Going the Distance

After weeks of working in Portland, the Project List has been suffering from extreme neglect while my weekends are spent on laundry, repacking, and catching up on the rest of my day job that I didn't get done because I was doing my day job.

Which leads to lack of progress, and of course lack of blog entries about progress.

Since I've officially returned - well, except for that little matter of Detroit next week and Chicago in August - progress can continue.

And I've decided to Go the Distance.

I didn't count on running out of pencil liner. Argh. So close.

Practicing Safe Hex

Before I advance to tiling the last remaining wall, I have a little mandatory hex tile floor patching to do.

You may recall that way back in the distant past (October 2007), I found a "close enough" match to my original Hex tile, which I could use to patch a small corner of the floor to the side of the toilet.

You might also recall, back in March of this year, my drivel about the usefulness of Ceramic Tile Adhesive.

I am just happy that after all this time, I could recall the location of both of these products. It was time to put them to use.

Where are the new tiles? Hint: they are clean. Ought to be a dead giveaway really.

But in case it wasn't obvious.....here are the newbies.

Retail Therapy

The bathroom project also needs a towel bar/paper holder set, requiring More Shopping. After perusing the selection online, I decided it was time to get out of the house and shop the old fashioned way, by burning off some of that $4.24/gallon gas.

First a trek to the Seattle Premium Outlets, which is quite Premium, but not in Seattle. They're not even in King County.

I had my eye on the Restoration Hardware outlet up there, where, sadly, I completely struck out on my goal of acquiring towel bars for my bathroom.

But....lest I have a wasted 30 mile trip (each way), I found something I didn't really need but couldn't pass up - an 8 quart, cabernet-red dutch oven from Calphalon. For $49.99. No, I didn't drop a leading "1" in that number. Apparently the shade of 'Cabernet' didn't come out in the right dye lot, so Calphalon decided to purge the lot. At $49.99. $29.99 for the 5 quart, but I wanted to have something to feed more people that I can seat at my dining table.

I'm feeling like Shopper of the Year. I could turn into one of those people who talks about "how much they Saved" at the end of each shopping trip (to which historically I respond "And how much did you Spend on Crap you Didn't Need?"). What goes around is coming around.

After driving 30 miles back home to my nearest Restoration Hardware store located in Seattle Proper, I found this quite suitable Asbury Collection , which the sales clerk informed me would be going on sale(!!!!) for 20% off during their bath sale, which starts June 23rd. And they allow pre-orders. So, for the slight inconvenience of having to wait until July 1 or so for my towel bars, I get to Save (!!!!) 20%.

I love it. Maybe I'll try Zappos next while my Shopping Luck lasts.

Another Sunday Tile-A-Thon

The closer the bathroom gets to functional, the further the camera gets from it. In this case, the battery seems to have stopped charging. I can take pictures, but only as long as the camera is plugged in.

So today's progress photo features a close-up of our Kodak's power cord. Sorry.

What's with the two missing tiles? I hear you ask. Well, as you might recall, there was no possible tile formation that would possibly line up with my walls, and I'm paying the price around the receptacle, since My EE (Martin) informs me that the easiest thing to do is to pull the switches forward and rest them on top of tile. Only....well.....there's no tile to rest the top of the switches on. Nor is there going to be in the current pattern. So the two tiles slots will remain empty until my next Home Depot run, where I will be getting some 6'' x 6'' tiles to cut to size.

Putting things in perspective

And I thought my bathroom was out of order....

The importance of good communication skills

This is what happens when you and your partner/spouse fail to agree on the appropriate shower tile height in advance of the project.

You get Regress instead of Progress.

The Chair Rail Height Dilemma

As you can see from the "before" photo, the bathroom in its original incarnation had wood trim supporting an inexplicably large quantity of towel bars. In this picture, I'd already removed 2 bath hooks and a towel bar in the interest of not losing an eye while showering, but you can see the residual mounting hardware.

Naturally, I removed trim and towel bars alike prior to beginning this project. Which brought me to my next design struggle. Do I put the Chair Rail at the same height as the former trim, thereby allowing me to skip the wall repair step?

It's quite tempting, but the former trim location is too high, and I'm concerned that the equivalent subway tile wainscot will leave the wall with that fashion-forward look of an old man with his pants hiked up to his armpits.

I think I will just buck up and do the wall repair, and put the trim where I want it.

And this conveniently lets my tiling progress as far as putting up some gratuitous trim today, even though I didn't work as diligently on it as I did yesterday.

Maybe I can even get a bit of chair rail up during the week.

Extreme Chaos Project, Bath Edition: Day I

The bath project has begun, starting with the demo of plaster, lathe, and the careful removal of Icky Yellow 1950's Plastic Tile.

The Before Picture:

Demo projects take me some time - most of a day in this case - as I do not use power tools. I live in fear of finding New Discoveries in walls or inadvertently sawing studs in half, so I stick to the mallet, chisel, crowbar, and handsaw. Despite my careful proceedings, I had a few moments of panic when the lights went out when I stuck a chisel in the wall. After uncurling myself from a fetal position and investingating further the Case of The Missing Lights, I discovered that Martin was working on An Electrical Project during my demo and had flicked off the circuit breaker. Sigh.

The After Picture:

I did a little web surfing before I started and discovered that there seems to be some market for vintage plastic tile (who knew?), so I made an effort to save about 3/4 of it, and it should be showing up at the Re-Store sometime next week, should anyone want it.

Now for the real question. Why was there 1950's plastic tile in my 1930 house?
After pulling it off, it quite appears that prior to the plastic tile, there was.....may I have a drumroll please.....no tile at all! For the first 20-odd years it seems that they just tossed the kids in for a soak in the Ballardia tub, no showering allowed.

Speaking of showering, I hear you ask, "How are you attending to your Personal Hygiene needs while the bathtub is gutted?" Simple. We are carting our towels and scrub brushes to the guest bath at undisclosed location X. Since I designed it and did all the tile work, we have Lifetime visitation rights, though I seriously hope our bath will be done before then.

Location "X" guest bath:

Authentic Subway Tile

Of course, for an Authentic Subway Tile experience, it's necessary to visit an Authentic Subway. And what better subway to visit than the Paris Metropolitan? With the new direct SEA<-> CDG service from Air France, it took a mere 9.5 hours to pop over to France for a good Foie Gras de Canard. And with my Stockpile of Frequent Flier Miles and Hotel Points, we went for about the cost of Meals - not a small sum with the current state of the North American Peso.

From our "Field Trip" to the Courcelles station: