I guess I'm not a very good blogger.
Anyway its been side track after sidetrack. First there was that crazy October snow storm and two full weeks of clean up. We lost a lot of branches. Halloween kept us distracted from the kitchen, as did our fall leaf clean up. Then last weekend we finally finished our move. We had a basement and garage full of stuff left up in Bloomfield and we finally rented a u-haul and got it done.
So what have we accomplished in the kitchen? Here and there we managed to do some work. The cabinet doors are all on, the new pulls screwed in and most of the back splash is up (but not grouted yet.)
Here is how it looks.
The only part of back splash that isn't done yet is the part behind the stove. There is a bit of a story to why. It actually was done at one point and we had to take it down.
When I went to get thin set for the tiles the guy at home depot talked me into buying this...
It is like double sided tape for tile back splash. It was really really easy to put up the mat on the wall. It was easy to cut to the right size and it stuck really well. No mixing, and you didn't have a limited amount of time before drying like you would with thin set.
The tricky part is actually putting the tile up. Our tiles are penny round on a 12 inch square mesh. If we were using subway tile or individual square tile it would have been perfect. Since the mesh is flexible you have to line up several spots before you press it on to the glue. Once you press it on it is stuck. There is no adjusting. Thin set would have been more forgiving with tile adjustment.
So I was putting the tiles up while Steve was at work and Ev was napping. One mesh sheet of tiles didn't quite line up right. I tried to make adjustments as I went and continued putting up tile. It was a mess, not level and unevenly spaced. So we had to rip the whole thing down. Luckily we have enough spare mat and tile to replace it. We have to sand the drywall seal it with primer and try again.
Then we can finally grout the tile!
Once that is done we have to finish getting the wallpaper off and then we can paint.
I'm thinking that our goal of getting this done by Christmas was a good choice. We've slowed down significantly. Working on the kitchen all weekend every weekend and every night after Ev's bedtime got to be too much after a while.
Its not done yet but it looks like a totally different room!
