Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
I am rather impressed with myself. A few weeks ago, I was scratching my chin, wondering what to do with this basement. Now, I am standing on brand new tile throughout the entire thing. I think I might be amazing.
So, after five short days, the tile guys completed the job and left. I thought it would take two…and it may have if I was doing it. I tend to work long hours. These guys liked to work for a few hours a day. I will give them credit for doing a really good installation job though. Installing tile is a little weird. The installer is kind of bound by drying time, so they can only do so much.
Here are some photos of the finished job…
The reason I say they did a good installation is because I watched him place each tile very carefully. He didn’t just slap them down. He put a little extra thin-set on the corners and after the tile was down, he made sure it was solid. I am assuming some tile installers might not do that.
So now, all I need to do is seal the grout, paint the base moulding and put it back on the walls. Then, we are going to bring one couch down there and set up the TV and all the electronics.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | 3 Comments »
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
Today, the tile installers finished laying the full pieces of tile. Now, they have to come back on Monday to make all the cuts for all the edge pieces. I am going down tonight to count all the edge pieces we’ll need, just to make sure we have enough tile.
On Tuesday, they will come back again to do the grout. Well, that’s what I hope will happen anyway. I thought this job would be done in two days, but as time goes on, I am realizing that it is more work than I thought. 450 square feet is a lot of area to cover.
Here are some photos of today’s tile installation.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | No Comments »
Friday, June 27th, 2008
Also today (it was quite a busy day), the tile guys came over to start the tile installation in the basement.
I have to say, this installer has impressed me on a number of occasions. By nature, I am skeptical. I always think people aren’t going to do a complete job or try to get around doing something. Everything I throw at this guy is answered very satisfactorily (in my opinion).
The job is bigger than I thought. They brought about half the tile because te other half was too heavy for his truck. When he pulled in the driveway, the bed was sagging quite a bit. When they started, everything was going very smoothly, but just slower than I expected. By the time 4PM rolled around, they were about 40% done laying the full pieces.
Tomorrow, they are coming back to lay the rest of the full pieces and some of the cut ones. He kept telling me there were a lot of cuts. I really don’t envy him, because this job is going to take a few days.
Here is what they have done so far…
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | No Comments »
Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Yesterday was pretty fun. I met the tile installer at Tile America in West Hartford. I picked out the tile for the basement and the grout color. I like the grout to match the tile, so the floor doesn’t look like a big checker board. We also ordered up the thinset.
I bought 473.44 square feet of 13″x13″ Classic Wheat commercial grade tile. That’s a lot of tile. I also bought 60lbs of Avalanche colored grout. Lastly, I bought 100 lbs of Ultraflex polymer modified mortar.
The tile guys are coming tomorrow to start the installation. The nice thing is they are going to pick up all the materials before coming here in the morning. They have a truck…I don’t. If I did, trust me…I would be at Home Depot getting the 67 cent per square foot tile. Oh, the price I pay for delivery. I had actually contemplated installing all the tile myself. Then, I thought better of it. I think I would do a good job, but then again, who is going to do my computer work for me that day? I prefer to work at what I do and let others work at what they do. The door installation validated that.
Last night, I had a few small things to take care of in the basement. I had to trim up the bottoms of the door mouldings and apply a crack prevention membrane on parts of the concrete floor.
I used my Dremel and cutting disk to cut through two and a half mouldings. The first two went very well. About half way through the third one the Dremel started sounding like popcorn. I looked down and smoke was pouring out of the motor. The whole thing felt so familiar. Man, it stunk!!! Yeah, I guess I blew up my Dremel. I will have to check my receipt to see if it’s still under warranty. To finish the job, I used my reciprocating saw, which I should’ve used the whole time. It worked great.
After that, I gave the whole floor a nice cleaning. I swept and vacuumed. If there are any cracks in the floor, you need to use some sort of a membrane. I have actually heard of people using tarpaper for this, but I chose to use RedGard. I got two gallons at Home Depot yesterday. The other option was to use Schluter®-DITRA, but I didn’t think I needed that. The only thing that is wrong with the floor is a hairline crack about five feet long. You can hardly notice it. I tried to stay on the safe side.
RedGard is very cool stuff. It has the consistency of yogurt and can be applied with a brush, roller or sprayer. It goes on pink and dries red. After it dries, it’s like a layer of plastic. People use is for a crack membrane and waterproofer. I am sure you can find other uses for it too.
I basically needed to use it for that one crack, but decided to put it around all the concrete expansion joints too. I believe that you aren’t supposed to tile over expansion joints. You tile up to them and keep the joint. From what I am reading, people tile right over everything, while using no preparation and the tile floor lasts for 100 years. It’s only us who analyze the thing to death that have issues. I am going to see what the tile installer’s experience tells me. After all, he is the expert with the picture book of hundreds of jobs.
I’ll take some pictures tomorrow of the installation.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | No Comments »
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
Just a few minutes ago, I finished painting the basement. I feel like this is breaking news or something. Well, with the way I dread painting, I feel like it should be some sort of news.
I have been doing a little bit each day…chipping away at it. Luckily, the walls were in great shape. There were some pin-holes here and there, but no real spackling. I didn’t even have to sand, I just used a wet sponge. That is so sweet.
For this painting project, we bought two gallons of color and one gallon of white. When I began to paint, I noticed that I was going through the color pretty fast. I also noticed that I had no idea how much white I was going to use. We went back to the store and grabbed two more gallons of color and one more gallon of white. Now that the project is done, I have exactly two extra gallons of color and one and a half of white. Isn’t that funny? Not really. Now I have to decide which room gets to be the same color as the basement. I think my office may benefit.
It’s not too much of a change from what was here before. Just a slightly different color. I also changed the trim and doors to white. I love that contrast. It looks soooo HGTV.
The door guy is coming (hopefully) this week to replace the basement door. Also, the tile guy is coming out on Wednesday to give me a price on doing the floor. If everything goes smoothly, we should have a brand new basement in a few weeks. Then, I can call the pellet stove place and have that whole thing set up.
I wonder if I am the only guy on the planet thinking of a pellet stove when it’s 94 degrees outside.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | No Comments »
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
I have been pretty busy lately, between working, planting plants, getting the cars registered and, oh yeah, re-doing the basement.
I believe I told you about it in an earlier post. Then, I had the floor torn up and was considering what to put on it. Now, I am paiting the whole thing up.
I realized something along this short journey. That is, I hate painting. I mean, I can do it in short bursts, but I lose interest fast. One room is fine, two maybe, three weird sections and I’m lost. I have to say it’s getting there though.
We picked out a color that looks very nice when dried. We got a little nervous when I started putting it on the walls, but got over it. I am also painting all the trim and doors white.
You may be asking yourselves, “Why, Jay, are you doing this now? Why so fast…what’s the rush?” Well, I’ll tell you. The whole reason is that we are going to put a pellet stove in the basement. In order to put a pellet stove down there, we need a new floor. In order to put in a new floor, we need to remove all the base moulding. If the base moulding is off, we may as well paint the place. Also, since the moulding is off, we might as well take this time to replace the French doors leading to outside. They need to be replaced and it needs to be done before the floor goes in.
But “why now” you ask? The reason is that you need to get a pellet stove in the summer. Things are slower and more available. Also, pellets are cheaper. We will need at least three tons.
Yeah, all this just to put a pellet stove in the basement and get rid of the carpet. I told you how I feel about carpets. I also removed the carpet from the basement stairs last night. That was fun. I really like pulling up tack strips and pulling out staples. Good thing I am proficient at this type of thing.
I am setting up the date to have the door installed tomorrow. When the install happens, you’ll know about it. I am also having the tile guy come over tomorrow to give me a price on the installation. I was going to do it myself, but I quickly lost interest in that once I started painting.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 30th, 2008
I am going to put this one out to the masses. I recently became stumped with what to do with the basement floor. Unfortunately, the stump”ness” came about after I tore the whole thing up.
If you don’t know me all that well, I oftentimes shoot first and aim later. At first, I thought this was bad, but later on, I realized that by doing this, I don’t mosey around over-thinking the whole thing. Since many of my projects come out very decently, I intend to stay this way.
Ok, here goes. We have this finished basement that is very dry. It has a concrete floor that used to have carpeting covering the majority of area and those linoleum tiles covering the rest. There is a dehumidifier downstairs keeping any moisture in the air down to a nice level.
Yesterday, I decided to peel up the linoleum tile and carpeting. This took me a few hours, but it’s all nice and clean now. I cut the carpeting up into squares and took up the underlayment. Everything is now out in the garage. As for the sticky goo, underneath the tiles, I used mineral spirits and a brush to get that up. Then, I used Simple Green to clean the entire floor.
Why did I do all this? Well, for one, I don’t really like carpet. I like hard wood or tile. Dogs like to pee on carpets and dust mites like to live in them. Also, I never like to think about what’s growing under a carpet, especially in a basement. Even thought basements feel dry, there is always moisture coming through the concrete. That doesn’t sit well with me.
The basement floor is in very good shape. It’s dry (as I mentioned above) with no cracks. There is one small hairline crack, but it’s hardly noticable. There are gaps between areas where they poured the concrete.
My initial idea was to tile the entire floor. We pretty much had tiles all picked out. Then, I started doing a little research on the internet. That may have been a bad move. One guy says, “Yeah, go ahead and tile right over the concrete.” The next guy says, “Sure, you can tile down there, just use cement backer board.” The third guy says, “You can’t use cement backer board on concrete.” This goes on and on across any number of websites. It seems like no one knows what in the world they are talking about, but love to give uninformed opinions. I am going to call the tile guy who did the old house for advice.
Since my reading, I have had some other ideas. I thought that we could put down a bamboo floor or laminate. I promised myself that I would never use laminate again, so that’s going to be hard.
What I am looking for is ideas and advice. Will those gaps in the concrete affect the tile? Will temperature differences from outside to inside make the tile crack or pop up? There is going to be a pellet stove down there too, so the temperature will be quite different from outside, especially when it’s a cold January night.
By the way, we don’t mind a cold floor.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | 4 Comments »
Friday, December 21st, 2007
Well, the floor is done. Yesterday, the tile guy came back and did the grout. That went fairly quickly. He took about a half hour to finish up.
The grout is ivory color, but went on kind of dark. My sister and I were talking about grout the other day. She did her kitchen tile by herself, which is gutsy. She was saying how you can’t have grout darker than the tile, because when you first look at the floor, your eye will see a big grid and not the tile. That gave me a little concern when I saw the grout go on darker than ivory. Then, the grout started drying and I remembered that the grout gets lighter as it dries.
So there it is.
Today, I have a bunch of stuff to do. I have to seal the grout, cut the threshold mouldings, stain them, clear coat them and move an outlet. There is one that will be buried by a cabinet. I am going to move that up so we can use it. After that stuff is done, I have some plumbing work to do. Paul might need to help me with that.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | 6 Comments »
Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
In an unexpected surprise, the tile guy was able to come over a few weeks early to install the kitchen floor. I greeted him with open arms. Anything we can get done early, the better.
He came over around 9:30 this morning. He called beforehand to see if I minded using 1/2 inch cement board instead of 1/4 inch. I didn’t mind, because the thicker stuff is stronger. The lumber place he goes to was out of the 1/4 inch board. The 1/2 inch board created more of a step, but the floor moulding will take care of that.
Here are some photos for you…
This is the before picture I took this morning, completely empty and fully swept.
This is us putting down the cement board on top of the thinset mortar. I say “us” because I helped him bring it into the house, lay it down and nail it into place. Yes, I got to use the power nailer. I am now somewhat of a legend around here. It was quite fun. I like the nail gun.
This is just a fancy view of the previous shot. Feel free to print this out for your scrap book.
This is all the cement board down and nailed in. I did all the nailing after the second piece. Yes, I did that.
This is the partial installation of the tile. The two doorways weren’t exactly square, so he had to do some fancy work. This is where the project would’ve turned into a mess if I was doing it alone.
This is the finished tile install, minus the grout. He is coming by tomorrow to do the grout.
The tile seems a bit lighter than I remember, but I think it will work out nicely with the cabinet color.
Related posts
Posted in Home Improvement | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
I went outside last night to chisel out the cars. They were covered with ice. I got on all my old snowboarding gear…jacket, snowpants, mittens, etc… I was as warm as a bedbug on the floor of an overheating pickup truck.
I started up both cars and let them run for a good long time. I didn’t think I was going to get them uncovered. Then, I saw a little speck of water and I had hope. After a while, I had thawed both cars out completely. I had to use a pick ax to move the cars out of their initial parking spots. I was even sweating a little bit.
Today, I went outside to try to fix up the driveway a bit for the tile dude. He is going to need some space to work out there. He needs to cut some boards and mix some thinset. It should be interesting. I got a nice area cleared out down to the gravel. The sidewalk is still about three inches higher than normal, but I threw some driveway gravel on it for traction. It was pretty warm today, so some of the mess melted. The sun does a good job of hitting the dark gravel and melting whatever is around it. Tomorrow is supposed to be around 45 degrees, so the ice should melt even more.
I tried my old driving back and fourth along the driveway trick. It didn’t work out too well. I almost got stuck once and then the car just drove on top of the ice. That didn’t do too much good.
This afternoon, I had to run out to the store. I backed up all the way to the street. I made the mistake of stopping while half way out into the road. I gave it some gas and felt the car sink into the ice/snow. I had to get out of the car and bolt downstairs for that damn pick ax again. I got the car out quickly, but it would’ve been embarrassing to be “that guy” to the cars driving by. Luckily none did.
Related posts
Posted in Winter | No Comments »
