Another major milestone!

After two long weeks, I bid farewell to our tiler, Sean, on March 2nd. In the end, tiling our irregularly-shaped shower was complicated enough that the job took him fully twice as long as he had anticipated. I certainly didn't mind, though - he did a fabulous job and I'm very pleased indeed with the results! Here's a link to Sean's website:  http://www.tile-with-style.co.uk/

You may be surprised to learn that it was only today, almost a month later, that we reached the major milestone of being able to run our new shower for the first time. It turned out that (as usual!) there was a complication... this time, it was the fact that our limestone tiles turned out to be extremely porous indeed. Sean applied 2 coats of sealant, as promised, but even then, he explained, the tiles weren't fully sealed. This meant that they weren't fully impervious to water, and so he strongly recommended that we didn't run the shower until we had applied enough coats of sealant to make the tiles fully water-resistent. Thus began my journey into the world of tile porosity and sealant types...

It took me about a week to research different types of sealant to find out what, if anything, would be compatible with the sealant Sean had already applied; in the end, I decided to just get the same stuff he had used, although I had to order that online. I also had to learn how to tell when the job would be done, so I would know when to stop sealing. It's actually fairly straightforward: if water forms little beads when you splash some on the tile, you know it's sitting on the surface and not being absorbed.

But by the time I had gotten to the stage where the sealant had been delivered, the applicator purchased, and the knowledge gained, I was off on a week's holiday to see my parents. And I knew André would be back just five days after I returned to London myself, so naturally I decided that he'd do a better job sealing the limestone than I would!

André sealing the Limestone

But finally, 25 days after the tiling was completed, we reveled in our ability to run our new shower in our beautifully tiled new bathroom. A HUGE milestone!! And a long-awaited one... as the last big milestone we hit was turning on the heat, back in October. All that remains to be done in the bathroom now is to build the ceiling, add the vanity and sink, hang the mirrors and install the glass shower door... but in the meantime, at least we can now use the shower!

The tiled shower!

The shower floor

Montage of the tiled bathroom - eventually there will be mirrors over the plywood walls

Colours!!

I was a bit nervous about the tiling job being finished without André around to oversee things - we've spent an enormous amount of time and effort on this bathroom, and André is a total perfectionist! But it seems to be going well so far. I'm at work during the day, so coming home Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and seeing the gradual transformation of the bathroom as Sean (our tiler) nears the finish line is quite an experience.

The bathroom floor nearing completion

My major contribution has involved colours. Now, if you think about colours in the context of a home-building/renovation project, you'd most likely think of something fun, like choosing paint or tile colours. I had to spend hours yesterday colour-matching – but I was working with grout!

With all the tiling finally finished, Sean now needs to seal the tiles, apply grout, and then seal them again. Grout, for those who are not familiar with it (and I wasn't, at all, until 24 hours ago!) is the stuff that goes in between tiles that seals the joints and makes them waterproof. Normal, bog-standard grout is white, but André had decided that we needed to match the grout colour to our tiles so that it would look right. I hadn't even known that grout came in different colours, but even I could see that white grout would look terrible with the tiles we're having installed.

Grout samples: colors straight out of the bag

For the limestone, it was easy. We bought Mapei Ultracolour grout in "medium grey", and saw straight away that it was going to be a good match. The slate, though, proved to be highly problematic. We bought a bag of a colour called "terra sienna" but found that it was too light, and too orange-y. We thought that Mapei's "brown" would be perfect – but we couldn't find it anywhere in London. Apparently because brown grout is not a product that people ask for very often, none of the suppliers we checked with had it in stock, and we'd have to order many bags in order for them to do a special order. In any case, we'd need about a week for it to arrive if we went the special-order route - and Sean was planning to do the grouting today, Thursday. The next closest colour was "chocolate brown", but that turned out to be too dark.

Early mixed sample...too orange-y

I thought that under the circumstances we'd just use the grey for the slate as well (Sean's suggestion), since the overall colour scheme would work. But André was determined to get everything to match (that perfectionist thing again...!). So, I got up early and spent an hour before going to work yesterday mixing up little test batches of grout (you just mix the powder with water), combining the different colours in various proportions to try and get something that would match the slate! I'm no colour theorist, so it wasn't easy – plus, I'm not a morning person…

Another sample...getting closer, but this one is too dark

I applied the various test batches to several tile offcuts, left them to dry, and went to work. But when I got home in the evening, I discovered that none of them really matched perfectly. I took pictures of the samples and emailed them to André, who was not pleased *at all* with the results. So, I spent the rest of the night - actually, until 1.30am! - doing more colour combinations and test batches. Finally, *finally*, I figured out that the magic combination was 25% "terra sienna", 25% grey and 50% brown.

The "Magic" Combination!

This morning I got up early again, as Sean (who I suspect thought we were a little crazy for taking this much trouble over grout - he said he'd never seen anyone do such a thing!) did not want to be liable for mixing the colour himself. (He did the first coat of sealant yesterday, so today he was ready to start grouting.) So before he started his work for the day, I mixed up a big batch up the magic colour and left him to it...

Mixing the final batch of grout

Tiling: Bathroom Walls (Day 8)

Having worked all weekend relocating the door and finishing the prep of the walls and floors for tiles, the bathroom was ready for Sean (our tiler) when he walked in on Monday morning.

Morning of Feb 27th - the wood batten is set for holding the tiles above.

Similar to how he started the shower, Sean set a wooden batten at the base of the 2nd row on the wall in order to hold the tiles. By locating and leveling the batten perfectly, it provides a stable and accurate foundation for the walls, and later, once the tiles are set, and the floor is tiled, he can go in and tile the gap precisely. This is one of those great tricks one can learn watching a professional -- if it was not done this way, I can now see that there could be inaccuracies that would be visible. Setting such large tiles is an extremely unforgiving task...I'm now really thankful that "Aglaya" talked me out of doing the tiling myself!

Late morning - most of the wall is finished.

After Sean finished the shower, it was amazing to see how fast he could work with just straight walls and full tiles -  in just a few hours he had finished one of the walls and had started the other. These walls are all in limestone - which is a beautiful but soft stone - and they are intended to provide a more neutral background against the bold color of the slate.

Turning the corner onto the final wall. You can see the red line of the laser level on the left side

By 1pm Sean had completed half of the final wall.

While Sean was working on the walls, I was resetting the loo's push-button flusher - it's wall mounted and had to be properly fixed to the wall before the tiles go over it. This was the last thing I did before heading to the airport...now it's up to "Aglaya" to finish overseeing Sean's work!

The mostly completed shower (with the laser level mounted on a pole)

Bathroom:Waterproofing the floor

The final push to finish the bathroom waterproofing has come down to today, which is a Sunday - my flight back to NYC is late tomorrow afternoon, so anything I need to do has to get done by the end of the day today.

 This will include affixing the waterproof tile backer boards (Marmox boards) to the walls and floor that will be tiled (outside of the shower). These are the final bits of waterproofing, and this will allow our tiler (Sean) to complete his work. Since I'm leaving tomorrow and he's still going, it's become apparent that his work will (unfortunately) only be finished after I've gone. This makes the perfectionist/architect in me nervous, but I've seen over the past week that Sean is very meticulous and we've spent a lot of time going over all the details and issues...so hopefully it will be OK. But "Aglaya" is going to have to step up and take charge after tomorrow!

Marmox boards lining the bathroom walls

Once the waterproofing on the bathroom walls had dried for 24 hours, I was able to apply the waterproof tile backer boards (Marmox boards) Sunday afternoon. Similar to the shower, after the boards are fixed to the waterproofed plywood, the joints are sealed with a waterproof silicone bead, followed by waterproof tape.

After removing the loo

After the walls were completed, it was time to focus on the floor - I had been nervous about this, as it involved removing our loo (toilet) in order to fully waterproof the floor below. Fortunately it went relatively smoothly and was easy to remove (with a little help from "Aglaya").

The plywood under the loo waterproofed, and the 1st batch of flexible tile adhesive ready to go

With the loo out of the way, I quickly applied the waterproof membrane to the plywood and after it was dry enough (could not wait the 24 hours this time!), I prepped for putting the Marmox boards on the floor. This involved pre-cutting all the boards so they would fit, and then mixing smaller buckets of the tile adhesive.

The first batch of the flexible tile adhesive spread out on the floor

It's worth pointing out here that I had ordered a special type of tile adhesive for the floors. Wood joists with a plywood sub-floor are not the best base for tile because they have a tendency to subtly move due to expansions/contractions in the heat/cold. In an old Victorian building like ours, movement could even be caused by large truck driving by outseide. These very small  movements have a tendency to make tiles -- or the grout lines between them -- crack, so one has to minimize the possibility of movement, while still accommodating for some movement. Here I had fixed the plywood with as many screws as possible to make the subfloor as rigid as it could be, and will then apply a flexible tile adhesive that is designed to go over wood subfloors. The adhesive will fasten the Marmox boards to the floor (minimizing the transfer of any vibrations or movement) while the Marmox board itself will provide a very rigid and inflexible base for the tile. The hope is that this carefully thought out system will minimize any cracking of our large, beautiful limestone tiles...

The 1st Marmox board in place on the floor - using some sacks to hold down the boards in a few areas

Yours truly placing the 2nd Marmox board in place

Spreading the next batch of adhesive

A close-up view of the adhesive - one uses a notched trowel so the adhesive grabs the boards better

Mixing smaller amount of the adhesive made it easier to work with, and within two hours I had all of the Marmox boards in place. Similar to the walls, beads of silicone are placed bewteen the joints, and then taped over with a waterproof tape.

The silicone between the joints (on the left); the silicone covered by waterproof tape (on the right)

After the work is completed, the loo is fixed back in place

By the end of the day (10pm!) the bathroom floors and walls were completed, and ready for the tiler to carry on with his work in the morning...