Long Day on Saturday

I woke up at 6:30 AM on Saturday. It was cloudy and overcast, but not raining at that time. I went through my usual routine and then got ready to go get my haircut (which is two weeks late).

After my haircut, I went to Target for another one of those memory foam bath mats (I love those things). I have a gray one in the main bath, a blue one next to my bed and now a tan one for the downstairs bath. I asked if they carried shower heads (it would save me a trip to Home Depot if they did) and a store worker said, “Yes, but only a few.” He explained where to go (he offered to take me there but I declined) and I checked it out. I found one that I thought might work. It was a name brand (Moen) but still all plastic.

Then I got back home, treated the cats and tried installing the shower head. BTW, the sun had come out briefly.

The adapter and shower head went on pretty easy. But I could not get the wand hose to stop leaking at either end. I tried adding another washer, but that cut off the water flow! Frustrated, it finally dawned on me that the old wand was still good, so I put it on the new shower head. Bingo!

I moved the bath chair downstairs. I’ll test it all tomorrow and see if I like it.

The sun was still out so I went outside and picked up the trash in the back garden. Before I went out, I started this week’s dishwasher load. I took the rubber off the bottoms of the two cat water dishes and put them in as well (to both clean and sanitize them).

I realized I couldn’t get to the all trash with the way some of the bushes had overgrown (I couldn’t trim them back last fall, my back hurt too much). So, first I cut back all the bushes and even a few thin tree limbs with my pruning snips. Then I filled a garbage bag with trash and took it in the house.

I went back out with the bow saw to get some of the thicker branches. I also took my camera this time so I could get you that photo of the peonies. I sawed through the thicker branches and now most of the bushes and trees are where I want them (they still could use a few snips here and there).

I checked out the clematis on the back arbor and it was in bloom, but for some reason, all the flowers are facing the street, not the back patio, this year. So, I walked around out front and took a picture of those for you as well.

This sunshine is really messing with my ToDo list, because everything I had planned was for indoors. Its also messing up all the rain I need (there was only 1/2 inch in the rain gauge this morning when I looked).

But, I’m trying to be flexible. I downloaded the pictures from the camera, downsized them and posted them, so I could take more if necessary. I need to get one of those larger memory chips and put it in the camera. B___ can take like 300 pictures with his modified digital camera. I can take like five and then it says the internal memory is full. I just haven’t got around to that yet.

It finally started to get cloudy again and I was sweaty and tired. So I changed clothes, made a cup of coffee (I called it lunch) and took a break after I threw a load of laundry in the washer (towels mostly, my outside work clothes and the little hairy rug from Caley’s cat-o-matic bed basket). I had another cup of coffee watching TV with my brace off.

The taped movie (Chisum with John Wayne) ended just before 4:00 PM. I reluctantly got up, put on my brace, dealt with the clothes in the dryer and started moving stuff out of the kitchen.

I know my neighbor’s home boys said they would replace my kitchen tiles, and they did a great job painting the living room, but I don’t want to spend the money to pay them to do it. So, inspired by hours of watching DIY shows and probably from drinking way too much coffee, I decided to do it myself.

The chairs and the rolling cart went into the office. The table got pushed close to the hutch and the refrigerator was rolled next to the table and plugged into the wall socket.

Then I swept and mopped the floor (the tiles under the fridge were particularly disgusting!). [Note to self: After the new tile goes in, roll out the fridge and wash under it occasionally.] When it dried, I started demo.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the favorite part of any project for me is the demo. You get to tear shit up! In this case, however, I was very gentle removing the quarter round molding I had stained and put in the hall and behind the fridge. Fortunately, I never got around to staining and installing the quarter round on the bead board walls.

The original quarter round under and on the fridge-side end of the cabinets was another matter. When our landlady Adrianna and her Italian-speaking parents put down the new kitchen tile (I happened to be there that day), they just butted it up to that molding. But, I want it out!

So, using my big razor knife, I cut a line at the top of the quarter round (easy on the fridge end, but not easy under the base cabinet’s toe kick). That helps you from trashing the paint on the cabinet parts you don’t want to tear up. Then I had to wiggle a pry bar in and slowly pry up and out. More than half the time, this just resulted in the molding breaking at the next nail and the process started all over again.

My goal for today was to get the first three rows of tile (starting from the hallway) installed. That would allow me to roll the fridge back into place.

The hardest part of removing the original quarter round molding was pulling the nails. There wasn’t room to get the back of a claw hammer in there, so I had to grab each one with a pair of channel locks and twist and turn until it loosened enough to come out. But, all the original molding (including under the pantry) was completely removed and the mess swept up by 6:30 PM.

I almost quit at that point. After all, I had been lying either on my back or my stomach, with the damn brace digging into me, for 2 1/2 hours straight. But, I thought I’d try just the first row, since each tile has to be cut for that one. You know, just to see how much trouble this was going to be...

So, I measured and cut seven tiles. Then I got an extension cord plugged into that heat gun I bought and got my painter’s knife. I had been told by someone who had done this before that a putty knife (my first thought) was too flexible to pry up glued down tile. I was also told that I’d have to throw away the painter’s knife afterwards because of the glue buildup.

I had thought I could cut the tile with my kitchen shears (you know, the kind you can bone a chicken with) but that didn’t work. So, I cut them with the razor knife. This took a lot longer but gave a much cleaner cut and a better edge.

So, I heated up the first old tile and slowly popped it off using the painter’s knife. The first thing I noticed was that the old and new tiles were NOT the same size! I measured and, sure enough, the new 12 x 12 inch tiles are really 11 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches. Is everything in construction not as big as it used to be???

A storm blew in (and I do mean BLEW in) at 7:30 PM. Leaves, patio furniture and everything was moving around. But, at least it’s raining, and that’s good. Well, maybe not. It was still windy as hell, but not raining at all 15 minutes later.

Once I had that first row cut, the whole tiles went a lot easier. So, I just kept going and, about 8:45 PM, I could put the fridge back where it belonged and I did. The two small tiles next to the cabinet didn’t seem to want to stick, so I put a 10 pound dumbbell on top of them and left it overnight.

Only one tile really gave me a problem. It was the one that goes on the side of the pocket door. It had curves and straight lines, so I used the band saw to cut it. I ended up cutting it three times (I was afraid I’d cut it too much, so I kept cutting it too little.

I was going to cut and install the aluminum transitions for the hallway and the living room but it was almost 9:30, I was beat and I was hungry. So, that’s where I stopped.

I re-sized the photos I’d taken and then went out to the kitchen. I reheated the last two brats and ate them and my evening pills for dinner, watching TV. Either all the coffee or the pain kept me awake until almost midnight.