turtle + mole

mathew spent the first part of the day doing woodworking and paint prep in the bedroom. as the sun started setting we got to work on more tile.

mathew cut solid slabs of travertine into shower shelves and figured out how to round and polish the cut edges. he did all of the cutting and i laid most of the tile.

we worked on the bathroom for 6 hours saturday night (!) but in the end it was really satisfying to be almost done with the tile and shower.

for fun we often conceptualize t-shirts for people. “i’m with grumpy” is what my t-shirt usually says…

the day started out nice enough. a sunny mission district day. mathew put the final coat of plaster on the ceiling. i stripped paint off of wainscoting.

and then i started putting up tile (which started out stressful!) just to my right mathew was putting up more kerdi-membrane (which was also stressful.) so we’re working in this tiny space, tripping over each other, making messes and having difficulties. at one point mathew said, “i’m putting up this piece of wood and it might fall on you.” um, thanks?

luckily tile cutting worked out great. my dad loaned us his tile cutter and it was able to cut our 1″ travertine tile expertly, even really thin pieces weren’t a problem. thanks dad!

mathew finished sanding the bedroom ceiling and walls; they are now ready for paint! and instead of feeling like he’d accomplished something he said he felt like we wasted the weekend. huh? i beg to differ, we’re ready for paint and look! there’s tile!

here we’re trying to decide what to do with the shower curb, cut tiny travertine, cut green tiles or cut-to-fit solid travertine (not shown.) and mathew just needed to be fed, with a full tummy he’s now upstairs finishing up the kerdi-membrane. now i will have no more excuses for not working on that tile…

mathew spent leap day shopping for supplies and working on bathroom wainscoting.

i did tile prep which included math, more math, and drawing out lines on the wall (which are very faint in this photo.) and now that mole is back working upstairs it means lots of random photos just because i think they’re pretty! like a blue window with orange kerdi-membrane.

or flourescent orange chalk line dust (cheeto dust.) or pretty and compostable wood shavings…

not much happening here. i pottered around upstairs this weekend, looked at things, stripped some paint off the wainscote boards, and got back into bed:

it may not look like much, but all that paint, glue and spackle takes about 10 min per foot to remove from each piece. and when your nose is running, it’s difficult (and messy) wearing a respirator.

i also got the head and side casing cleaned up, and attached at the bathroom door (above right). the side casing is the same wood shown in the first photo of last week’s post, after stripping about 1/8″ of paint. it is beautiful tight grained smooth old wood (where it doesn’t have nail holes and dents).

i also finally finished painting the (hopefully repaired) leaky mouldy window, patched a couple of roof leaks from the last storm, cleaned out some gutters. sorry, no photos yet – maybe next post.

i’ve been on a bit of a grump about jm recently: not only did janeen miss a weekend to go on his ‘make money for jm’ cruise trip (nope, it wasn’t even a benefit), but when she came back she’s been sick! now i’m sick too, so not much has been happening around here.

last weekend, i was realizing just how slow it is to try to reuse wood. We have the old wood, covered in paint, chipped and dented with holes in it from nails. Then we need to strip it down to the wood to make sure there are no nails hiding in there that could become projectiles when i cut the wood or shape it with the router. Then we need to sand it, and fill all the dents and scratches. then sand again. then prime. aiiieee!

above left shows the wainscote in the bathroom with most of the paint stripped off it. i’m not sure if we’ll bother to strip it all off, because the left side will be behind the vanity (which i still need to make). On the right, i’ve started to install the door jambs. it took me a long time. the wall framing is not necessarily perfectly vertical, so the door jambs are shimmed away from it with wedge-shaped pieces of wood. I kept shimming the jambs, checking for level with the plumb bob (a heavy pointed metal piece attached to the end of a string), and then accidentally bumping them. there’s probably a better way.

Now this part feels like progress: To waterproof the shower, we are using a special waterproofing membrane made by schluter-kerdi that has a bondable surface so you can apply the tile directly to it. I like it because it keeps all the water out of the shower backing. Traditional showers have a layer of mortar over the top of the waterproofing membrane; the mortar never completely dries out between showers: mold. Although we used cement backer board everywhere, apparently this stuff allows you to use plaster (gypsum) board. On the left i’m putting in the bottom piece. it goes in quite easily: you press it down against a layer of thinset mortar. There’s also a special drain with a really wide flange that also has a bondable surface. The kerdi membrane adheres to this also. on the right, half the shower is covered. almost ready to tile.