The work is slow - but our counters are clean

They say slow and steady wins the race - I guess that would depend if you are in a marathon or a sprint.  Fortunately, when it comes to our back splash it is a marathon. The pace has been slow but steady. A little each day - taking down tile, patching the wall - me saying "great job honey" as I look on passign through the kitchen.

We have discovered one thing in the midst of all this - we have a lot of stuff on our couters!  Since as I mentioned in a previous post we have remodeling ADHD, we began eyeing our pantry and wondering with a little rearranging if we could find a home for our appliances (right now they were either on the counter or in a back-breaking spot in our cabinets).  Well after some cleaning and purging we have found homes for most items.

Maybe home remodeling isn't just about the project at hand - maybe it is releasing your mind to approach things in a different way. Or maybe it is filling it with short term projects so you feel accomplished. Either way the pantry looks great.

A "little" progress

Trip #11 and 12 to Lowes gained us some new cool tips for the dremmel - none of which did what we had hoped, but cool none the less. 

Our initial push has turned into meandering as little bits have been done - a bit more tile taken from the sink area and the wall repatched.  Yes, this was the first time the tile did not come off along with the drywall. A sign of things to come?  Probably not, but it was encouraging.

The benefit of hanging out with other DIYers also helps.  I was wondering if we should put some other type of drywall behind the sink area (education experience I gained watching far too many home improvement projects on TV).  In talking with friends who are redoing their bathroom they offered some spare pieces of cement board.  Problem solved.  Now we just need another surge of energy to go after it again.

While we have no timeline, we did realize that we have all our supplies stacked on shelving our son will need to take back to college in  a few weeks. Uh oh

and........nothing to report

I believe the phases of a DIYer are as follows
*the idea phase
*the initial push filled with excitement
*a slowing of progress
*standstill - life interruptions

We are at the standstill portion of our project, I believe largely in part to our son about to head to London.  More important to spend any free time we have preparing for his trip than testing our skills at grouting.  We are expecting to have some nervous energy while he is gone so we remain hopeful!

"I think we have everything"

It was trip #10 to Lowe's today .  It was there in the check out line my husband says words that are sure to haunt him. "I think we have everything we need now."  Let's just say I am doubtful that is true.

This trip we picked up grout. Which I am happy to say they have samples of tile and gout on the display walls. We actually found tile that was close to ours - looked at the grout # and voila! we had our grout chosen. We also found a thin glass tile we can use to cap off the tile area just below our cabinets. The one in the store is just a bit thinner than ours and fits perfectly!  Do you belive in miracles? 

It was there, after looking at the display,  I was also inspired to maybe go with a glass subway tile for behind the sink area. I couldn't imagine getting household cleaners on the textured stone tile or food that missed the sink.  In theory this should look good as we (and by we I mean my husband) taped up the tiles for a visual effect.  "I think" it will look good.

The relentless days of rain in Houston seem to have sucked some of our energy away, so after the trip to Lowe's we decided to make our dining room look less of a home improvement explosion site and have it look a bit more organized.  I avoided a before picture, but here is the after

Trip # 9 to Lowes

Yes it was trip #9 to Lowes for some Kilz primer to prime our drywall before putting up the next segment of tile.

Last night we were watching a home improvement show and they were simply tapping tiles with a hammer and they fell off. What a sham!  Our tiles hang on for dear life to the wall, wallboard, anything - I don't think we have one tile that simply "came off". Sigh

Another day another hole

This Saturday started with hubby going off  to Lowe's (trip #8) and me showing a couple of homes (the life of a Realtor).  He needed to buy drill  grout remover bit  (#2) so we could begin demo on another wall.  I am sad to report that drill bit #2 was not long for this world thanks to insufficient grout between tiles and more tile drilling that it was prepared to take.  Fortunately it died just 6 tiles short of our goal.  My estimate is that we will go through at least 2 more before the project is done.

I was also shown today the proper hit the scraper with the hammer technique in order to loosen and remove the tiles.  Sadly I am completely inept at the skill, but I have mastered vaccuuming dust during drilling and sweeping counters of drywall.

Another day another trip to Lowes

Another trip to Lowes (trip #8) for small sponge brushes (Michael's only had wide and wider) and a surprise purchase for me of a rubber tile float (nothing says love like that!)  We continue finish off our test wall and prepare to demo the rest of the kitchen (with some fear and trepidation I might add). 

Our efforts to seal the tile has brought an epiphany too late.  Seal first and THEN place tiles.  With a mixture of porous and glass tiles, and the fact that you have to straddle a counter and duck to miss the cabinet, I feel like we should do stretching exercises before attempting.

Slowing our efforts has been either allergies or a cold virus we are sharing that has sucked some of our energy - but we push forward!

Before and After - the beginning

Somehow trips #3 to #7 to Lowe's were unmentioneded in this blog, but evidenced by the growing stack of receipts we have faithfully stacked on our dining room table. (At this time it should be noted that the word "dining room" is used loosely as it is actually a nursery for our grandson when we watch him and a growing construction warehouse for all the items we buy and use for the kitchen.

All that is left to do on our test section is to seal the porous stones (we have mixed stones and glass tile), grout and figure out what to do with the 1/4 inch gap at the top that cannot be seen unless you crouch down and look - but still we strive for perfection.....or at least make it look like we didn't do it ourselves.  Nothing is worse then someone walking into your home, noting an improvement and say "ooooohhh, did you do it yourself?"

Regardless here are our before and after photos.

Distractions

Yes, I should be posting photos of our small wall we have mostly finished, and yes we should be sealing it and grouting it. But what are doing today (and by we I mean my husband)? Steaming the grout on our floor!

Yes the curse of any home improvement project - improve one area and it makes the rest look....well old and dirty.  So I wonder outloud "do we have a steamer we could use to clean the kitchen floor?"  Moments later he is back from the garage with a Bissel steamer we got free with the purchase of our carpet cleaner YEARS ago, and the steaming of grout begins.  As I had the idea, I "started" the task but soon pooped out.  In steps hubby and he is now about 3/4 of the way through.

As he is cleaning the floor, I look around and notice how dirty the kitchen looks and so that's what I'm doing.  In the midst of it I say "shouldn't we be sealing the tile?"  Perhaps I have a home-improvement version of ADD.