Return to Start Page

I took Thursday off from work this week with the intention of attending a Butterfield Ward Youth Conference.  The plan was for our ward to take all of the youth (young men and women ages 12+) on a trip.  They were leaving Thursday morning bound for the catwalks in New Mexico.  They were going to play there for a while and then head up to Alpine and stay in the cabins at the Girls Camp.  Then on Friday they were to go hike Mt. Baldy and play in the Little Colorado river.  Then on Saturday they were going to canoe around Luna Lake.  They were to be home around 5:00 Saturday evening. As luck would have it, on Wednesday when we were making the food preparations for the trip, my services were not needed.  So, since I had already taken the day off, I used the new found time to continue my working on the house.  Terra told me that I cannot work on the Jeep until the house is done, so here is to my new motivation.

I took Thursday morning and removed the remaining tile and Sheetrock around the stove.  After removing it, I replaced the hole with some cement board.  Then added some filler material to level the grove.  The cement board is 1/2" thick, but those measurements are nominal and the industry keeps making items skinner and skinner to save them money and hurt the consumer with materials that are sub-standard. Also there was the extra mud on the wall from the tape and texture and I needed the gap to be close to level.

Then I spent the afternoon starting to install some tile. The picture above is how it looked at the end of the first day.  I decided to use a metal trim piece and had to run to get material.  That took about 3.5 hours out of the middle of the day, but since it needed to be present prior to the tile, I had no other option.

The second day (Friday) was spent installing the rest of the backslash tile.  The small tiles that we selected to use proved tricky to work with.  Both cutting them, and spacing them on the wall was a real trick.  The black tiles were glass and I only ended up with two cuts on my fingers after the installation was complete.

You will notice the top cupboard doors are all missing the doors.  Terra has been staining them.  Our kitchen has been in varying states of repair ever since we decided to start working on it.  It is still in a varying state of repair, and probably will be until I get to work on the jeep.

The third day (Saturday) I removed all of the spacers and grouted the tile.  Grouting the tile wasn't as hard as I thought it would be given the skinny grout spaces.  I went with 1/16" spacers.  I like the skinny grout lines.

You may notice all of the light switches and outlets dangling around the counter.  I kept thinking I should kill the power to them, but the light was very helpful while installing the tile so I left them live. Shockingly enough I was only zapped once while installing the tile and never did I trip one of the breakers.  That is simply amazing - for I was sure I would be resetting them throughout the job.

This was the last view of the tile prior to grout.  I kept taking pictures, so I just as well post them.

This is what it looked like just after the grout was installed.  My shoulder is a tad sore from all of the forcing the grout into the groves, and I suspect I will feel it in the morning.

After the grout, I installed the electrical outlets and switches again.

You will notice that one of the outlets is at a different elevation than the rest.  This is the outlet that we couldn't move up any further.  The exterior wall is cement and foam.  There were grooves cut in the foam and electrical lines ran in it.  Then spray foamed over to keep them in place prior to the installation of the Sheetrock.  We stretched this one up as high as it would go and after moving it up about 5 inches, we ran out of electrical line.  So it stayed at this place.  The two electrical boxes on the west wall were also moved up, but we made them the same height as the rest. I debated about just eliminating the odd outlet, but hey, one just cannot have too many outlets in any room.

Here is how it stands now.  It is still missing a few doors (stain is not dry), but other than that, it is functional again. Now I just need another weekend and I can do the same thing to the wall behind and around the stove.

Also, the last Saturday in July, the 28th, is Landen's Baptism.  If you would like to attend you are welcome to.  I believe the time is 11:00 am.

Return to Start Page