fifi’s graffiti

As you can see, I’ve made some progress on my bathroom project. I set most of the field tiles on the wall above the broad side of the tub last weekend. I left space for a grab-bar and a soap dish and I still have a vertical row on the left and a partial row along the bottom which require the tiles to be trimmed to size. Today I will be learning how to use my new tile cutter and tile nippers to accomplish that.

I got this tile at Lowe’s for a darn good price. It’s “Cayman Dolphin” by Portobello and I think it was probably both the cheapest and nicest-looking tile they had. I think when I bought them they were said to be made of recycled materials, which made me like them even more, but I can’t find any mention of that on the current websites. The tile came in 3×3 inch squares attached by plastic spacers to form a larger 12×12 square. This is my first attempt at setting tile and I thought it would be easier to set fewer big squares than a bunch of little ones. It was still quite a bit of work to trowel on the mortar and get it evenly thick on the wall. Then when I set the tiles I had to pound them with a rubber mallet to get them to sink down deep into the mortar and I found in many places I had put way too much mortar on and it squeezed out between the joints. I spent a lot of time wiping away the excess and that is a very messy job. I was glad I had laid a sheet of plastic in the tub and had a lot of old towels on hand. Even though the tiles were in big squares it wasn’t that easy to keep even spaces between them while keeping them level. I had penciled lines on the cement board per many instructions I had downloaded from the net to help me line up the tiles but when you trowel on the mortar you can’t see the lines anymore. I need to write somebody and ask how they are able to see through the mortar.

These jobs are never as easy as they look!!!!
I’m still pretty happy with the results so far and I think once they’re grouted the tiles will be stunning.