Ta da: walls!

Bella and Arwen got into some remodeling of their own:

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I think Bella likes the additional area that the walls provide for sleeping space. The house is also centrally located in the middle of the dining room. Arwen (above right) looking through the window at Bella inside.

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MY house.

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This weekend we bottled the most recent batch: amber ale. I’ve tried a bit right after bottling (still too sweet from the bottling sugar, and no carbonation). The previous brew, though, a brown ale, is really good. We decided to call this “Tiny Kitchen” brews.

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Finally finished all the rough plumbing for the shower (had been waiting for some parts to be delivered). And true to form, I can’t keep things simple: I’ve put the shower controls centered on the wall in the shower, but there’s a window, so I have the pipe crossing over. And, I got clever with 45 degree bends, even using a pipe bender on part of it to get a smother flow. The hardest part is drilling at 45 degrees through a stud.

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Here’s all the insulation in place, and a view up at the ceiling in this tiny little bathroom.

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Now the hard part: putting up drywall. As you know, I love plaster — the real stuff. So here we are using ‘blue board’. It’s supposed to make it easier to adhere the veneer plaster. The only problem is that the supply place only had 5/8″ thick blue board. Heavy. Here I’m cutting out the openings for the recessed lights.

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Oh, that looks easy? Let me tell you: That one board weighed over 70 lb. Hefting it overhead, and screwing it in place is hernia material. Luckily all my measurements for this board were correct, so the holes all lined up, and everything fit.

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I came up with one little idea to help get the pieces of drywall in place overhead. I temporarily screwed a piece of wood to the wall just below the edge of the board. That way we could rest that edge of the board in place and only support one side while trying to position it and screw it up.

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Here’s how one side looks with all the walls covered in drywall now..

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And the other side. Still not quite finished the walls on this side.

Cat-in-the-Box

To make up for last post’s absence of kitten-pics, I’m going to over-do it now.

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They are getting a bit big to share the same bed now. Bella is looking grumpy because Arwen came along and wanted to snuggle with her.

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And I made my second large brew (brew #7). Up until now, I’d been making one gallon batches. I’ve moved to 3 to 5 gallon batches. This time five gallons of an Amber Ale. And I had a bit extra, that I put in a separate one gallon jug and fermented with extra hops. The main batch is has one more week of fermentation before bottling.

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Dad had his seventy fifth birthday this year. Here we are talking at the surprise party that Eva and Elijah threw for him. Above right is a photo with Dad and two of his closest friends: Charles, and John.

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A picture with some of the attendees to Dad’s birthday party.

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And these photos were irresistible: Above, Arwen; below, Bella. They like Anchor Brewing as much as I do…

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Since I’ve not been eating dairy, one of my favorite things I can’t eat: Haagen-Dazs Dark Chocolate bars. But, now there’s a solution: Coconut Bliss makes coconut bliss chocolate fudge bars. All I had to do is coat it in dark chocolate. Not quite as pretty, but really *dang* good:

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Oh, yes, the reason for the blog: I finished up the wiring and added a ceiling in the small bathroom that’s attached to the laundry room (no photos). Then I put in all the insulation.

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Here I am working on the insulation in the ceiling. We bought ‘encapsulated’ insulation, which is basically fiberglass insulation, with a plastic bag around it. In the past, it was really well made, so that the bag fitted well around the insulation pretty much stopped it from coming out as dust. (The batch we bought this time, though, had terrible quality control: The bags were not sealed up, so basically it was just fiberglass batts with extra sheets of plastic packed with it.)

Next week we’ll put up the drywall.

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And one more thing: Mae and Nancy came to visit on a cold SF summer Sunday Streets day in the Mission. We walked all the way up Valencia and had a chance to catch up over lunch.


most boring post EVER!

If you are hoping for kitten photos, or even human photos, read no further. I’ll blame this on mole: I can’t take photos of myself doing things.

Now that the roof doesn’t leak any more (well, I assume it doesn’t — it hasn’t rained in quite a while), I can work on the inside of the laundry room. First thing: I put in the framing for a new pocket door. I bought the kit almost a year ago, finally installed it (hiding behind the hanging plants):

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The one thing that bothered me after the roofing was done is that I failed to buy a new skylight that fit the opening in the roof properly. So, retrofit: the photo above right sort of shows how the framing sticks into the space of the skylight. I spent a day with the reciprocating saw cutting out joists, and putting in reinforcement. Mole said the whole house was rattling from the noise. To me, it looks better…

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But the photo above left really doesn’t show it. Oh well. Above right, I’ve put in new recessed light fixtures. This is going to be a fancy laundry room.

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Oh, and the really, really boring stuff: Plumbing. Well, it’s rather exciting when it doesn’t work, I suppose. Here I’m putting in the rough plumbing for the sink and shower. I don’t have the controls yet for the shower, so the pipes just end after they stick through the stud. Above right: the pipes below the laundry room floor.

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Of all the projects on this house, the most intimidating is gas piping. Everything else, there’s some type of warning or fuse if somethings done wrong. With gas, I guess you smell it: But it feels like if this is done wrong – BOOM! So, I used lots of joint lube, cleaned the threads meticulously, and tightened every joint to the extreme. Above left is the pipe going above the ceiling in the garage, above right, where it transitions to go to the garden room (fancy!).

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Above left, it tees to go up to the laundry room (for the dryer), and I added a pipe that will allow a stove down in the garden room (beer brewery maybe?). I went over every connection with soap to check for leaks: None! I did find a slow leak in three valves, though, and managed to tighten them up.

Oh, and these photos are the last photos that our first digital camera will take. It finally quit, after over ten years (almost every photo in this blog was taken with it).

Real Pros

When I went to buy roofing materials, the person at Western Gravel & Roofing Supply talked me into hiring a contractor: He was afraid I’d burn down my house with the torch (!) and recommended a contractor who happened to be in line.

What a contrast to the last roofers we hired. These guys were awesome!

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I did the prep work before the contractor arrived. I forgot to take a photo before I started ripping off the old roof. Above right the photo shows where my foot went through the old rotten wood!

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Above left is the view from below. That piece of wood had to be replaced. One top of the old wood, I installed plywood. This is both to provide better earthquake resistance, and to span over weak old wood.

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Now the pros showed up. Actually, they told me they’d arrive at 3pm, so I thought I had time to finish the prep before they got here. They arrived three hours early. So they helped me install the insulation for free (I added 2″ of rigid insulation on top of the roof). Above right, Enrique and his assistant smile for the camera.

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This is the reason the roofing supply salesperson didn’t want me doing the roofing myself: Notice the 18″ long flame coming out of the torch? This is on low. Here, Enrique is melting the back of the modified bitumen roofing, so that it seals down to the roof. Each strip is melted to the previous strip to make a continuous membrane over the roof.

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Ironically, after watching the roofers, I realized that fitting the roofing around and over all the tricky corners was where their skill and experience really helped. It would have taken me weeks to do this, and it probably wouldn’t have been done as well in the end. Pick your battles!

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One more photo as they finished up, and here it is done. Beautiful, eh? I managed to salvage the old skylight; took some serious chipping and heat-gun action to get it off the old curb. I’ll probably replace it one day, but for now, it’s fine.

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So now we’re done with the outside of the laundry room. All I had to do after they finished the roof is to put the gutter on and paint it. Here’s photos with the scaffolding down.

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Now I can start working on the inside without worrying that it will get ruined by rain. Sometimes, it really is worth getting the pros.

misha’s visit part 2

just to prove we do more than work on the house when misha visits, i finally downloaded photos from my camera!

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here we are at the betabrand store. misha and mathew are posing with a creepy mannequin and his silver dog (in mathew’s lap.)

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the cats insist on going outside every evening. (left) bella checking out the poppies and bumble bees. (right) arwen hanging out with the nasturtiams

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i can’t remember what we were doing when these photos were taken. i think we’d just had dinner at cha-ya and come home for tea. mathew is also taking funny self portraits, none of which i have posted. perhaps they will become an animation..?

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another outside visit. (left) arwen investigating the new compost tumbler. (right) bella showing off her balancing skills, spying on birds in the tree. she almost caught a bird recently when climbing in the tree, luckily the bird got away!

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mathew and misha painting and then reviewing their work.

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(left) we went for a walk into bernal heights with misha and daniel and made a new feline friend. (right) we also found quirky water features advertising a business outside someone’s home: watercontraptions.com

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misha looking out over our beautiful city on a beautiful day. 🙂

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three bittleston men having a chat on a bench.

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arwen has gotten adventurous again. she’s figured out how to jump onto the other neighbor’s house. i love how casual she is; she has no idea how freaky this is for us!

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when she’d decided she’d had enough, she finally came back to the place she’d originally jumped from and it didn’t seem so fun coming back. she was more than happy to run to the bathroom window where i pulled off the screen and let her in.

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and when they’re not getting into trouble, they spend a lot of time lying around being cute…

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and before i forget, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY to our dads! we love you both!

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mathew is currently in new orleans. he had a 3-day master camp training and a belt test that he’s been preparing for for months. HE PASSED!! he’s now a third degree black belt in shotokan karate. (above: bella helping mathew study.)

finally: Paint!

My brother comes to visit for a few days and what do I make him do? Work on the house, of course!
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First, I had to fill all the dents and cracks with Bondo. This was the second pass with filler (first time was before I primed everything). As soon as it’s painted, all the missed dents and unfilled holes show up.

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Then we had to caulk all the joints between windows and siding, and vertical joints between the trim and the siding. We have to be a bit careful when caulking: Mustn’t fill any joints that water trapped behind the siding might need to drain out of (ie, none of the horizontal joints in the siding, or the bottom of the window sill, etc).

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Actually, painting the color on is fun. It’s the most rewarding part, makes everything look finished, and goes quite fast.

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Well, as long as you are not working with the world’s pickiest Turtle. Here I’m painting the underside of the eave with a sky-blue color.

We’ve always had wasps nesting in the eaves on the back here. While I appreciate that they are part of our environment, and help with (other) pest control, I don’t particularly want them on my eaves. So, a bit of internet research led us to a Southern tradition that we noticed in New Orleans: Painting the underside of eaves with a sky-blue (the actual color varies by region, but it’s often called “Haint” blue) supposedly makes them less likely to nest. Worth a try, and it has a cool story to go with it.

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Above left, Mole gritting her teeth waiting for super slow Turtle photographer.

So, here it is, the outside of the laundry room is painted — now on to the roof, the stairs, the inside…

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Oh, and I’ve still got to paint that pipe.

Bigfoot

We have been slowly progressing with finishing the trim around the windows of the laundry room and garden room.

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I spent almost all day getting the trim to fit in above the windows, and tight against the soffit. Had to splice on a piece at the end, because the board wasn’t quite long enough (above right). But that’s nothing: When I bought the redwood, I got tempted by the slightly cheaper, rough-sawn redwood planks intended for fences. We had to plane and sand and prime them all before putting them up. Silly Turtle – no wonder it takes so long! Now that all the trim is on around the windows, though, it’s starting to look finished.

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This (above left) is the window under the laundry room (‘garden room’). We built out a small box head above the window to shade and protect the windows from rain. Turtle being turtle, I couldn’t resist getting my router out and adding a bit of decorative edge (above right) to the trim. It also serves a purpose: Rounded edges don’t show dents, and they hold paint better than sharp corners.

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The photo above left shows the back wall of the laundry room — a bit difficult to see, as my home-built scaffolding is in the way. Above right is the corner that faces the deck. So, this is quite exciting (for me): All the exterior trim and siding are installed on the laundry room. Now we need to fill all the holes, sand, and paint.

While we were working on the laundry room trim, the cats sometimes came out to play. All the flowers have been blooming in the back yard, and the bees are loving it. Unfortunately, Bella doesn’t know the difference between a fly and a bee…
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She decided to catch a bee, and when she slapped it down on the ground, she got stung. Mole was calling her ‘bigfoot’ for the rest of the day…

the adventures of arwen and bella

arwen and bella have been busy in 2013, making new friends, having fun and getting into trouble…

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here they are with their new friend ‘flat stanley.’ flat stanley came to visit from southern california. he stayed for a few days and i showed him around our neighborhood, then he went home with a photo-essay to teach 1st graders about the mission district in san francisco.

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“WHAT IS THIS?!?!”

ice. 🙂

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bella climbed her first TREE!! before she attempted anything, she stood beneath the tree for about 30 minutes studying and strategizing. it all went well, but could have been better if it weren’t a lemon tree. the cats aren’t crazy about lemons…

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a lazy afternoon with bella and mathew.

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(above left) bella also climbed onto the roof for the first time. she jumped onto the kitchen, climbed to the very top of our roof, looked around, skidded down and decided she’d had enough.

(above right) at the very center of that photo (it’s hard to see) mathew is attaching chicken wire to keep arwen from climbing into the neighbors’ yard. she’s been very active in defending her territory and chasing other cats out of our yard. she’s lucky she’s never gotten a scratch on that pretty face of hers, because she has no idea what she is doing, but her size and total lack of fear has been effective. it’s just annoying to have to go through the neighbors’ house and into their yard to retrieve her!

but now she’s trying to start something with ‘foxy lady’ who lives with the other neighbors and never comes into our yard. i think arwen is just bored and looking for drama.

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bella LOVES her fort/cave!

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(above left) arwen snuggling with me in the morning. (she tends to be a bit camera-shy.)

(above right) bella sitting among the orchids (they have NEW blossoms!!) watching the morning bird show.

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in search of new thrills, arwen decided to climb onto our roof, and then the neighbors’ roof, and then the roof of the next house! she was gone for quite some time and mathew was worried we’d lose her forever. see that lump in the middle of the photo? that’s arwen finally reappearing and coming home.

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bella and arwen also made some new human friends from sweden! mathew’s aunt, uncle and cousin, bridget, mats and marja-sara. we took them on a guided architectural tour of san francisco and showed them the ferry building and the embarcadero.

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and a few days later mathew’s aunt and uncle, stella and chris flew in from england. we went for a nice walk, showed chris where we got married (he wasn’t able to attend) and had lunch at greens, the site of our wedding reception.

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we went to santa cruz to meet up with everyone including bridget’s daughter irya who flew in later.

(above right) international siblings: daniel, stella and bridget.

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we celebrated irya’s birthday twice because when you’re from sweden and visiting the states, with the time difference it’s hard to know exactly when to celebrate… or maybe we just wanted 2 cakes! (above left) this is cake #2 which appeared after breakfast.

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and somehow, when we weren’t entertaining or hosting we had time for thomas and sarah’s FANCY art deco themed wedding! (above left) photo booth photo. (above right) mathew and his buddy bob dancing during dinner. technically, the first dance, but who’s counting. the band was AWESOME and upon request, they played mathew’s fave, ‘bourbon street parade.’

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a spectacular view of the city with stella and chris.

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and a quick visit to the beach.

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and jumping! or flying? 🙂

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a windmill, daffodils, poppies and tulips at the queen wilhelmina tulip garden in golden gate park.

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and then, ANOTHER wedding!? with my parents at darren and jenny’s super hip and modern wedding.

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my younger brother justin was a groomsman for his childhood buddy darren.

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the bridesmaids at the end of the table, admiring the wedding cake. i honestly never looked at the cake because all the cookies, mini cupcakes and cake pops were much too distracting!! (and delicious!)

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and we had fun with yet another wedding photo booth. with and without props!

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i hope everyone is having as much fun this spring as we are.

maybe next month we’ll finally catch up on sleep and do some work on the house…

Fascia and Soffit

Mole says: “That’s an attractive title.” I think she’s being sarcastic.

The fascia is the finish board that is attached around the edge of the roof to cover up the framing underneath. We’ve been working on putting that onto the laundry room roof.

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This is how it looks before the fascia is installed. I had temporarily attached the gutter to the end of the rafters that stick out and support the roof overhang.

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As usual for us, we re-used old wood. This wood was the siding on the laundry room before. It’s not Redwood, but it’s old-growth Douglas Fir. The photo above left shows the condition of the paint on the wood: bad! And there was a lot of other stuff stuck to it, such as duct tape (waterproofing?) and caulk. After many hours of removing the old paint with a heat gun, though, the wood is in excellent condition.

Above right is the piece of wood that will be the fascia. I’ve routed a quarter round decorative edge into the wood. Couldn’t resist.

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To help the paint last better, we primed the boards on all sides before putting them up. This is supposed to help the wood to be more stable in changing humidity, so the paint lasts better. Above right: The fascia is attached. It looks better already. The framing is still exposed at its under side.

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At the corner, I carefully shaped the end of the board so that the decorative edge goes around the corner. Above right: Mole is the best painter there is. No drips, and perfect coverage.

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For the finish under the roof overhang, the soffit, I also reused the old wood. Most of the time is spent preparing the boards. Installing them takes relatively little time. I only have one small piece left to install. I’m leaving the gutter off for now, until after we replace the old leaky roof. But the next step is to install the trim around the windows.

Waterproofing part 2

The roofing felt and cement board do not themselves waterproof the deck. On this deck, I’m using the same material that we used in the showers: Kerdi. It’s a polyethylene sheeting that has a fibrous material bonded to both sides so that it sticks to thinset mortar.

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Here I’m sticking down the Kerdi over the cement board. Arwen is watching from the stairs.

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To stick it down, I use the same cement-based thinset mortar that’s used under the cement board, and also will be used under the tile. I spread it out with a notched trowel, and then lay the Kerdi onto it. Then I smooth the Kerdi down with a flat trowel. The problem we were having is the cement board was dry, so it was drying out the thinset mortar before I could spread the sheet down. We had to wet down the cement board with a water sprayer so that we had enough time to stick the Kerdi down properly.

Above right Bella is watching the progress.

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They both really like tiling, I think. Almost as much as plumbing (they love to sit in the shower and watch the water go down the drain.) Janeen got all the difficult parts of the waterproofing – like fitting it around a pipe penetration.

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See, another difficult spot: Mole attaching the waterproofing to the side of the building. Above right we are starting to lay out the tile grid. I drew a grid on the Kerdi before starting the actual tile.

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Here are the first tiles. Actually, it’s not tile; we’re using a very colorful slate. We really liked the variety of colors in the slate. Each piece is like a little work of art.

Unfortunately we learned, after buying it all, that this slate has a flaw: The color is made by thin layers of impurities in layers within the slate, so it tends to delaminate. We tried to pick through carefully to avoid the tiles with bad layers in them. Hopefully we caught them all.

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Mole did almost all the cutting. She became the tile-saw queen. Even got into some really complicated cuts to fit the slate tiles around pipes.

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Once all the slate was done, we let it dry for a week. Because the slate has such a rough surface, I used a pre-grouting sealer on the slate before grouting. Hopefully it will make it easier to clean the grout off the surface.

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The crocuses are already up! The bulbs we planted under the lemon tree last year have come back this year. So nice. Above right, you can see a rectangle that we left unfinished. I wanted to make a virtual doormat in front of the door, by changing the tile pattern.

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We used some ceramic tile that a friend gave me for the border (the same tile I used on the front porch as an accent tile). In the field, we just cut the same tile as on the rest of the deck to about 1/3 the size.

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Above left, this is the ‘door mat’ ready to be grouted. Because the tile is so colorful, we chose a grey grout. I had to get mole to pick out colors, because I’ve learned: I wanted to get a really colorful grout… The grey looks really good.

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Above left mole is wiping off the grout from the tile surface. Above right, after the grout dries for a couple of hours, we came back with a dry cloth and polished off the haze on the surface of the tiles.

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Mole is polishing up the ‘door mat.’ Now we can get back to finishing up the siding! Here’s a pic of Arwen and Bella looking out the window from their cat tree.