Completely Saturated

Hi all,
I’m going to take a little break for about a week or two to let the dust settle. I promise I’ll continue to journal about Phase II of the remodeling process and this time I’ll have a CAMERA!

Random Link of the Day!

L and I finished the kitchen today. Really, we put in the sink, cook top, sealed and polished the counter tops and back splash. Took the protective plastic wrap off the refrigerator, installed the breakfast pendant and took up the cardboard flooring.

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Set the entire tile last night and most of it, about 90% is level. There are a few places where the grout line is too wide and the tile is a little high but all in all I think it looks really good. The trick now is to set the back splash. The back splash is a Travertine mosaic tile. It’s a 12″ tile and our wall is 15 3/4″ tall. So, we’ll have to do a lot of cutting. It should be very interesting. We have all the mosaic laid out on the garage floor with snap lines as guides so I can begin cutting this evening.

We got a new TV stand that is Pimp (with a capital P!). It looks great in the room and lowers and raises the TV when you turn it on and off. We’re hanging pictures and unpacking boxes. We finally got internet yesterday too. I went 5 weeks without any internet; I can’t believe that I went that long not being online. Not that I had any time to be online but it’s almost like my best friend. I’m on it all day long and it’s only natural that I get on it again at night, right?

Point is, we’re actually beginning to move into the house and only after 5 weeks of living there. I’m beginning to dread the Master remodel. Just thinking about it gives me hives..

Today we started the counter tops. I did a load of research on the proper technique for laying granite tile on counter tops and I think I got the gist of it. I basically super-engineered the counters to take the weight of the tile and since my cabinets are a wood/particle board mix I had to frame the particle board side with 2×4 and 1×2. after framing in the counter tops I laid ¾ inch ply, exterior grade, one side sanded on to the framed section of the counter tops. Now I read a lot of articles about the next step but this is what I did. I screwed and glued the ply onto the framing studs. This, I hope, would not only hold the ply down but also fill in anywhere the screws did not.

For the next layer I used Hardibacker cement board. Instead of using thin set in-between the ply I used cement board screws and liquid nails. This might have been over engineering but since the tile is so heavy I wanted to make sure the foundation was good. After that process was done I let it set over night and the following day I began my dry set of the tiles. Usually I don’t do that but, man, I’m glad I did it this time. I laid out all my pieces and made all my cuts before laying mortar. This process was very helpful in determining if I had enough nose rails. Well, it turned out that I was short a piece or two and had to get some to finish the layout.

I lay the mortar tonight and begin the back splash layout then set that and grout then I’m D O N E. I so wish I could find my camera but to no avail I still cannot find my camera!! Once we’re done I promise I’ll take some pics to show the work that has been done.

this is my first post using my own blog. this blog will now take over the old blog over at uripides.blogspot.com.