A New Tiling Toy

The one remaining tile-free wall in the bathroom has a small challenge, and I have been happily In Denial about it for some time now.

It's the dreaded Wall Jog.

The last wall juts outward about 3", presumably to cover up the vent stack for the plumbing. And I am tiling it.

So.....How exactly am I doing this?

The cove base, pencil liner, and chair rail obviously all have to have a mitered corner at the Wall Jog. But what about the subway tile? I seemed to have only two reasonable choices - 1) order bullnose subway tile with the bullnose on the 3" side, or 2) miter the subway tile.

I'm chosen option #2, because I think it will look better to be consistent up the wall, rather than the miter, 15 bullnose, 2 miter program which would result from option #1.

Up until this point, I have been mitering my corners by carefully holding up the tile at an approximately 45 degree angle on my Super Burly MK Diamond Tile Saw, and hoping that I emerge from the experience with enough digits to continue to be able to deliver appropriate hand gestures in all circumstances.

I'm not up for that for 18 miters in a row.

So I broke down and ordered the MK Diamond Miter attachment, which conveniently showed up at the same time as my Cathedral Baseboard vent, putting me back in Tiling Business for the weekend.

And a lovely weekend it was, too.

The Cathedral Register has Arrived

Registering the Finishing Touches

With basically only one wall left to tile, I can’t help but notice that I am behind in my Shopping. And we know how much I love Home improvement Shopping. It’s right up there with shopping for shoes for my size 10 feet.

I still have a few hardware items left to procure – towel bars, a replacement doorknob, and a heat register. The most pressing item is the heat register, required to complete the cove base on the remaining wall.

What’s wrong with the existing register?

Does the picture explain everything, or do I need to spell it out?

It can’t possibly be original. It’s flimsy, ugly, has suspicious mildew-looking spots on it, and these are its good qualities.

It does not belong in my rapidly improving bathroom. Nor do its equally ugly cousins belong in the rest of my house, but that’s not currently on the to-do list, or in the budget (budget? What Budget? Oh, the one we blew through months ago….).

There aren’t a lot of options in period-appropriate wall registers in the appropriate size. I could get several different models of adequate and inoffensive floor registers and punch screw holes in them with my Makita, such as these registers from the Hardware Hut in the $50 range.

There are only a few Actual Wall Registers that I could buy, and all are in the three figure range (see lack of budget, above). The Hamilton Strathmore below, also at the Hardware Hut, is lovely, but a bit daunting at $105. Even more daunting is the Rejuvenation model at $132.

And then there are the baseboard registers. Mission Metalworks makes both a grid and cathedral-style register which seem appropriate, and are available from Shop4Classics.com at a much more palatable $65. I like the Cathedral-style.

The real question is which is more authentic to a 1930 frame tudor, the baseboard register, or the metal louvered floor-or-wall type ?

My guess is that it’s probably the baseboard type. That’s what was in my last brick Tudor-esque house. You remember that one. It was DONE.

But to be sure, I thought I should do a little research. Google turned up nothing. I suppose there might be a book somewhere with this kind of detail, but I’m in a hurry.

Where else to check? Why Windermere.com, of course! I requested a search of all houses in Seattle built between 1929 and 1935, and scanned the pictures of Tudor style houses listed for sale.

In general, I was quite hindered in my progress by Realtor pictures which completely obscured the source of heating. Why weren’t they thinking of my needs here?!

Of those that showed the heating, by far the biggest number appear to have the baseboard style register. Some have the floor registers, and just a few use radiators.

This is a bit of a relief, actually, because it was looking challenging to find a chrome wall register to match my faucets, and we all know that white goes with everything.

So the baseboard cathedral-style register it is.....and I'm going to have to wait for it. Progress will stall yet again.

Oh? You say you want the picture now that the sink's head has been surgically reattached?

Here you go. But it's with the old camera; can't get a good zoom out on this one. Sorry.