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.

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.

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.

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.

Well it's not like it's Picnic Weather

I didn't intend to spend any more time on the Extreme Chaos Project this Memorial Day weekend; there's really no sense of urgency other than my own desire to have a bathroom worthy of using.

But after Martin beheaded the Kohler pedestal sink, I figured, what the hell?

To be clear, we Meant to behead the sink. Just perhaps not this soon, as I don't really have time right now to indulge in lengthy tile-a-thons.

And what do we call this bathroom without the sink? It was clear it was a half bath without the shower. Is it still a half bath without the sink?

The Tiling Resumes.....

As I mentioned Many Moons ago, I was not going to resume tiling until I had sucessfully managed to create a Baked Good in the privacy of my own kitchen. And I'm pleased to report success with Gluten Free Pantry's Yankee Corn Bread mix, made by Blatantly Disregarding the directions, and instead mixing it with 1/4 cup beet sugar, 1 tbsp honey, 6 tbsp spectrum organic shortening, 7/8 cup rice milk, and Ener-G egg replacer for one egg. I even managed to create something like honey butter using spectrum organic vegetable shortening, imitation butter flavor, a little salt, and of course honey.

Yummy. Stomach full, tiling may continue.

When last we left the Extreme Chaos Project, I had managed to work my way out of the tub enclosure and resume Hygiene Activities (Insert Thanks Here).

In the process, I left highly visible, unsightly walls, as seen below.

After a little quality time with my tile saw and thinset, view the progress:

Stopping for Potty Breaks

The other reason for the deplorable dearth of blog entries in April is that we here at Ballardia took another Field Trip. This time to the Costa del Sol. And no, I'm not going to outline the fabulous Moorish architecture, bore you with our vacation photos, or review the cities Granada, Sevilla, Cordoba, Cadiz, Ronda, and Gibraltar for your future reference or petty jealousy.

No. Instead, I'm going to highlight the Quality of the Rest Stops.

I am, after all, in the middle of a bathroom project.

I must give the South of Spain great marks for its "aseos", which we determined pretty early on by the funny looks we got that one does not say "banos" there. Not sure why.

We've done a lot of European travel. Enough to know that you should always carry the purse pack of Kleenex for more than just sinus problems. Enouth to realize that developing strong thigh muscles is an important pre-trip preparation. It's pretty common to see toilets with no seat.

Occasionally, one might even get stuck with the dreaded squat toilet. Before you ask, this picture was NOT taken from the Men's room.

But the south of Spain.....public restrooms almost all had toilet seats AND toilet paper, and while we encountered a few where the hand dryers didn't work or the soap wasn't present, the overall quality was on par with domestic travel. Three cheers for peeing in Spain.

Now.....let's talk about the UK.

Great Britain is irrationally fond of the two-handed faucet - you know, the one where the Brits put the stopper in the sink, and run both faucets until they get a bowl of water in the appropriate temperature. This is also the one which gives American visitors burned left hands as a vacation souvenir.

This little gem is from Heathrow. There is no stopper, and this is the Airport, where unknown people have Spit and perhaps Peed in that sink so we really don't want the stopper solution anyway. So rather than post the warning sign, perhaps they could dial down the temperature on the hot?

When will we return to our regularly scheduled programming?

What happened to the Bathroom Momentum? I hear you ask. No doubt you realize that Ballardia progress, once fast & furious actually progressing, has Stopped.

Well, for starters, I do have a Day Job, with business trips seemingly calculated to cause the maximum amount of chaos, and for that I thank you, American Airlines, for leaving me Stranded at LAX overnight without luggage because you sent it off to Terminal 3 rather than putting it in Bag Claim where the rep said it would be, and after my complaints that an Airline employee should retrieve said bag and deliver it to my hotel, your supervisor could only offer me a complementary Men-centric toiletry kit containing Men-scented deodorant, shave cream, razor, toothbrush & paste, and a comb only suitable for short, straight man-hair. Rant to American - how about putting something useful in there, like a Tampon?

End rant. Back to project.

Now that I've finished the tub enclosure and am able to indulge in Cleanliness in the privacy of my own home with my Woman-centric personal toiletries (and tampons), the Urgency of the tile job has faded.

And in my copious free time, in which I normally spend fixing Ballardia, I now have a new hobby. Feeding myself.

Having had a plethora of rather odd symptoms for ages, which I won't outline here in graphic detail (sharing 'tampons' was quite enough information for one blog entry), I finally decided to Do Something. And "Something" started with doctor visits with rather unhelpful advice of taking More Drugs.

I don't like taking meds for the simple reason that I want my liver to focus on more important things, such as processing my alcohol consumption. So I was left searching for Another Answer, which came in the form of food allergy testing.

The food allergy testing required a simple blood test, plus another 3 day Unspeakable Test conducted in the Privacy of my Bathroom Project, which I will also not outline in graphic detail. After waiting 3 weeks, the results came In.

May I have a drumroll, please.

The results showed that I am allergic to probably 50% of my caloric intake - all dairy, eggs, wheat, and sugar cane. Oh, and lest I think I could substitute in something else for these products - I'm allergic to soybeans, almonds, and bananas too. I don't consume these things anyway, but they would be handy Alternatives to things I ate in my Diet of Yore.

The simple act of going to the grocery store turned into an Adventure filled with Drama and Intrigue as I read the labels of Everything, hoping to find some miracle food that I could both eat, and would actually want to.

After a week or so of futile searching, I turned to Cooking, thinking perhaps I could make myself something that adheres to my new restrictions. I checked out stacks - STACKS - of library books on wheat free, dairy free, egg free, taste free cooking. Rather than try Risky Subtitution, I used recipes which conformed exactly to my requirements. I chose the recipes which specified 1/2 cup rice flour & 1/4 cup Tapioca starch & 1 tsp Xanthan gum, not simply "1 cup gluten-free flour". And I followed the recipes Exactly.

And this was the result. Imploded muffins with a dense, gelatinous mass at the bottom of the muffin cup. Brownies which Martin called Chocolate Brownie-like food product. Cornbread that went straight from the skillet to the garbage.

I always thought I was a reasonably good cook. I can bake, broil, grill, saute, sear, steam, pan-fry, poach, etc., really I can. Martin is the envy of all most some of his friends. But cooking without eggs, dairy or wheat? This appears to be as much of a stretch as getting American Airlines to keep their emergency repairs from interrupting my Travel Plans.

So when will the bathroom tiling resume?

After I've successfully made edible baked goods. Or when American retires their aging MD80s, whichever comes first.

Putting things in perspective

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

Well? What do you think?

Tub enclosure is done.

Of course, there's still the little matter of the rest of the walls. And grout.

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 Road to Hell is Tiled with Good Intentions

....Because paving it would be FASTER. And then how would we spend Eternity?

I had to interrupt this weekend's tile-a-thon for some social events (woohoo! I have a life!), and make one Goat Cheese and Onion Tart, which I will not make again. It was fairly yummy, but the ratio of yumminess to prep time and calories was not really worth it.

But despite the distractions, I almost tiled myself out of the tub enclosure, and had some new fun with Chair Rail.

The last time I did chair rail, I had only one mitered corner to deal with, so I held it in position on the tile saw with my fingers, and I'm still feeling rather lucky that I finished that job with all digits intact.

This time, I have 8 45 degree angle cuts to make, so a cutting guide of some sort seems like a good idea. MK Diamond sells an angle guide attachment for my saw, so for $21, I can make my nice precise cuts. But I am too cheap or too impatient to wait to mail order it, so I've experimented with the $8 carpenter's square. It works surprisingly well, though I'm sure I wouldn't want to do this if I were a Tiling Professional (NOOOOOO!!!!!)

Perhaps another day I will post a close-up of the perfectly angled corner. But for today, be content with the big picture.

What exactly is the point of this product?

I need to put up chair rail, and it seems like having something super sticky - stickier than my normal thinset - would be a good idea. So after a visit to my local Home Despot, I picked up a little tub of Ceramic Tile Adhesive. Very sticky stuff.

After I got it home, I took a closer look at the disclaimer in fine print. It says "Not for use in areas of prolonged water exposure". Now I ask you, what does one usually tile? Oh yes, backSPLASHes and TUB surrounds and SHOWER enclosures. What do those things have in common? Let me think. Oh yes, PROLONGED WATER EXPOSURE.

So what EXACTLY does one tile using ceramic tile adhesive where there ISN'T 'prolonged water exposure?