Getting started...

More progress.

Naomi took this photo of me putting mortar down.

This is as far as we got before I ran out of the white pieces and had to order more.

I worked a couple of days and used up the white pieces that we'd ordered to get us started.  That night, we ordered more pieces and found out it was supposed to take over a week for them to arrive.

Lunchtime one day.  I was really missing having a table for us to use.

So one Friday, I moved all the non-mortared tiles into the bottom of the pantry, put the other sofa on the set tiles and brought in our little backyard bistro set so there was a little bit of seating.

Naomi & me having a girls' breakfast in while Matt & the boys were at the men's prayer breakfast at church early in August. So much nicer having a little bit of peace in the chaos!

Rue loves the tiles.  And, she kind of blends in.

Now that we had attached tiles in the living room, we moved the fridge from the front entry way into the living room so it was easier to get to the front door.

The week our supplies were due to arrive, we had friends from out of town coming for a couple of weeks.  Although they weren't staying with us, they were at our house quite a bit and we didn't want to have to worry about keeping a bunch of extra kids off certain places in the main living space, so we put the job on hold for a bit longer.

As if we weren't crazy enough, we had the out of town friends and some in-town friends over for dinner one night in the midst of our unfinished tile job.

The day we started school.  Can you tell we were feeling super motivated that morning?

When we were in Marquette, we broke the little tile saw my brother had lent us, and ended up renting a big tile saw for a day.  We were going to rent one here but a friend from church told us he had one that we could borrow.  Here it is on our patio, where we've been using it.

We started cutting edge pieces to get ready for laying more tiles.

Started dry fitting more tiles as we went...

Well and here's how it looks at lunchtime while we've been working on this project.  (The kids didn't know I was taking a photo...)

Yikes, these two corner pieces were *so* tricky to cut properly!

Here's what we got done on the Saturday afternoon when we got back into laying tiles.

We got the kids in on helping get the mortar out of the grout lines.  It helps a lot!

Matt working the tile saw.

Working up to and around the island.

It was pretty exciting seeing the tiles coming into the kitchen!

A shot as we worked our way into the kitchen, around the island.  We had to take a break for making homemade pizza before moving any farther, because we had to move the stove out to work there.

And this is what it looked like after we'd tiled into the kitchen and around the back side of the island.  I put up a barricade so nobody would walk on that bit of kitchen floor that was waiting to set up.

The view of the completed work and barricade, from the door that goes into the garage.

The next day, after we removed the tabs and wiped down the tiles.  SO nice!

On Labor Day, we got quite a bit done...

What happens when non-professionals do tile work... some of them didn't stick properly so we had to pull them up.  Jesse was working on getting up the dried mortar here.  This is one of the areas we have to do before we can grout.

We now have tiles going up to the door into the garage, and in the space where the refrigerator goes.  Yay!!

I love how this looks.

Late on Labor Day, we broke a couple of tiles in the pantry and didn't think we should be cutting new ones outside at that hour.  So we still have those two tiles and one just outside the pantry to put down.

I love, love, love how the kitchen looks with tiles in it.

So that's where we are at the moment.  Very close to having the kitchen done, needing to replace a few loose tiles in the living room area, and then we can grout and move appliances and the rest of the furniture back where they belong.  And then we tackle the front entryway and half bath.  I am especially looking forward to having the dining room table back and the stove & fridge in their places.  I can't wait. :)