Touching up a little of the wall texture and then doing some painting. I hate painting ceilings.
Paul said he’d haul off the old toilet, which makes me very, very happy.
Absolutely no trade winds today. The morning walk was a bit sticky.
Best line of the day from Arianna Huffington in response to some blathering by Sarah Palin: “I don’t think she’s watched the Jon Stewart speech yet.”
Shelf tile is back in place and grouted. Slope verified.
I took a trip to town to snag a shower curtain rod and then did a little clean-up (not in the BR or bath) around here and some laundry.
Chicken rice soup for dinner along with the requisite Sunday martini.
Up early today to watch a bit of the “Rally to Restore Sanity” and then off to town for the swap meet, breakfast and a few items for the returns desk.
With Laurel all tied up in grandma and other mainland duties, I’ve been put in charge of flowers. Scary thought! Anyway, here’s my amateur attempt at arranging today’s catch.
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The taker-outers were here today to remove the tiles on the shelf and re-seal it. They’ll be back tomorrow to re-install the tiles.
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At 3:00 plumber is here installing valve trim, shower head and the new comfort height plus (18′) commode. Geezers like moi need a pooper that keeps us a bit further off the floor.
It is Friday, ergo half of the required plumber knowledge set. Other being SRDH.
It was one of those good news, bad news kind of mornings. The good news is that I was up at 6:30 texturing and painting the wall that’s behind the toilet. I wanted to get this wall taken care of before the plumber arrived because it’s so much easier to do without the toilet in place. Turns out the plumber won’t be here until this afternoon, so I had plenty of time, but it’s done and now I can hit the hill for my daily walk.
Bad news is that we have a small redo. When I looked at the bull nose on the shelf, it looked like it slanted back a bit. My torpedo level verified my suspicion. Paul came over and took a look at it and indeed, we do have a problem. We dumped a bit of water on it and it definitely ponds. Repair will probably involve removing the row of tiles immediately below the bull nose and at least the bull nose tiles from the top. After they’re off, it’ll need to be re-water proofed and then new tiles cut and re-set and then re-grouted. Certainly not a serious issue, but one that must be addressed.
There was some talk of getting this all done in one day, but I’m in no rush and everyone wants to make sure it’s done right.
On a different topic, don’t anyone tell Laurel that Roselani is on sale this week for $4.00.
A nitrogen leak and helium leak on the right OMS pod is pushing the STS-133 launch back to Tuesday–election day. It’s going to be a busy tube day.
Off to the walk, then Long’s to snag a few items and then more painting. It is Aloha Friday, so I’d imagine the evening includes a saloon or two. Tile guy is coming sometime tomorrow.
Grouting is complete and it looks just swell. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get in there tonight and do some painting prep and then get a coat on the wall behind the toilet before the plumber arrives on Friday.
Then starts the clean-up process, followed by paint, swapping out the electrical fixtues for white Decor devices, sealing the grout and installing the shower curtin. The end of this project may be just over the hill.
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No pictures today. They’d look pretty much like all the other pictures.
Tiling is complete and the bedroom and bath are awash in dust. Straight cuts in the tile were made with your standard score and snap tile cutter. Notch cuts were made with and edge grinder which was smaller which was less messy than a wet saw, but it generated a good amount of really fine silica dust. The cleanup process will not be quick.
My number one job today was to acquire grout. Laurel and I had found a variety at Flooring Direct Maui, a small retailer, that was just the right shade. The other vendors, including the big box stores, just didn’t seem to have what we were looking for. Paul, our tile guru, had requested 25 lbs of un-sanded for the walls and 10 lbs of sanded for the floor–grout type based on the size of the joints.
When I got to Flooring Direct, I was told they could only come up with 15 lbs. of un-sanded and no sanded. After some digging, they did find two 9 lbs. bags of sanded. I took it all. When I returned to the condo, I did a few calculations using charts on the grout bags and figured we needed someplace a little over 9 lbs. of un-sanded and little over 6 lbs. of sanded. We should be in great shape with the grout.
Just in case the grout I had wouldn’t work, I stopped by Lowe’s to see what they had. They had nothing we could use in the way of grout, but while I was there, I checked on commode that I was unable to find the day before and not only did they have one, but the price had dropped over $60. It was really the one I wanted, so I headed home, squeezed the old one into my compact Chevy, returned it to HD and bought the new. If I’m making two trips to town in one day, we must be in the middle of a 10-209 construction project.
We’re finally at the place in the process where tile is going up. Today, it’s anticipated that the wall tile below the accent stripe will go up. If the lower sections set up enough, he may be able to go higher. A second coat of waterproofing also needs to be added to the floor.
We now have two commodes in the hall; one old, one with some assembly required.
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Today the waterproof coating was applied to areas of the wall and the pan. I’d hoped to get in there and do some paint prep and a little trim painting done, but the waterproof goop took a long, long time to dry. I didn’t want to damage it, so any paint preparation will be delayed for a day. Tomorrow, we start setting wall tile.
After a good deal of review, the decision was made to go with a 6-tile wide accent stripe. It should balance nicely with the 6″ tile size.
The big chore of the day was a trip to town to find a new commode of the comfort-height variety. Both Home Depot had Kohler models that weren’t too bad. I found it interesting that both big box stores carried the same model name, but with different UPC and the Lowe’s item was 6/10″ higher. It was also a few bucks cheaper, but when I went to buy it they could find one to sell me. The inventory database showed five on-hand, but none were to be found. I wonder how they ever turn a profit. Anyway, the toilet is in the van and I’m going to try to get Paul, our tile guy, help me get it up to the unit.
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