The Kitchen Tile is Installed

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.