Home Improvement

Today after work I water-sealed/stained our front stoop / front steps with the same water-seal/stain I used for the catio [Thompson’s WaterSeal Semi-Transparent Waterproofing Stain in color Acorn]

Today after work, while I was supposed to be relaxing, I built Birdie 2 more cat platforms for the living room. Now I can relax *nods*.

Since my last front hall update, I’ve finished grouting, I’ve sealed the grout, and I’ve moved on to the closet shelf and lighter wall color. Today was a holiday from work, so I went to the paint store and bought a quart of Benjamin Moore Marina Gray. However, once on the walls, it looks like cement.

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.

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.