This Damn House

There are numerous sites on the web that will provide a "how to" on any sort of home repair topic. But how many will give you a "how not to"?

Here at This Damn House we lament this gap in information, and herewith do our part to fill it.

When recaulking a tub, do not...:

• use cheap caulk, unless you love caulking so much you want to do it over and over and over again (I now swear by GE Silicone)
  
• use "easy to use" caulk tubes instead of a caulk gun
  
• forget that even when you release the trigger on the caulk gun, the caulk will continue to ooze out, thereby covering your bathroom floor in a gooey pile of silicone while you are carefully examining your completed work
  
• be fat extra voluptuous, lest the moaning and groaning you'll do when you climb in and out of the tub 532 times prompt your family to call 911 because they think you have had a stroke
  

When repainting a bathroom, do not...

• use a cheap paintbrush that leaves a trail of paint brush bristles where ever it goes
  
• fail to realize that mildew-resistant bathroom paint contains nasty, toxic, smelly mildewcidal chemicals that will give you a rip-roaring headache in 5 minutes flat
  
• have a bathroom with no windows
  
• do the painting on a 98 degree day, thereby requiring you to have to choose between opening the windows in the attached bedroom (to release the headache-blasted mildewcidal toxic mayhem) or keep them closed (to keep in the heaven sent blessed coolness from your central AC)
  

• visit your wife while she's just putting the final touches on the second coat of paint and nigh unto death from toxic mildewcidal mayhem and point out spots that really ought to have been more thoroughly sanded before painting, and suggest that further sanding and a third coat of paint might be in order

You know that old saying "Measure once, cut twice?"

Yeah. Don't do that.

It started innocently enough.

Having mostly finished Bathroom #1, and having had excellent success repairing the water damage in Bathroom #2, I decided tonight after work to get started on the rest of the work in Bathroom #2, by stripping the wallpaper and taking care of any sanding that needed doing, in preparation for painting tomorrow evening.

|

I certainly knew there was mold in spots, so I was prepared with my tilex, my sandpaper, my bleach and my fungicidal paint.

What I was not prepared for was that when I took off the strip of wallpaper next to the shower, a three inch chunk of wet, moldy sheetrock would come right with it. A little finger and screwdriver poking revealed an entire chunk of wall that was really...not.

While I was down on my knees performing a wallectomy, I noticed that the subfloor under the tiles was also...not so much. So I ripped up the relevent tiles. (The previous owner was nice enough to make the moldy strip be a separate piece of flooring for easy removal. Wasn't that nice?)

The next sheet of wallpaper I pulled down showed a touch of mold...

...and when I poked it with my finger, my finger went through.

One hour, a crowbar, a whole lot of rusty screws and a big honkin pile of debris later, I now have this:

This was, to say the least, not the plan. Especially because on Monday our tub is being reglazed, so that bathroom will be out of comission for 48-72 hours.

So now the timer is ticking on this job...

When re-tiling a bathroom, here are some things not to do:

• buy 13 inch tiles and a 12 inch tile cutter
  
• buy pre-mixed mortar, lest you discover halfway through your project, at 9PM on Sunday, after all the hardware stores have closed, while you are up to your elbows in wet cement, that your last gallon of pre-mixed mortar is also conveniently pre-set. In the bucket.
  
• decide that a $40 mixing paddle is a silly indulgence for the 1 gallon of (non-pre-mixed) mortar (which you just acquired on Monday morning), so you'll use your hands
  
• if you do decide to mix the mortar with your hands, do not be lured into a false sense of security just because it is a lot like mixing cookie dough, and therefore it would be silly to wear gloves...else you will discover that mortar will, in fact, set on skin and fingernails. (and hair, in case you were wondering) Oh, and just because it feels like cookie dough, do not be tempted to lick your finger
  
• if your non-pre-mixed mortar looks and feels like Play-Doh after mixing instead of pudding...for the love of God, add more water before you start using it
  
• ...and speaking of gloves, if you get a pre-blister "hot spot" on your thumb after 15 minutes of using the evil tile nipper, and you ask your husband to bring your work gloves, and he says he can't find them, do not say "Eh, don't worry about it, I've only got a couple more tiles to nip, I doubt I'll get a blister that fast."
  
• put those little white plastic tile spacer thingies on the floor between the tiles. Yes, they have four corners, and therefore it is tempting to think they go in the corners between four tiles. But they don't. You place one little poke-y part between TWO tiles and leave the other little poke-y part poking up, so you can easily remove them when it comes time to grout
  
• take a break from cleaning up grout (which, in case you were wondering, starts to set in about 30 minutes) for dinner and putting the kids to bed
  

On the other hand, I did find color-coordinated grout and caulk. The color? DeLorean Gray. How cool is that?

It didn't take me long this morning to run into my first snag.

The problem:

Dagnabit. I knew I should have gotten that 19 inch tile cutter. "You should really get the 19 inch tile cutter" I said to myself. "But my tiles are only 13 inches wide," I answer, "and the 19 inch tile cutter is nearly twice as much." "Well...okay, I guess," I grudgingly concede.

Failing, of course, to realize that after the bathroom project, I would eventually end up doing the kitchen, with its non-right angles.

...The solution:

Cut the tiles in half. Now I have 6.5 inch tiles instead of 13. Works like a charm.

And now, time for a lunch break.

Yes I look straight, but looks can be deceiving.

You think you know me so well. We've lived together for 10 years. You walk through me a dozen times a day. You cook your meals here, wash your dishes. You visit me in the morning to get your coffee, and late at night for a midnight snack. And all along you've never thought to ask whether I'm straight, never measured me, you just assumed.

If you do that, you find out the hard way when your assumptions prove false.

PS: Don't assume the tile cutter is straight, either. Sure, it looks like it cuts at a 90 degree angle, but how can you be sure it isn't 89.5, or 91?