July 2-3 -- cleanup & prep

Sounds exciting doesn't it ? -- cleanup is a necessary evil. Perhaps I should refer to it as prep time -- that is future looking as opposed to cleanup, which is past looking ...

Anyway -- major tile laying is about to begin. The tiles for the bedroom, the same tiles as the darkroom, are supposed to be in Sudbury Tuesday -- the plan is that Sandy will pick them up on Wednesday. I need to get ready which includes making space and laying the Ditra.

So ... I'll start the day off with a quiet activity, since Sandy is still sleeping. I moved all of the "stuff" from the common area to the games room. Boxes of books etc. -- boy does that hand truck save the back. The boxes are still in the same "truckable" piles that I arranged when I moved everything from the bedroom, so it goes relatively quickly -- but still takes a couple of hours of organizing.

Next I need to finish up the stairs. It is a reasonable hour to start using the saw so I moved everything outside -- table saw and miter saw -- and cut a slice from the 4x6 pine (which used to be a 4x8), setup the Dado and make the shoe rail. After fitting the new shoe rail I then cut the remainder of the pickets and spacers that I'll need for the handrail installation -- and set them aside because Sandy will stain all those first. The only thing that I'll need to do is cut a final couple of spacers for the last picket.

I'm left with 100 pickets -- Jason is going to use some (but doesn't need 50 feet worth of pickets) so I repackage them so that I can move them to the barn. I have other wood stacked in the bedroom -- trim that I'll keep in the house because I'll be using it shortly along with plywood etc. that I don't have an immediate use for.

Time for lunch ... and a break. It's over 70 degrees and practically windless -- great day for a ride. For variety I rode into Port Loring, stopping past the main part of town to chat with Udo -- our painter -- who is in his yard working on a new entranceway to his house. He is truly in a hole and digging himself deeper ! He has not nailed down when he'll be at our place to stain the stairs but it will be soon. I told him that we were ready to go. Heading back the wind has picked up, in my face naturally, and helps provide a workout.

Back home -- time to finish the cleanup -- this is where the ATC comes in handy -- I nade about 6 trips from the basement to the barn / garage / truck with wood, trash etc. Not only was I moving the "to be used later" lumber from the bedroom, but there was an assortment of drywall scraps etc. that I had been accumulating just outside the sliding glass doors. The ATC is a useful workhorse, even helping move the air compressor from the basement to the garage.

As a final bit of cleanup I also moved the last pile of lumber by the driveway -- 2x6's and plywood pieces that were used during the construction. I have use for some of the 2x6's (eg. the small section of deck that I built the day before) -- so these are not scrap per se, but moved over to the old lumber pile on the outskirts of the property. I will need some help cleaning up that area -- will wait until David, Aaron and Jeffrey are here. There is a pile of fencing and a number of other weighty items that I'll never need and should go to the dump. Not today though ... enough is enough !

So ... other than a few pieces of trim etc. on the floor of the bedroom, I'm all ready for the Ditra which I plan to tackle Tuesday. It's time for a shower and to check on Jason to see how his work is going. It's also time for a cold one.

By the time we get over there, Jason has finished up and is making dinner -- they invited us over and we accepted. Spagetti with home-made sauce is hard to pass up ! We relaxed on the deck for a while then eat -- our contributions are the wine and hot sauce.

Today's plan is fairly simple -- lay Ditra. It is supposed to rain so it will be an indoor day, no biking likely.

When I laid the subfloor I had not paid close attention to the Ditra instructions (being a later step) which specified that plywood underlay should have 1/8" gaps for expansion/contraction. Most of the plywood is fairly tightly butted so, even though it is probably overkill in this area, I'll create expansion joints in the floor by using the circular saw to cut 1/8" gaps. For the bedroom area, for instance, I'll do a lengthwise and widthwise cut with the saw cut depth set at 1/2" so that it will cut the plywood but not the DRIcore. It won't take long, but will create dust and noise so it will have to wait until Sandy is awake.

Prior to that I can layout the Ditra and cut to size. The room is roughly 11x19 so it will take 4 strips of Ditra running lengthwise since the Ditra is 3'3" wide. I'll be mixing and troweling lots of thinset today. I can already imagine how my back will feel from the troweling, but I'd better get used to it since laying tile will take even more time.

One of the things that I find a puzzle about this 1/8" business is that those gaps will fill with thinset and be even more rigid than the plywood itself. I will go back and look at the instructions but don't remember anything about filling them. As I was typing here I thought of a solution -- after cutting those 1/8" gaps I'll caulk them. Caulking retains flexibility and will allow for expansion/contraction and stop the joints from being filled with thinset.

That's it for now ... wish me luck as I head into this phase.