turtle + mole – Page 8 – home in progress

Hexagon Tile Patterns

I finished up the base of the shower. For the base, I switched to a 2″ square, white tile that had a flat finish, to make it less slippery. I also turned the tile 45 degrees. Because the walls are not parallel, there would be no way I could get the grout joints to line up properly.
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Once it’s grouted, the grout lines don’t show up much. I decided to stick with white grout in the shower, but for the floor, we’ll use a grey — I think.

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Then I started laying out the hexagon tile for the floor. [That makes it sound like I didn’t leave this project alone for a month…]

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We’d already decided that we are going to use black tile to make a border, or pattern of some sort in the floor tile. I like it for two reasons: First, it has more of an old Victorian decoration quality. Second, patterned borders catch your eye, and take it away from any flaws or imperfections. Deciding on a pattern, though, is not easy.

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I like the whimsical quality of the pattern above left, but is also has an animal tracks feeling…

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Then I thought: Maybe it would be nice to do a very simple border, and put a pattern in the center of the floor

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Hmmm, more on that later…

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Here’s another thought: a double border. We like it, but it uses a lot of black tile. I didn’t buy nearly enough to do this in the laundry room too. But they may exchange some sheets of the white for black.

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More ideas, trying to reduce the amount of back tile.

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After trying lots of different patterns, I started to go back to my initial pattern. Instead of running the animal tracks all the way around, how about just doing a pattern in the corner?

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Hmmm, how about a pattern in the corner, with a dotted border? No.

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The following six are my favorites.

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What happens when I get carried away with hexagon patterns?

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kauai 2014, finally!

so, it’s only taken me… FOUR months to post my photos from our family kauai trip.

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about 2 weeks after returning from our france river boat cruise, my mom and i were on another plane together, this time with mathew, my dad and brothers.

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we rented a beautiful house on the north side of the island, in princeville.

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there was a spacious lanai and beautiful views.

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we like to rent houses when we go on family vacations, so that we can cook our own meals and spend more time together. here’s my dad cooking breakfast.

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it was extremely hot and humid while we were there. and it rained A LOT. my mom was wishing we could have just a little of that rain back home in california.

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on our first full day in kauai we went snorkeling! for some reason i have no photos of us in snorkeling gear. it was a beautiful day at tunnels beach.

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guess what?! even in kauai we have a cat! my parents called him “kitty”, justin and i called him “bacon.”

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kitty/bacon was waiting outside for us every morning. this morning it was my mom’s birthday! i gave her a book i made of photos and memories from our france trip.

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days before leaving for kauai mathew and i celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. for our honeymoon we stayed on the north shore of kauai and this was our semi-private beach across the street from our cottage.

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it was semi-private because there was nowhere to park to visit the beach by car. as you can see, it still remains semi-private.

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we went a little further around the island and hiked up to view ke’e beach.

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hiking back down.

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ke’e beach.

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during our 3.5 week honeymoon mathew and i visited the “wishing well shave ice” truck almost every day! one this trip we only visited once.

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for my mom’s birthday, i planned for us to go to a luau! here we are at smith’s tropical paradise.

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too much food! 😉

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the show!

the next day i took no photos. because it rained a lot. basically any time there was water or sand i took no photos. one of these days “the kids” went kayaking.

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and then the next day it was mathew’s birthday!

guess who was there taking a nap in the morning (above left.)

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taking selfies at waimea canyon.

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if you drive from the north shore, down and around to the other side of the island, you don’t meet up with the north shore again but you reach wai’ale’ale, which has the best dragonflies!

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my family waiting for the clouds to clear to see the view. this reminds me of waiting to see the view from the marin headlands.

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the clouds cleared!

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more shave ice. not as good as wishing well but definitely more fun! and there’s wild life! (above right.)

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that evening mathew and braved the mosquitoes to visit the beach near the house. beautiful and secluded.

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the morning of our departure, kitty/bacon was there to greet us and say goodbye.

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we thought he came around because of us, but maybe this was HIS hang out first.

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our last view before the airport.

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thanks mom and dad for a beautiful family vacation. xoxo

Slow season

We are approaching my slow season (even slower) for working on the house. Training for ALC is in full swing, so I only have one weekend day to work on the house, assuming we don’t see friends or family!

But, I did finish doing the grout for the walls…

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The last tiles at the top and around the windows take a lot of time. Every tile needs to be cut, and the top tiles are not all the same size. Cutting the tiles at the sloped ceiling was tricky: I made a wood template for the angle, and held the tiles against it while I cut them. I really pushed my luck with the order, too: only 8 extra tiles. Good thing I didn’t run out (custom-made tile!)

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Above left: Before I put the tile on, I added a strip of kerdi waterproofing membrane around the wall-to-floor joint. Just in case there’s a leak in the bathroom, it won’t get into the walls. Above right, starting grouting the white tile. The grout is smeared onto the the surface with a rubber trowel, working it in diagonally to fill the cracks, and then the excess is wiped off. This leaves a haze of grout that you let dry for a couple of hours before polishing it off with a dry cloth.

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Above left, smearing the grout. Above right, wiping off the excess. Do I look like I’m having fun? My shoulder was hurting!

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Here’s what perfectionism looks like: Above left, the cuts in the tile to fit it around the top right pipe (barely visible in the photograph) bothered me so much that I chipped out the tile, and made a new one…

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Here’s the new tile installed and grouted. I’ll be the only person who will notice, but at least it won’t be bothering me now!

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While I was grouting the tile, we heard a huge thunderclap. Mole ran outside to catch a photo of the clouds. It didn’t rain here, but apparently we got some snow in the Sierras.

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More grouting action shots…

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Arwen was wondering what I was up to: “Why are you making it all smudged with white goo? I liked it better before.” Above right: The white tile after grouting.

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Here’s how the green tile looks when grouted. I took the lower photos in daylight to give a better idea of the actual colors. I think it’s looking good.

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Here are a couple of tile detail shots: Above left, I used curved base tile around the shower pan, because that joint between the wall and the floor (particularly at the corner), is really difficult to scrub. Hopefully with the curved profile, it won’t be so difficult. Above right: The niche with the two decorative fireclay tiles. I like them.

Now on to the floors…

Green Eyes

The tile continues. Most of the tile is now on the wall – save the last fiddly bits.

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I put up all the whole tiles first, then fill in the cut pieces. I’m getting quite good at cutting out the tricky tiles that go around pipes and electrical boxes. In the upper two photos, I’ve got almost all the whole pieces of tile on. Just one more row at the top, and above the windows.

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Cutting the tile to fit around the windows is quite slow work. The tile at this window took all day. I’m standing on a ladder in the photo – Mole came downstairs to check on me, because it was past 9pm and we’d not had dinner!

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The next parts to finish: the difficult sloping cuts up close to the ceiling (left), and the other window (right). I just ordered the shower door: The price was so low at overstock.com that I just couldn’t resist (less than $600 including shipping for a frameless 3/8″ thick shower door with side panel.) Hopefully it’s not junk!

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I didn’t include any photos of cats in my last post, so here’s a close-up of Arwen.

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and Bella looking at her water fountain.

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Arwen taking a nap…

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If you were a small creature in our house, this would be the last thing you would see. Where do you think Mole got the idea for the tile color?

Starting Green Tile

I finished up the white tile. The last part was much slower than I expected: Fitting up against the ceiling was really difficult on the left side, because the ceiling slopes.

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Above right is the finished tile before grouting.

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We had planned to buy one color of green tile for the remaining wall. We really liked the tile we had found, because it had some variation in the glaze, and a nice crackle in the glaze. Unfortunately, Fireclay no longer makes the color, and we’d already bought about half the tile we needed last year. So it came down to buying a selection of colors that were close, and mixing them. I was so daunted by the prospect of trying to make them look random that it took me a couple of weeks just to get started. I drew the outline of the wall on the floor of the garage, and did a layout on the floor.

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The second hiccup was that I thought I’d forgotten to install the solid wood blocking in the wall where the sink will be mounted. Without something solid to attach the sink to, the sink would fall off the wall eventually. The only options are either to build a floor mounted cabinet to support the sink, or to tear open the wall and add the blocking.

This would be my last opportunity to fix it (before the tile is installed), so I’d resigned myself to cutting the wall open, and installing the wood. Luckily, before doing that, I checked by drilling holes in the wall where I’d need to attach the sink. Apparently, probably because this project is taking me so long, I’d forgotten that I did install it, but hadn’t taken photos. Note to self: Always take photos before closing up walls! The photo above right shows where I found the wood in the wall, and a tape measure, so I will know when it’s time to drill through the tile for the sink attachment.

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Here’s the start of the green tile. I picked it up carefully, in order, from the garage floor. Then transferred it in the same order when I put it on the wall. This tile is much harder to work with than the white tile: it’s all slightly different thickness, and dimensions, so I have to be very careful to lay it out to a grid. The handy rubber tile spacers (that were so great for the white tile) don’t really help much with this tile. You can see the grid marked on the wall in the above right photo.

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There was some tricky tile cutting to fit around the electrical boxes and the pipes.

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Here it is almost up to the windows. Above left, I skipped the tile around the shower valve. Above right: I put the third decorative tile (similar to those I used in the niche) centered above where the sink will be.

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Cutting the tile to fit around the shower valve was the most difficult. In the photo above left, the tile at the lower right corner of the valve is almost completely cut away. I think I spent almost an hour cutting that one piece! I also put the window sills on (cut from the same stone that we used on the niche shelves).

The stone for the window sill is thicker than the tile, but I’d only allowed for tile thickness back when I was putting up the cement board. For the window above left, I had to grind the back of the stone shelf to get it thin enough to fit under the window, because the waterproofing was already installed. Above right, on this window, because it’s not in the shower, there’s no waterproofing membrane, so I could change the cement board to get it to fit.

I’m about half way up this wall. The green is looking good, I think. It’s probably difficult to see from the photos, but I varied the random pattern across the wall so that more of the dark green tile was on the right, and more of the light green on the left. It’s still quite varied, but I think less ‘speckled’ looking than when it was totally random…

Tile progress (turtle pace)

At long last, we ordered the tile. We waited so long, that the original color was discontinued! So now, because we already have a couple of boxes of the discontinued color, we ordered three other close shades, and will be mixing them up. More on that in a later post. We also decided, since the Fireclay tile is so expensive ($28 per square foot!!), that we’d just use that tile on the wall that’s facing the door, and use white ceramic tile ($1.30 per square foot) on the other two walls. It also is in stock (we have to wait about a month for the fancy tile to be made). Value engineering!

So I got started on the white tile. I covered about half a wall before I realized I hadn’t been thinking.

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The white tile has special spacers built into the edges, so you can lay it out with very tight gaps. It’s almost perfectly uniform, too. So I thought “great, I’ll make the grout gaps as small as possible.” Then I realized that the Fireclay tile requires a minimum gap of 1/8″ because it’s hand made and dimensionally irregular. So I need to also space the white tile to match, if I want the grout lines to match up (of course I do — you know me). Luckily I realized this before the end of the day, so I spent the rest of the day pulling tile OFF the wall, and scraping thinset off the back. One day, and I’d have got just as far by going for a bike ride!

The next time I started I decided to start with the wall had has a niche (photo above right). I’m making the shelves out of a piece of stone back-splash.

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Above right, you can see one of the decorative Fireclay tiles we got at their “boneyard” (over-runs and imperfect pieces at discount). I’m adding it as an accent in the white tile.

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After three days tiling, above right is where I’m at. All the grout lines are 1/8″ and lining up. I have to make one more shelf, and continue the tile up to the ceiling…

And I have to include a picture of Arwen. I hope you’re keeping as cozy as she is:

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oops i’m in france!

well, i’m not actually in france, now. but i was recently. it was a trip that kind of fell in my lap… my mom had been planning this river boat cruise for about a year. and a month before the trip her roommate cancelled. the trip was transferred to my dad who wasn’t interested in traveling, so i gladly stepped in and flew to france with my mom, my aunt linda, uncle joel and their friends nancy and ben.

besides the food, people and sights, my favorite part of the trip was taking photos. while i was in france i was posting photos to my facebook account every day. some of my friends said my updates were the highlight of their day! putting together a blog post is much more labor intensive, so here is a pared down collection from the trip. enjoy!

arwen and bella were sad to see me go, they did their best to keep me from packing. but i finally made it to the airport! here i am with my mom, aunt and uncle. 🙂

and here we are in france, on the cruise ship on the seine river! my mom is testing out the library before we set sail.

the view from our room the next morning. i loved the fog, colors and reflections. the view from our window was always beautiful and/or interesting.

we visited monet’s house and garden. the light, fog, sky and clouds in giverny is magical. it makes sense why artists were/are so inspired there.

during dinner that night THIS was our magical view as we floated by beautiful little villages along the seine.

the next day we took a walking tour of rouen. (above left) when i’m traveling in older cities, i always notice how different the path beneath my feet feels, the texture is part of the experience. throughout the trip i took photos of what i was standing on, in rouen the stones were laid out in curving patterns and right at this spot when i looked down, there were red rose petals. (above right) i got to introduce my mom to french macarons! i’ve been craving them ever since. luckily we have shops in san francisco dedicated to only making macarons. 🙂

my favorite part of rouen was the jeanne d’arc (joan of arc) cathedral.

i wanted to spend more time here…

such modern stained glass!

i loved the contrast of materials. we also had an excellent tour guide that day, she was funny, interesting and articulate. she said her kids gave her a dvd of “desperate housewives” so she could work on her english. 🙂 her english was very good.

the food and service on the cruise were consistently excellent. we got spoiled by the entire experience. and as the youngest passenger on the cruise i got a lot of attention from the crew and other passengers. (above left) here i am acting as assistant to our waiter gary as he tells his “hungarian three bears” story/joke. every couple of nights he’d perform some sort of story/trick/game for our table. we were definitely the loudest table in the dining room and according to gary that was a good thing! (above right) the next morning we toured jumieges abbey.

during tours we have on these “whisper” headsets so we can hear our tour guide talking without having to be clustered around them. during these tours i’m the one wandering off taking photos of random stuff. 🙂 i love chairs. i love trees. i love fog…

st. wandrille abbey.

st. wandrille abbey, inside the chapel and outside.

the fog cleared and we had a beautiful afternoon at the alabaster coast. this is my favorite photo taken that day. 🙂 the photo was taken by lita and pete, our “asian connection” friends from indiana.

(above left) sisters! (above right) i make feline friends all over the world!

instead of sand there were pebbles on this beach! they are harder to walk on but make a beautiful sound when the waves come in and flow out.

that night was the captain’s welcome dinner. but everyone, not just at our table, was wondering who is the captain? shouldn’t he be here? why haven’t we met him?

(above left) it turns out we had met him! francois was the captain who looked too young to be a captain. (above right) here we are with our favorite khay, who called everyone darling but called me “miss janeen.” i stopped going to the daily port talks so i could be the first into the dining room to reserve our table with khay!

the next day we visited honfleur.

it was a very scenic little village.

the following day we visited an american cemetery and memorial at colleville-sur-mer.

while we were there they had a ceremony to honor the war veterans in our group. a lot of people said this day was the highlight and the reason they wanted to come on this cruise.

omaha beach memorial.

a selfie taken on my mom’s camera. i took a photo of her camera screen. see, it’s low on battery…

the notre dame cathedral in bayeux. one of our guides told us when in doubt, notre dame is a safe name guess for any cathedral.

beautiful hydrangeas outside the bayeux tapestry museum. inside we viewed a 225 foot embroidered scroll stitched in 1067 but were not allowed to take photos of it.

more lovely morning fog. traveling towards les andelys.

i ran into our travel companions, nancy and ben doing laps on the upper deck. we took a selfie!

i found our captain francois and got an impromptu river boat sailing lesson! when the river is this foggy and you can’t see much of anything, radar is used to guide the boat.

les andelys in the distance. there’s a castle hiding in the fog on the far right.

how quickly the fog clears! walking through les andelys…

walking through les andelys… (above right) our cruise director was impressed that 60 people (out of our 134 passengers) chose to walk up the hill to see the castle and view.

the view from the top! our cruise ship docked on the right.

(above left) selfie with mom. (above right) going into the castle, château-gaillard. the view was much more impressive than the castle. i’m afraid i started tuning out our tour guide’s voice…

walking back to our cruise ship for lunch. i looked forward to every meal on the ship!

after lunch i went on a bike ride with scott, “the other kid” passenger on the cruise (he was 54 and traveling with his dad.) the cruise ship has bikes and helmets we can borrow. all my training in san francisco made me fearless on les andelys streets!

we saw the church (not a cathedral) in the village. guess what it’s called… la collégiale notre-dame des andelys.

i was drawn to the amazing graffiti art on the front of this school.

we made it back from our bike ride in time for the galley tour. it’s impressive what these chefs could do in this kitchen downstairs. and every meal gets carried upstairs on giant trays by the wait staff.

and then we had tea time!

that evening we left the ship to have dinner on land. but first the tour buses stopped at the top of the hill so the other 74 passengers (who didn’t walk up) could see the view from the top. i thought it was interesting to watch as the senior passengers of 3 giant tour buses emptied out onto the hillside.

the view.

at la grand de bourgoult there were snobby cats! and a gorgeous view, which i didn’t get a good photo of because i was too busy trying to make feline friends.

the traditional entertainment at la grand de bourgoult. we started with drinks and appetizers outside.

the setting, inside and out, was beautiful and impressive but i found the food and service just slightly less than what we’d grown accustomed to on the ship!

earlier in the day a passenger had wondered if i was 16! someone at our dinner table thought i was engaged and this would make a lovely setting for my wedding. i had to break it to them that i’ll be celebrating my 12th wedding anniversary in october. 🙂

a dramatic morning sky as we sailed towards conflans-saints-honorine.

inside the chateau at versailles!

(above left) a versailles restoration. (above right) viewing the room through a mirror.

selfie in the versailles garden.

that night was the “secret” (they forgot to officially tell us) captain’s farewell dinner. the menu included a baked cheese salad, cauliflower soup, lobster and baked alaska for dessert.

a group photo of our table with our favorites, khay and gary! i enjoyed the company and every meal we shared in the dining room. we had some good laughs and conversations. and on the last few days ben (far left) started telling jokes and riddles!

after dinner that night i finally went to listen to music in the lounge. i’d never gone before because i’d been so sleep deprived adjusting to the time zone. the local visiting singer was cheesy but quite talented and entertaining. he liked to invite passengers to come up and dance and i eventually got dragged up there with scott and two other passengers to perform a tarantella, which none of us really knew how to do! around 10:30 we all headed out to the deck to sail into paris and catch a first night time glimpse of the eiffel tower with the mini statue of liberty.

and the next morning my mom got to see the eiffel tower up close for the first time in her life!

the notre dame cathedral in paris.

(above left) my mom told me to pick out a shirt for myself and i picked a kids shirt! “super parisien!” cute, huh? (above right) the pyramids downstairs at the louvre.

a selfie downstairs at the louvre with auntie linda and my mom! right after this, a couple of fellow passengers asked me how to set their phones to take selfies. 🙂 selfies definitely take some practice…

finally inside the louvre.

the nike of samothrace, the winged victory. i wrote an essay about this sculpture when i was an art student! our tour guide was talking about how “nike” means (goddess of) victory and how appropriate this was for an athletic shoe company. then she asked who was wearing nikes and my mom was the only one. victory for mom!

i love the contrast of this super clean, modern architecture with the super ornate rooms. i don’t know much about the louvre but it felt like a cleansing of the visual palette.

it’s mind blowing to think that people created every tiny detail.

during our tour of the louvre, we really only had time to see select highlights. this included the mona lisa. there was a huge crush of people taking photos of her. i pushed forward, quickly took my photo then walked away, wishing i could have spent just a few minutes with her. i’m pretty sure this is NOT how one should view and appreciate art…

because we had such limited time, i never got to see the louvre from the outside. (we were brought their by tour buses, deposited in the downstairs garage and began and ended our tour from there.) so this was my only glimpse of the famous pyramid outside. but maybe this isn’t such a bad perspective, knowing how much i like contrasting styles and materials. 😉

that night, our last dinner on the ship, we were feeling a bit sad that the trip was almost over. (above left) mom and me with igor the executive chef. (above right) one last photo with our favorites, khay and gary.

that night scott (the other “kid”) and i took a walk down the street to see the eiffel tower. it gets lit up and sparkly for 5 minutes every hour but i think i like it more this way. this is more classic, more calm, less spazzy.

the next morning we were up EARLY. our luggage was outside of our room at 5 am. we ate our last breakfast in the dining room at 5:30 and were on the shuttle bus to the airport at 6. once we were checked in for our flight we visited the rest room and i thought, “even the rest rooms are awesome in the charles de gaulle airport!!”

and here’s a photo looking down the uphill people mover. awesome, again! there’s definitely a beauty and style about paris and france that i will miss.

this was an amazing trip for me. and it was even more amazing that i could share it with my mom. now i’m wondering if we can go on more trips like this together?? these luxury river boat cruises have trips all over the world. i could easily get used to this kind of travel. 🙂

Kerdi Shower

I finally started doing the Kerdi waterproofing membrane on the shower. I’m always talking about it with people, so I tried to document the process a bit.

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Above left, I’m test fitting the piece that will be used in the base of the shower. I’ve cut it so that it turns up 2″ around all the edges, and laps over the curb. It’s a simple circular cutout at the drain, because the special drain flange bonds directly to the membrane. Above right, I’m wetting the cement board and mortar bed so that all the moisture doesn’t get sucked out of the thinset. I trowelled the thinset mortar onto the cement board and base, then laid the membrane on top.

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The membrane is carefully pressed into the thinset mortar (the waterproofing membrane has a fleece-like surface on both sides, so the thinset bonds to it). I use a wide putty knife (above left). An important point is you must use unmodified thinset mortar: The modified thinset mortars do not set up or cure between two layers of waterproofing membrane – that would be total disaster.

Above right I’ve installed the membrane onto the left wall also. At the base, I run the membrane over the top of the 2″ that laps up the sides. You can see a patch I had to put on the wall: I accidentally poked a hole into it while smoothing it (corner of the trowel dug in and tore a notch). The membrane is quite strong, but you have to be careful if the surface under the membrane is uneven.

I like to work from the base up, because I like the idea of the membrane layering over the piece below, but apparently it’s not necessary. The difficulty with the way I do it, is the bottom piece has to be carefully protected while I’m working on the sides.

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Here’s a bit more of the process. I’ve troweled the thinset on the wall above left, then laid the kerdi membrane on and flattened it (above right).

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Above left I’ve put the membrane on the right wall, and above right shows the waterproofing at the window. I’ve lapped it a bit onto the window frame, so that I can seal that joint. I don’t want water seeping between the edge of the membrane and the window frame. I’ll also add silicone caulk when I tile it, but apparently the thinset mortar will adhere to the vinyl window ok.

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Totally unrelated, but I liked this Dilbert cartoon: Reminds me of someone I know.

Restoring a door

A few months ago (in my last post) — well, that was six months! — I started restoring the door that I was planning to put into the laundry room. Hmm, so riding my bike got in the way, and I stopped working on the house for quite some time! Very enjoyable.

Back to work:

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Above left I’m clamping pieces of redwood (the door is old growth redwood) to the sides of the door to slightly increase the width and height. Above right, I’m test-fitting in the pocket door opening.

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I also bought an old, beautiful brass door lock from building resources. The old door hardware is more difficult to install than the new hardware. I had to hand carve out a mortice to fit the lock.

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And then July Fourth came along… Harrison street was again a war zone of fireworks: Exciting for humans, but terrifying for Arwen and Bella. We put their “thunder shirts” on. They look a bit peeved, but it did help to calm them down a bit.

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Not that they were totally calm… but at least they weren’t hiding under the couch!

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Here’s the door ready to be stained (left) and stained (right). Still need to put polyurethane on it.

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Right next to the door, in the laundry room, is a sink. I made a cabinet that will hold the sink, and be wall-hung. None of the walls are perpendicular, so it took some trial and error to get the cabinet the right shape. I stained it with the same stain used on the door. It came out close (a bit lighter) because it’s fir, not redwood.

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