Just Weight A Minute!

     While waiting for the hardwood flooring to breathe, we decided to pick up our tile and get started on that. There are two bathrooms with floors and showers, and the foyer in honed walnut travertine, one bathroom with shower and floor in silver travertine, and the craft room floor, dog wash, and bathroom in porcelain tile.
     We took the truck. Ed has a Ford F250 for this very purpose. We drove two hours to Portland where the tile loader-guy took a look and said "We might get half of it in." Which is what happened.  There was plenty of room, but the weight was a killer.
     Once we got home it was way too heavy for the tractor to lift out of the truck so Ed hauled it into the house four pieces at a time.
     The next day he repeated the trip, the load and the work with the rest of it.

   
 He decided to do all the shower enclosures first, and began with the dog wash/drippy coat area in the craft room. This is the least important shower in the whole house, and a good place for a refresher course.
  One of the first things we learned is that it helps to have the right tools. Our little $40. tile saw has earned it's keep and then some, but it just isn't made to cut 18" porcelain tiles. I bought a Ryobi WS750L. The 1 3/4 HP motor and 7" blade made the cutting a lot faster and cleaner.


   When he was done with this one,  he moved into the downstairs master bath. The travertine is much softer to cut than the porcelain tile, and is also crumblier. Because of the size of the shower (3x5x9) Ed is using 12" tiles for the shower , and will use 18" tiles for the floor.
   We had a bit of a tile emergency. The soap dish fell away and broke in half on impact. This meant another late afternoon trip to Lowe's for a replacement. Between driving time and store time, that's three hours. The replacement got duct taped into place.
   While Ed has been tiling, I've been making one trip after another into town for a variety of things. Closet lights, ceiling fans, but the big stressor was furniture. I spent several hours in the furniture store in Astoria obsessing over fabrics. I finally had to tell myself that the fate of the Free World did not rest on the sofa fabric....or maybe it does....
     I've also been staining the wood trim. I've put in 18 hours so far and have about half the wood stained. Once that's done I'll put two coats of varnish on everything. Then I'll do the doors.
      Friday morning our little (comparatively) cat Mittens got spooked by who-knows-what and took a flying leap off the top of the stair landing to the ground. After watching her limp all weekend, I took her to the vet this morning. She has a little broken bone in her front foot, but since cat-feet bones are really tiny, there's no remedy but rest and time. I have, however, pinpointed part of the problem. Like many of us, a slightly reduced waistline would take a load off. Unfortunately, like many of us, it seems difficult to obtain. Especially when you come upon an unsupervised all-you-can-eat buffet.