July 17 -- Tiles 'R Us

Pretty soon (if not already) you'll be tired of reading about tiles. It's become like my biking -- a project to be completed. I'll have to change the title of the blog to "life after tiles".

It was a beautiful day yesterday. Early on I did some cleanup work in the basement and more work on the closet -- installed the shelves that I had ripped and cut the day before. I have one more to cut though because it was 1/4" too long -- measurement error ? perhaps -- I forgot to take into account the fact that the little pegs that go in the pre-drilled holes actually take some room.

Enough's enough -- time for a bike ride. A good west-to-east headwind meant that I would fly back, so I headed for highway 69. A few miles out a big bug flew into one of my helmet vents and even though I knew it was harmless my reaction was quick -- rip off helmet, which of course sent my sunglasses flying -- and the dragonfly or large moth, whatever it was, flew off -- better than squiggling around in my hair ! (which by the way, desperately needs cutting). As I am walking back the 20 feet to get my glasses by the side of the road along comes Jason in his van with Lorraine and Kim. They are headed home to Brantford and seeing me walking wondered if I needed assistance ... no, not this time. When I do there won't be anyone around !

Back home Sandy informs me that she heard from Timbr Mart in Port Loring that the tiles have arrived -- great !! Finally !!! I had lunch and then checked the owner's manual for the X5 to see how much weight I could carry according to spec -- 1400 pounds -- not bad. I also checked online and found a similar stat. 1400 pounds, by the way, is over and above driver and full tank of gas -- what they call "curb weight". I wonder how heavy their driver is ????

So ... into town I go. My objective is to get enough tiles to keep me going for at least a day, but I was unsure how they were packaged. Timbr Mart, by the way, is doing me a favour by taking delivery and storing the tiles. The truck would only deliver to a) a business and b) someone with a fork lift.

Long story short, I made two trips -- 20 boxes of tiles the first time and 21 boxes the second time. There are now 54 boxes still left at Timbr Mart. The total consignment, according to the weigh-bill, is 4653 pounds. The average tile weight is 12 1/4 pounds, better than the 15-16 that I was expecting based on the sample which was mounted on a heavy cardboard holder. 21 boxes of tiles comes to just over 1000 pounds -- well within the maxiumum recommended gross vehicle weight. The X5 was a bit bouncy, given the weight distribution and the rough country road, but not too bad.

I put the first load in the barn and drove the car down to the lower part of the driveway and brought the second load into the house by hand. That was tiring, walking up and down the hill, up and down the hill ... and I'd already moved these tiles once. There are 4 tiles per box, so each box clocks in just under 50 pounds -- not too bad -- I was worried that there might be 6 or 7 tiles per box.

Sandy and Kylie got back from kayaking while I was unloading and Sandy helped carry a few boxes down. They went for a long trip down to the ESS Narrows and back -- just unde 4 miles. That's pretty good for Kylie (and Sandy). Kayaking is hard work.

Sandy and I then spent 1/2 hour or so laying out tiles on the floor to see where they would end up, in reality, vs doors, walls, the toilet ... -- it all works out fairly well. The tiles are slightly longer than I expected -- the 18" tiles that I installed in the bedroom were 18" including 1/4" grout line. These 20" tiles will be 20 3/8" including grout line. There will be some variance, of course, but I've got a good starting point planned.

We ate outside -- wild salmon, zucchini from the garden, rice, mosquitoes -- a few of those. Unfortunately the barbecue attracts the mosquitoes -- carbon dioxide -- CO2 -- is one of the main attractors for mosquitoes (that's how they find us ... we breathe) and of course burning propane produces a lot of CO2. Many of the high-end mosquito traps that they sell these days emit CO2 as their "bait" -- either through burning propane or actual cylinders of CO2.

Perhaps we should all stop breathing -- a) the mosquitoes won't find us and b) we won't be contributing to global warming !!!

It's dawn on the 18th -- windless, whisps of fog on the lake since the air is cooler than the water in the a.m. -- sun on the trees with that morning reddish glow -- goldfinches mobbing the bird feeder ... calm before the ... tiling -- which will be my main activity for the next few days. Today I'll be laying full sized tiles and will have a better feel for how long this will take me.

After the tiles there are doors to be hung -- which are delayed it seems. Steve called yesterday (from Timbr Mart) to say that apparently the factory in Quebec shuts down for 2 weeks and our doors missed this delivery -- but he's trying to hunt down at least a couple so that I can close the new bathroom and the bedroom. If they don't arrive it will not be a big deal. We have plenty of bathrooms already, but it would have been nice to have the one in the basement operational. Steve may come up with them yet. I'll know more later today.

Udo is supposed to drop by this evening and look over what he has to do staining the stairs. His plan is to work Friday and into the weekend.

Time for breakfast for Abby and me ... and then down to the basement I go.

Cheers.