Music and Cats

I figure I could write two or three more posts about our backsplash tiling project before y’all yawn and wander off. But don’t worry! I’m not planning to test that hypothesis. One more will have to do, because tiling is just so… so… yesterday. And I mean that literally.

Last night, just before the stroke of midnight, I finished wiping the grout haze off the tile. The backsplash is done.*

Let me tell you, grout hides a multitude of sins. The slightly wonky (that’s a technical term), non-level lines of some of the tiles were accentuated by the shadowed gaps around them; grout softens the edges of the tile lines, so that inconsistencies are less noticeable. Oh, I still see the flaws (and the inconsistencies in the grout, too!), but I feel much less inclined to rip the whole thing out and start over again.

(Did I not mention that I had that very impulse last Saturday, as we were preparing to install the rest of the tile? And that I made the mistake of mentioning it to my husband, who really really REALLY wants this remodel to be done? Let’s just say that it made for a tense moment, until I reassured him that I had no intention of acting on said impulse.)

In fact, now that the grout is in, I am pleased. I think it looks good. Paul thinks it looks good. Even Bob the Builder, who does not often speak of such things, thinks it looks good.

Before we go on to another subject, just a bit more about tiling:

1. The carpenter’s adage measure twice, cut once does not apply to tiling. A more appropriate, though less pithy, adage for the tilesetter: measure twice, cut once, trowel on thinset, install tile, curse, pry off tile, clean thinset off back of tile (or start over again with new tile), cut again, retrowel thinset, install tile…
2. Flexibility is key. Sometime during the tiling process, something that you’ve carefully planned will not work out as planned. We did not plan to install a second line of shiny filler tiles in the space under the range hood. The subway tiles were supposed to come up to within 1/8″ of the bottom of the range hood, just the right size for a grout joint, without requiring cutting. (Yes, I hear you laughing.) When we finished installing the row of tiles just below those filler tiles, I decided to measure the space between that row and the range hood. The measurement that should have been 9 1/2″ was 9 11/16″. No way were we going to have a 5/16″ joint between the top tile and the range hood. So we added a row of filler tiles, which serendipitously aligned with the potfiller. Looks almost like we planned it that way!
3. Compared to thinset, grout is a breeze. Messy, yes, but easy. The entire grouting process (which I will not bore you, or myself, by describing) took five hours, including the 1 1/2 hour break between the final two steps.

So, there you have it. We have tiled, and lived to tell the tale.

* I said the backsplash was done. This is a half-truth. The backsplash on one side of the kitchen is done. This backsplash is required by code; we had to finish it before we could get our final building inspection. We will be installing a similar tile backsplash on the sink side of the kitchen, too. And we’ll be doing it soon… but not until we get a few more of those special-order shiny filler tiles. I never imagined we’d need to order 20% more than my carefully measured drawings indicated. Stop laughing. I mean it. If you don’t stop laughing, I’ll write posts about the sink backsplash, too.

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