My first stained glass spider web will be made of clear practice glass. At least that’s the current plan. My next one will be made from clear patterned glass. And then I’ll graduate to colors. I have started work on my spider web and it’s very exciting!
I HATE grout haze. It’s my current nemesis, although I’ve made huge progress towards eliminating it. Removing it requires lots and lots of scrubbing. With warm water and a green kitchen scrubbie. And once you think you’ve done as much scrubbing as you can handle, you have to to more scrubbing. And rinsing. Lots and lots of rinsing.
On Tuesday after work I began grouting the front hall. The grout I’m using is SimpleGrout pre-mixed sanded grout in “Delorean Gray”. It’s a very nice, light grey. Yesterday after work I grouted a bit more. I’m about ⅓ done.
As a DIY blogger, I don’t often talk about my personal life. I like to keep things light and fluffy and focus on my accomplishments and the funny things my pets have done. It helps me to keep a positive mental attitude and outlook on life. But behind the scenes things aren’t always so easy. I have suffered from depression since puberty. Without medication I find life unbearable. I wanted to share a blog post I wrote in 2005, originally published on MySpace.
I laid the last 10 tiles in the front hall today! And sealed them. I’m so happy they’re done! After laying them I let the mortar dry for a few hours while I attended a friend’s birthday party. Then I sealed them. Now the entire front hall and closet is covered in beautiful, dark grey slate!
Wednesday after work I laid 2 more tiles. Today I laid 5 more, then sealed all 7 new tiles. I have a total of 30 tiles laid now, and probably have 8 to go. Which is good since I only have 8 left! I’ve managed to waste 7 total so far, by messing up the cuts. D’oh!
I need to preface this post by saying that we need a new hose, and we’re planning to buy one next Spring. Our poor basement has been very wet lately. Getting a new water heater earlier this week will solve one major leak. And hopefully my fix for the hose will solve another.
Even though I still have about 16 more tiles to lay, I decided to clean and seal the current 23 before moving forward. It’s been too rainy to lay any more tiles [since I have to use the wet saw outside, etc.] so it seemed like a good use of my time.
This post addresses a very valuable “lesson learned”. I was planning to lay more tile Tuesday afternoon, but I decided to first tidy up the mess on the tiles I’d already laid. There were spots, glops, drops, & smears of thin-set mortar on all 23 of the tiles I’d laid earlier this week. I figured I could scrub them off later with a kitchen sponge. Wrong! Oh so wrong.
I think this is the longest I’ve gone without posting in a while. There’s been some drama going on behind the scenes which has affected my focus in terms of blogging. But that doesn’t mean stuff hasn’t been happening! I laid 12 tiles in the front hall on Saturday, and 11 more today. I’m about ⅔ done!