Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Long Dead Tile Project Revived

The upstairs bathroom had it's counters replaced and sinks as well as new faucets set some many years ago. The plan had been to create a new bathroom facility w/o a tub but with a shower tiled floor to ceiling. All a great plan, and we started. Along the way towards mid-point we stopped to go away to Europe and that was the end of it, 7 long years ago. So "we" (me) have restarted the project now that the little house project is nearing completion. Yesterday I removed the now aged faucet from my sink (yes it has a his and hers sink arrangement) and began the labors of Hercules by chipping out (the word REMOVAL doesn't adequately describe it) bit by well adhered bit, the two affected tiles from the back on the sink. Then the new faucet can be mounted properly with two new tiles sans holes. The cuts though are oval in shape and not the easiest to achieve with even an advanced tile saw. I gought a pair of scroll saw blades that are coated in tungstun carbine hoping they can achieve the necessary cuts, Thanks ACE HARDWARE! Now we have done a LOT of tile work both here and in France to our own homes, thousands of square feet actually and love the end results but sometimes there are problems and difficulties that wear us down to a full stop. The chipping out of these tiles from the well adhered thinset underneath is just such a project as it the cutting of odd shapes. Against this charge is the fact of having exactly 4 whole tiles to work with as they have neatly gone out of production of this size and color. Fun. So this work has to be done carefully to say the least or else we are going to be in full stop again. I DID get the offending old tiles with the three holes in them removed after bashing the hell out of them with a hammer and cold chisel. That done I tackled the replacement install this morning. We shall see. Oh yes, here's a link to a This Old House video of the basic cuts needed to do MOST (but, of course, not ALL) tile jobs.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid823433173/bclid823361889/bctid823321811