Tinker, tiler…
Home » Blog » Judy Sutherland » Tinker, tiler…Moving into a shed has never felt so exciting ... until the tiling begins.
Our shed is up and the flat in which three of us will reside temporarily has walls and room divisions. The kitchen is in place as is the woodburner, toilet and other bathroom fixtures. Living on a learning curve and needing to feel useful, I tell The Man that I will finish our rooms to a suitable standard of living. He readily agrees as he can’t see the need to spend money where unnecessary.
Now, I have lived in a home with a painted concrete floor and I am not keen to repeat the experience, nice as some may be. So what do we cover the shed floor with that will be very inexpensive? Aha! I spy, somewhere in our newly-constructed shed, an assorted pile of tiles. Hubby Jim likes include tiles in spec homes we build, so one does accumulate left-overs.
This will not be my first experience at tiling, I must admit. A couple of years ago Jim and I tiled a very uneven bathroom floor of a holiday house—a botched job which must be re-done. He and I also tiled our small fireplace surround—using grout instead of cement. Whoops!
So, with my very limited experience hubby encourages me to “get tiling”. We buy the appropriate glue and mortar. I read the enclosed instructions and free DIY guide and I am a little more enlightened. I select the tiles and I’m ready to begin tiling the wee room. The tiles I select are big and shiny: two slightly different sizes, but four of each will fit perfectly, with a gap down each side for a bit of mosaic artistry.
The tile-cutter is an interesting instrument. It looks so simple: mark the tile where one wants to cut; place tile on tile-cutter; with a little force, score tile with special blade; remove tile and place over tile-breaker; voila—snap! Just where one does not want tile to snap! Oh, well, just as well the tiles are left-overs and there is a large pile.
On a positive note, I can say that I actually coped very well and am quite proud of my effort. No, it’s not what I’d expect from a professional, but it’s a very acceptable amateur job. But one little room was quite enough mental and physical exercise for one day.
Now I was on my way and sort-of knew what I was doing, I thought I’d better lay out the tiles for the small hallway, the bathroom and the kitchen. With much re-arranging and mental agility I figured that we would not have sufficient tiles to complete the job. So off we pop to the local hardware store to buy some cheap tiles for the bathroom.
Jim had selected the vanity unit (something he got for “a very good price”) and it was in place. Here I made my first mistake: I chose a tile in a neutral shade of ivory. The vanity, naturally, is white. Oh well, it’s just a shed …
The tiles, being all the same size this time, went down with hardly a hitch (and none to spare, allowing for one or two cut-in-the-wrong-place ones) so I was able to move on to the kitchen and back to left-over tiles.
I had tiles that perfectly matched the Jim-chosen “very good priced” kitchen unit and others that toned in perfectly. The shape was slightly interesting, as I wanted an angle to define the kitchen area. My brother arrived shortly before I began the mortaring and exclaimed, “You’ve made a stealth bomber!” I had … so now hubby was even more impressed with my tiling.
It turned out that the tiling of the small hallway was the most painful job of the lot. I was running out of tiles and it is such a pokey little area to squeeze into. I began with the one large tile left and tried to fit others in an orderly manner around that one… At least the colours didn’t matter as they are all neutral, and I could now cut on an angle. The finished job—mosaic!
Finishing touches of mortar all over, lots of mess to clean up, and we have our tiled floors. I am quite satisfied with my efforts and know that I do not need to have that experience again. Fun as it might have been there are plenty more “learning curves” to tackle!
Wed June 24, 2009 @ 12:55 PM
