July 18-19 -- 90 down

90 tiles of course. That doesn't sound like much, does it ? -- 41 yesterday and 49 today -- 259 square feet total. That covers the center of the basement walk-out to the bottom of the stairs and the entranceway to the games room. There is a full tile + part of a tile around that entire perimeter -- easier to do when the center area is walkable, i.e. after 48 hours. Tomorrow I'll start working at the bottom of the stairs to the bathroom, but I have to leave space for Udo to work on the stairs -- he's starting tomorrow.

It's slow going, but I'm not surprised. The 18x18 tiles in the bedroom were much easier because they are lighter weight and because I was using the 1/4" trowel on those tiles. In the rest of the area, with heavier traffic and larger tiles, I'm using the trowel with 1/2" notches. As a result I'm only getting about 10 tiles per 50 pounds of mortar -- about 8 tiles per batch that I mix.

Sandy and Kylie did some painting yesterday -- base coat on the boathouse door and primer on the galvanized brackets on the deck posts. Today they went into Sudbury to pick up paint for the bedroom, bathroom and entranceway areas. Last night with the new tiles spread all over Sandy worked with her colour chips and picked the paint colours -- everything must be done in order !

It rained again today ... surprise ! Here in the northern tropics it rains every day.