Kathy and Calvin's Home Page

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14

It's Monday, February 14th, and the tile guys are getting started. I negotiated a great price for installation of the hardibacker, tile setting, and grouting. We decided to tile the entire house except for the stairwell, done in maple, and the basement, done in stylish grey cement.

It took a couple days to clean the plywood, dry, and put down the hardibacker:

By the 16th, they start laying the tile. I wanted tile that was super hard, looked almost natural, and was cheap, cheap, cheap. I found it: Italian porcelain that had enough variation in it to almost look terra cotta. I then wanted to vary it so that it didn't look like a Shoening house. I picked a pattern that required 11 tiles to make a single pattern. Oh boy. Those guys had the cheat sheet in front of them the whole time.

Here's Kyle lovingly laying a tile:

The kitchen is layed but not grouted:

Some grout action going on:

Here is the undried and uncleaned grout:

In the middle of laying tile, I have the cultured stone guys come in a do their thing with the bathtub surround. We decide on cultured because there are no grout lines to clean and it is custom fit. Plus we get to properly enclose the window in the bathtub area: