June 23 -- work on the tile has begun

The days go by very quickly. It's amazing. It never seems like you did very much on the first day of a project because of all the "thinking time" at the front end.

Yesterday was typical - I wanted to get started on the Ditra, but first I wanted to see how the tile would work, spacing-wise, in the darkroom. I laid out a T of tiles on the floor, front to back and side to side, to see where I should start and where I would end -- basically where I would have to cut tiles vs where I wanted to cut tiles. The 18 inch "starter tiles" work out well in that room. It will only take 32 tiles, giving me 3 spares for bad cuts, since I have 35. I want to cut tiles in the doorway, so that any little bit of "off-squareness" (how's that for a word) will be invisible, and keep tiles square to the wall to minimize cuts. I could have had a tile square to the doorway but then would be doing a little cutting off each tile -- that works too, I'll make that final decision on Sunday as I start laying tile.

Oh -- I'm going to mention at this point that if you don't want to read technical details then you should find someone else's blog to read ... but you probably know that already if you have been reading my blogs ... I think that I'm writing all this stuff so that later on I can look back and see what the heck I did with all my time and how the heck I did certain things ... (and why the heck ...)

I discovered that I could have planned the doorway a little better. If it had been further to the left then the right-hand side would have been able to accomodate a standard sized vanity cupboard on your right as you enter the room, with the fridge underneath.

Here are some of the constraints and considerations, if you can visualize them --

-- the darkroom sink is 4 feet wide and 36" deep (deeper than a normal countertop)
-- the enlarger is 32" deep (also deeper than a normal countertop)
-- the room is 6x12 -- actually only 6x12 for 4.5 feet in the middle (where the sink goes)
-- I would normally have the little fridge underneath a counter which also supports the enlarger --
-- it's useful to have some drawers, therefore a pre-packaged vanity is useful, vs only having shelves ...

Anyway -- I then remembered that I put the door where it is for a reason -- I wanted the one foot space behind it for shelves there too -- so it is what it is and has no bearing on the tiling job ... except that if I'm going to have some tiles under a vanity, then that is where I want to do my cuts ... or perhaps I'll get good enough at cutting tiles that it will not matter where I put cuts ?

So -- as you can see, I spent a fair amount of time just "worrying at" the layout of the furniture in this small room, then "worrying at" the layout of the tiles, then I finally stretched out and cut a piece of the Ditra, starting at the far left corner and ending in the doorway. The room is fairly square so I only had to make a cut at the doorway. At the doorway though, there is a 1/8" variance from one side to the other if I keep the tiles square to the wall -- which will disappear in the middle of an 18" tile.

I then mixed up some of the thinset mortar -- the latex modified stuff. That's what goes down between the fleece side of the Ditra and the plywood on the subfloor. I thought that I had made it thin enough but found as I started to work the Ditra into it with a wood float that it was too thick underneath. You trowel it onto the plywood and then use a wood float on top of the Ditra to ensure that the Ditra fleece is embedded into and adheres to the mortar. I was also just getting used to this, did not know coverage and process, so that strip of Ditra went slowly -- two batches of mortar and about six successive troweled sections of mortar, gradually unrolling the Ditra out onto the fresh mortar then working it into the Ditra a section at a time.

So -- this one section of Ditra, 3'x12' probably took me 2.5 hours to get down. I cleaned up the edges and left it -- the result was good (I think) but the process was slow. I expected as much from the first go at it.

I learned a few things -- a) make the mortar thinner below the Ditra; b) mix the mortar outside -- the dust from scooping it into the pail is not easy on the lungs; c) make fewer batches of mortar per strip of Ditra (one would be ideal); d) cleanup is slow and you want to keep going once you're going.

Time for a break. I got cleaned up cleaned the tools. I then attached the Bayliner boat trailer to the SUV and Sandy and I headed down to the ESS Narrows boat launch. Launching was quick and easy plus I had already run the engine the day before, so I headed back to the cottage (with Abby) by water and Sandy drove back. Of course I beat her -- I'm travelling 40+ mph and she's on the road, which is winding, travelling more slowly. I parked the boat and met her at the top of the driveway, undid the trailer and moved it elsewhere on the property with the ATC.

Meanwhile Sandy headed into Port Loring -- she wanted to get there before the post office closes (1pm on Saturday) because she was expecting some of her Fosamax calcium prescription which Trish was mailing up from New Smyrna Beach. The prescription did arrive.

I reinstalled the electric winch in its bracket and replaced the battery winch in the boathouse. I was going to pull the Bayliner into the boathouse ... but wait, let's go for a ride first, so Abby and I took a trip down to the dam. It's still there, the dam that is. Of course if it was not there we wouldn't have much lake to speak of ...

I decided to cut and mortar the other strip of Ditra to complete the room. Not wanting to walk on the existing strip, although it's probably ok, I put a couple of pieces of plywood on top to distribute my walking weight. This time I was much more efficient -- cut the Ditra (this one is an odd shape), mix one batch of mortar, thin enough (could have been a tad thicker I suppose), trowel the complete area, lay the Ditra and float it. The entire process took a little more than an hour.

Now that I'm getting the hang of it, I could probably Ditra an entire room (eg the bedroom) in a day ... easily --

-- cut all the strips, set them aside
-- mark the floor so I know where the strips end
-- mix up a full pail of mortar
-- trowel 1/2 a length
-- unroll Ditra on mortar, float the section
-- trowel the remaining 1/2 length
-- unroll the rest of the strip and float that section
-- move onto the next strip.

The bedroom, for example, is just short of 11' wide, so it would only require 4 strips. The only messy cutting would be at the end with the double closet. I can get some of the Ditra laid before the tiles arrive -- areas that we will not be walking on and that I won't be carrying tile over -- eg. the bedroom and the bathroom. I will probably move all the boxes etc. that are now in the open area into the games room, since I really want to tile the open area, the bedroom and the bathroom before the gang is here the first weekend of August.


Once back from town Sandy worked in the garden and I did some other puttering around and then since it looked like it was going to rain and because there was no wind, I started the fire at the burn pile. I attached a hose and kept the area watered down while it burned. Naturally it took longer to burn than I expected -- I had forgotten that there was a lot of wood there from the tree that fell during the winter -- so Sandy had to keep an eye on the fire for me.

Time for a shower ... and for me to go into town ... Mass is at 4:30 on Saturdays in Port Loring during the summer. My Uncle Phil and Aunt Ruth were at Mass, without any of their gang, and we stood outside and chatted for a while afterwards. I had not seen then since we visited their place in Florida, many months ago. They've invited us over for dinner after Mass next Saturday since their entire gang will be up -- a zoo, Aunt Ruth promises. "I don't know what or when or if you'll eat, but ..." (not her exact words, but to that effect).

Pike for dinner ... mmm sooo good on the barbie ... I really should have picked up my fishing license and get out in the mornings for 1/2 hour and bring home some fresh fish. Sounds easy, doesn't it ? It's never that easy and never a sure thing.