Tiling and more tiling

This week was all about tiling. Tiling of floors and tiling of the bathroom. We nearly finished too, but for the failure of grey goo to dry out. Let me explain. Each day this week we laid a few more tiles, Sparks and Dad working well as a good team. Dad mixed tile adhesive for Sparks, who spread it around into mini ploughed fields with the comb/spreader and laid the tiles. Dad cut any out that needed cutting, to Sparks's measurements. For each room, the next day Dad would pull up the tile spacers, Sparks smeared down the grout and one or the other would follow behind sponge-ing up the spare grout and towelling the tiles clean. In this way they proceeded through the house completing all the downstairs floors and the window sills, the sills also getting their chrome edging strips to set them off.

Sparks also tiled the bathroom but there's less space in there so he prefers to work alone wrangling complex shapes around windows and the 'hot press'. Dad only got involved in that right at the end when the boys were racing to finish at gone 8pm on the Thursday (they regularly work 11 and 12 hour days, 8 till 8, stopping only for 20 minute bacon-buttie or soup breaks at 11am and 3pm-ish). The plan was to finish the wall tiling in there, then spread self levelling compound (very runny 'cement') on the floor so that on Friday they could grout the walls and lay floor tiles. Unfortunately the self levelling grey goo did not dry over night so no-one could get in there Friday and the boys had to seek entertainment else where.

It looks lovely. We love the continuous runs of sandstone coloured tiles you can see, bringing the house together, stretching from front door to kitchen and from far left (Living Room) to far right (Dining Room). We love the way the tiles bounce light back up into the room once it has come in through the rather low-set windows and likewise the way the tiles in the window sills bounce light in and up. We love how the pale colour makes the whole house lighter. When we first set foot in the place all the dark wood , dingy patterned near-black lino, dirty windows and dying net curtains made the house seem very dark and neglected. The new light is part of our waking the house up, making it live again and feel all loved. We hope. Sounds silly? Well, not to us. The bathroom is going to be SO POSH too!

Deefs