Floor done!

Well, I'm exhausted, my feet are killing me, and I think I've scrubbed 10 layers of skin off, but I got the tile all grouted today!  I do have a few little touch-ups I want to make, but those can wait for a few weeks. 

On Sunday Dale and I finished all the tiling.  We used leftover pieces to fill in where the dishwasher, stove and refrigerator will be going.  We did have to run out and buy 5 more diamond border pieces, I had that miscalculated, but at the same time, we picked up our sink, so it worked out.

I am really happy with the finished look!   And our official inspectors approved as well:

Persephone laid on the center support of the bench, she was really liking her perch overlooking the floor.  But Mercury was NOT happy she was up there, and he kept trying to knock her off.

Each of the corners has a different solution to the greek key turning the corner.

 

Hopefully they blend in enough -- although we can see them immediately!

Today I finished the grouting.  Because we used marble tile, we had to use unsanded grout.  I hate unsanded grout.  I hate the texture, the way it shrinks, the feel of it.  But that's what we had to use, so that's what I did.  I have a few low spots that need another layer of grout, but I'd like to wait a week or two so all the shrinking is complete. 

The grout makes it look so much richer - I used black grout, which is a complete pain because it's so dark and it stains my hands and the buckets and it takes forever to rinse off completely. But it looks awesome!

Here's what it looks like on the left before grouting, and on the right afterwards. 

So, now we can actually move some stuff back in!  (after the grout sets for 24 hours).  We want to get the appliances moved in, although that means we have a little bit of drywall to repair first --

We have guests coming on Friday, so it would be nice if we could at least get the refrigerator and stove out of the living room by then!

I'm glad this step is done - it's a really busy floor, but I think it's going to look great with the cabinets and counters.  I wanted to get the feel of a Paris bistro or something along those lines.  I'm happy with it!

Floor

I had hoped to get some of the tile in before the weekend, but here it is Saturday and I'm not quite done with it.  We spent some time earlier in the week getting the backer board in and adhered and screwed down with a zillion screws...

That took a couple of days because some stuff came up at work, but we had that in by Friday.  While Dale was working on getting all that in, I got started on the built-in banquette:

This will be great to store a lot of those not-too-often used items, holiday stuff, etc.  I am contemplating the top hinged top - do I want to use plywood or do I want to put some boards together?  Does it really matter - we are going to put a thick cushion on this anyway, so I will probably go with plywood.  Problem is, it's just over 8' long -- like 6" too long, so I'm trying to come up with a way to create 2 - 4' hinged panels, and make up the 6" elsewhere.  Maybe I'll just bring the sides in a bit so the top has something substantial to sit on. Dale sat on it and approved of the height - he was worried it was going to be too low, and I can only go up to the bottom of the window frame.  But it was perfect in height.  It's going to be painted white like the rest of the trim.

While I was hammering the frame into place, I misjudged and whacked my finger with the hammer.  I've done this a million times, but this time, the results were pretty spectacular:

It didn't hurt until I taught in the afternoon:  we were working on clay, and I think when I was kneading the clay I got the blood flowing internally or something.  Man, this hurt! Oh, and my finger was already bent - I've got arthritis in this finger, which was one of the reasons it hurt so bad when I hit it--

So yesterday (Friday), I got started on the field tiles for my kitchen:

I had a zillion cuts to make, and I want a very very minimal grout line, so making them super accurate was imperative.  I love the marble tile -- carrara white and nero black.  Love the veining in the black.  So this was an all day Friday thing, getting all the pieces cut, laid, edges perfect.  Before laying the tile, I had to mark off my border all around the room - I have 22" worth of borders to put around.  Oh, and the plywood above is where the cabinets will go.  We are going to tile plain tiles under the refrigerator, dishwasher and stove.

Last night we had a ton of wind - the Santa Anas were kicking up, and we were up and down all night.  It's also hot with those winds, so not a good nights sleep.  And the noise outside kept the cats all riled up all night.  So we didn't get started as early as I wanted to today, but we got busy and figured out the cuts for our borders --

The hardest part is making the corners work on the mosaic borders.  After some messing around, we figured it out and then we made more progress.  Oh, and the open pocket door above is going to be closed in after we get the cabinets installed - right now it's convenient to be able to go in and out while we have it all tented off, but we won't need that doorway after, so our tile stops at where the wall will be.

By the end of today, we got 3/4 through with the borders, and we stopped to take stock and see how we were doing on supplies.

 We realized we were going to be short 5 strips of the top diamond-shaped border.  We have about 6 extra of the greek key, and we need 5 more black tiles to go under the refrigerator.  Originally, I was going to put plywood there as well, but in the meantime Dale decided we should go ahead and tile under that area as well (it's the blank spot above, you can see the water connector for the icemaker).  We still have to patch drywall there, but we have a few other minor things before we get that done. 

So tomorrow, we are going to go out and pick up those last few pieces, and probably get our kitchen sink as well at the same time.  I fell in love with one at the tile shop, but I'm not sure if they still have it in stock, so we'll check to see that, too.  I also want to look at backsplash tiles to match the sink. 

Hopefully, finish tiling on Sunday, and grout the whole thing on Monday, so I am getting excited that things are moving along!  I wanted to have things further, but this is what it is, so I'll be happy with that.  Maybe I'll even take some time out for a movie tomorrow if we get done early enough!

doing some floor prep

So - we did get our stove delivered the other day, but after I got it all unboxed - we saw a big dent in the back panel, so we had to call and have another delivered this morning.  Argh!  But the delivery guys were great, and our new one is sitting here ready to be installed.  Which I'll do in the morning....

With the money we got from selling our old stove ($160 bucks, woot!), I bought a tile saw on craigslist.  Our plan is to buy a tile saw rather than renting one - we rented one twice for the bathroom, and I could get a used one for less than that.  When we're done with our renos, we'll just sell this tile saw on craigslist for what we paid for it.  That's what we did with our old stove, actually - we paid 150 for it, so we even made a ten dollar profit!

This saw was only $130 - works great.  Well it did until the switch broke at the end of the day!  It's a 3.99 fix, so tomorrow I'll get most of the rest of the marble cut.  After spending an hour cutting a bunch of strips, I laid out a sample of the border on the sidewalk:

We tried several sequences, the original one I'd drawn up was a little too involved, so this is what she ended up with.  I have a lot of skinny strips to cut -- I need a total of 80 1" white strips, 32 1" black strips, 48 4" black strips, and there's the center black and white checkerboard of full tiles.  We brought some of the pieces in and took a look at how we're going to deal with corners --

We're working on the corners -- I think we'll mitre the corners of both borders.  Ironically, this is what I went out to do when the switch broke.  But taking a break was good, we had some errands to do and needed a break for dinner!  I'll cut the rest of the pieces tomorrow.  I can't wait to get started!

Getting the floors moving along

Dale's back is still hurting - he's been going to physical therapy to get that muscle mass relaxed, and so our progress is still s.l.o.w.....but I did get the hardwood flooring section integrated:

We are planning to have a place where we can slide barstools up under the island, and I wanted the floor to be uninterrupted there.  We'd found some good match hardwood at Lumber Liquidators, and along with several other places in the house that will need patching, we bought one bundle so we could get an integrated look here.  We will be refinishing the floors at the end of the kitchen remodel, as it moves into the living room, so getting an unfinished floor will save us from having to run the sander up under the island so much.

We also had our stove delivered this morning.  My goal is to get the floors done this week while I'm on spring break, and also get the cabinets ordered.  Although progress is slow, it's moving along OK.

We did take a little drive around on Saturday. I'm trying to keep Dale moving so he doesn't get his muscles stiff from sitting in a recliner, so we did a trip to LACMA (Los Angeles County Art Museum) where I am a member, and he can come along as my guest.  I'm trying to work my way through the museum one trip at a time, without getting overwhelmed.  The last time I was there, I visited the two blockbuster shows - a Stanley Kubric exhibition and a Caravaggio exhibition that were both great.  This time we went through the modern and contemporary collection, and enjoyed seeing Chris Burden's Metropolis in action:

the little cars are whizzing around -- last time I visited, it wasn't in motion, so this was fun to experience.  We also had to walk under Levitated Mass, which is a fun experience as well.

While we were downtown LA, we decided to stop over and visit the little railroad known as Angel's Flight.  It's a railway on a pulley system, and we rode up:

Then walked around the plaza before finding a nearby Geocache and braving the traffic on the way home.  Other than that, we are trying to balance enjoying the time off and getting some work done on the kitchen.  We decided to scrap the arch, instead, we are going to build up the beam a little with some molding - watching one of our HGTV reno shows, we saw a really effective approach while keeping the beam straight across, and I think that'll suit our place better.  It's mostly about adding some interest to a pretty basic setup here.

cold floor Rx

Because we are putting in a marble floor, we were concerned that the floor will be cold on our bare feet.  Half the year, this will be a good thing, but the other half of the year, it will make it uncomfortable.  We don't want to put a heater under the marble, because this room does get a lot of sun since it faces south, and it warms up quickly.  The real concern is nights and first thing in the morning. 

Taking out the linoleum and underlayment, we can see sun through the slats of the subfloor.  We have a lot of ventilation under the house, which is necessary in this climate.  But - that means there are cool breezes blowing under the house when it's cold out - so we knew we wanted to insulate the floor.  Besides the open crawl space breezes, this house doesn't have central heat, and this space is the furthest from the floor heater.

Dale spent most of the afternoon today under the house.  Of course, there's always a bit of bad news when you go into previously uncharted areas, and he found that the old cast iron drainpipe had a small leak under the sink, very minor, and that pipe will be removed when we relocate the plumbing, but it's annoying.  We went through and repaired the termite damage, replacing the subfloor planks that had damage:

This area will be underneath a banquette along the south wall, so it won't have a lot of traffic across it, but it's ready to go.

We went with a recycled denim insulation - for a couple of reasons.  First, I like the fact that it's recycled and environmentally friendly.  no VOC gasses, and no fiberglass particles, which is particularly great considering Dale has to lie on his back and push it up and tack it in place with wire braces.  Nothing like getting a face full of itchy scratchy fiberglass.  Also, it's extremely easy to tear apart with your hands (yet, it's firm and not at all fragile),so cutting is not a problem.

I don't think it's just my imagination, but the room feels so much warmer even tonight!  Before he puts the backerboard underlayment, Dale is going to get the electrical, gas and plumbing relocated while he can easily access the space.  We're pretty happy with this, and we'll be insulating under some of the other areas in the house that are cold (in particular, our bedroom!).

and now, the floor

Finally, the wall is down and we could remove the temporary support.  The opening is so huge!  We hadn't had a chance to see it all clear without either plastic or the temporary support in place, so when we finally removed everything, we were a little surprised at how large the opening was!

Don't you love the precariously hanging fluorescent fixture?  That's gotta go soon enough.

Today, we got started on removing the floor.  We cut through the linoleum and the plywood, and then pulled it up in sections, so we exposed the subfloor.

Lots of nails to pry up and we had a chance to inspect the subfloor planks.  There  are a couple of planks we will need to replace, there is some termite damage.  In southern CA, it's extremely common to have termites, since there's nothing to kill them.  So it's not a matter of IF you have termite damage, but how much.  We have a very small amount in the kitchen, just in one corner, and it has all been treated, so it's not active.  We just need to replace the damaged wood.

 So here's the room now.  We laid down a sheet of plywood on the damaged section so the cats will leave it alone.  Next, we are going to cut the subfloor right across the center of the room, so we can move the gas and plumbing lines.  After we took this picture, we marked out where the island will be, so we know where to have the kitchen plumbing for the sink and dishwasher come up, since they'll be in the island.  The gas line will be moved to where the dishwasher currently is.  Then we'll close the floor up again, leaving the stubs up, and then we can lay the underlayment for tile.

I worked out a plan for the tile -- it will have a pattern something along these lines:

It'll have a 21" border that has a variety of black, white, and mosaic border sections.  This will run all along the walls, with a black/white checkerboard on the diagonal inside.

  I'm anxious to get that started!