Crash course in tiling

Oh, what a weekend. Our friend Mark came over on Saturday and stayed for a very brave 12 hours to help Kevin with the first leg of the bathroom tiling project. They got a crash course in laying subway tiles in a small space with lots of corners and edges, and ended up getting about half of the wall tiles cut and glued to the walls with Mastick. About halfway through the day, I made a run to Lowe’s and got enough black subway tiles to add a line of them through the middle, which I think looks pretty darned sharp.

Sunday, Kevin worked his ass off for another 12 hours, this time mostly by himself, to get the rest of the wall tiles up and the hex tiles laid on the floor. He didn’t finish the last of it until about 3am, and since the Mastick needs 24 hours to cure before grouting, we’re going to have to put off that part of the process until tomorrow. I’m secretly glad, because Kevin needs the break. My poor dear barely slept last night after we got home, although I did treat him to a backrub before bed. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do something productive tonight but still let him take it easy. I’ve got some angst to share, but first, pictures:

While Kevin and Mark worked tiling over the weekend, I sort of haphazardly flitted from bedroom to bedroom, trying to get painting done and not really accomplishing much of anything. I did manage to get everything but the corners and trim painted in the master bedroom, I got the first coat of paint on the trim in the guest bedroom, and I painted the trim in my craft room (Valspar actually changed the name of the paint I picked out in the previous post to “Swiss Coffee”, so it ended up matching the Behr paint name exactly! Weird.). That might sound like a lot, but it’s really not, and I feel really bad about it.

I have two reasons for not getting much accomplished: 1) I had a blinding headache for several hours on Sunday, making it almost impossible to look upwards or bend over or do just about anything, and this could be attributed to any number of factors, including breathing in too many paint fumes (It’s too cold to open windows, so our ventilation sucks right now); and 2) I really fucking hate painting. I love picking out paint colors, but when it comes down to it, painting is a series of crappy little monotonous detail jobs that I hate. I have no idea how to overcome this to get the job done. At around 9pm on Sunday, Kevin’s brother Kris came over and got to work spackling, painting, and helping Kevin lay the floor tiles. Meanwhile, I gave up on painting and completely scrubbed out our new fridge and cleaned up the kitchen and living room, which I found really enjoyable. The kitchen looks like crap, but at least it’s clean!

On the docket for the rest of this week: grout bathroom, install bathroom fixtures, paint living room, paint hallway, paint stairwell, finish painting master bedroom, finish painting craft room, finish painting guest bedroom, paint bathroom, MOVE. After that, we’ve got the rest of the month to clean the old rental house and get ourselves situated. Oh, and fit Christmas and NYE in there, as well. Busy times.

Any advice on just getting over the paint roadblock? Or should I leave that to the boys and figure out other things to accomplish?

Is it too early to start dreaming up designs?

The thing is, I’m almost finished painting my craft room, and now I’m getting excited about the finishing touches. Should I even really be worrying about finishing touches until the other major projects are done and I’m at least moved in? I don’t think I can help it. Here’s what I’m working with now:

This is a better representation of the wall color

And this is a better representation of the current trim color, not yet painted

Ashley from The Vertical House used this color in her bedroom, and I fell in love with it (Valspar’s “Grand Hotel Mackinac Blue”, found at Lowe’s). She also suggested Behr’s “Swiss Coffee” for the trim, but to get Behr paint I’d have to drive all the way to Cedar Rapids to Home Depot. Instead, I found a comparable color in Valspar’s paint lines, “Sawyer White”. Here they are together:

The white looks a little dirty here, but in example images, it looked lovely, nice and warm and not too stark. Rah! And then there are always window treatments to think of. I’m thinking single-panel curtains, either with tab tops and wall hooks to sweep them aside, or else pocket panel curtains with ribbon tied to keep them in check, like the ones in Nicole’s kitchen over at Making It Lovely.

Here are some possibilities from Reprodepot and Sew Mama Sew for curtain fabrics.

What do you think?

We’re tired

As illustrated here by Kevin:

I think we’re both getting a little punch-drunk about all the work that we’ve already done, as well as all of the stuff that we still need to do. We cleaned an ocean of garbage and ruined non-garbage out of the house, gutted the basement and upstairs bathroom, made countless trips to the dump, and helped his dad move out of the house, and now that we’re officially at least halfway to the move-in line, we’re starting to poop out a little. Our deadline for having things livable enough to move in is January 1st, which is only 13 days away. Less than a full two weeks. That’s kinda scary.

Kevin has almost finished prepping the bathroom for tile, which was probably the hardest part of the job. Between punching holes in concrete board and sanding everything flat, it’s almost ready to go, and tiling will take place for most of the day on Saturday, with grouting to be done on Sunday. Here are some progress photos:

Last night, while the ice storm raged, we both worked on painting the guest bedroom, a room I unfortunately forgot to take “before” pictures of. It looked a little like a cave, with dark brown shaggy carpet, dark blue walls, and oddly pink windows. We’re going bright white for now as a fresh start, and it’ll probably be rethought near the end of our renovations (sorry, guests!). Here’s what it looked like after two coats of “high hide white” paint last night:

Tonight will be all about finishing the prep on the bathroom, slapping another coat of white on the bedroom if it’s cured enough, cleaning out our new fridge, and washing and prepping the living room to be painted. Maybe with a trip to Lowe’s thrown in there for good measure.