Now that the cabinets are all built, with the exception of doors and drawers, we are back to doing the miserable work of tiling.  At least this time it is wall tile which is MUCH less physically demanding than floor tile.

Tina is also into her busy season of finishing.  As I mentioned last week, we got most of the case moulding, but she also has to finish the last of the cabinets.

The vanity for the guest bathroom really came out good.  It has the full 4 coats of varnish on it.

The grain on the top is really starting to show well also.

As of this picture, Tina still has one more coat to do.

She also has been working on the moulding for the doors.

She is about 1/4 of the way through the skinny vertical pieces.  She is not doing the horizontal pieces until I cut them as there will be end grain that needs to be finished for each door and since we decided to do “cowboy” style moulding on the interior doors it is easier for Tina to finish them after I cut them.

The joinery for the mouldings looks really simple, but it is actually more difficult than doing a standard 45 degree mitre because any length on the side pieces that is off or any mitre that is off 90 degrees, even the slightest, shows up badly.  Even though it looks simple, this is a really tricky joint to get right.

Then you get into the “modified” cowboy joint…

I only got 3 sets of the vertical cowboy mouldings hung today.  Those suckers are a bugger to do!  Most mouldings are 1/8″ thick on the inside and 1/2″ thick on the outside.  So if you need to bend them to keep them straight, it is not a big deal.  Then moulding we are using are 5/8″ thick on both the inside and the outside, so they are a monster to bend.  It was not fun at all.

I also got all of the wall tile done in the guest bathroom.  I started with a bullnose that we are using instead of wood baseboard.

It is actually the same color as the floor tile.  I am not sure why it looks dark gray in the picture.

Then it was on to the walls.

The trim piece around the middle is actually a mix of granite and glass.  The tiles come on a sheet that is 12 X 14 inches.

These things are an absolute nightmare to cut!  First, they require a special blade for the wetsaw, which cost me $65.  Second, even with the special blade, the glass has a tendency to chip and the granite shatters.  The only way I found to be able to reliably cut them without them exploding and sending shrapnel all over is to wrap them in 2-3 layers of blue tape before cutting them.

Even then, I had to feed them into the wetsaw extremely slowly.  The trim strip you see in the photo is about 5 inches tall.  The fastest I was able to cut reliably was by taking over a minute to make each 5 inch cut.

I think Tina’s idea of changing the orientation of the tiles on the top and bottom of the trim line makes it look a lot more interesting.

Doing around the window was especially bothersome, partially because I forgot about it when we bought the tile and did not buy enough bullnose and partially because it was just a tedious task.

On Saturday, we went back to the tile store in Tucson and got the tile for the master bathroom.

These should at least go faster than the tiles in the guest bathroom since these tiles are 8 X 20 inches.  But you will also notice on the top of the pile is another box and a half of bloody glass trim tiles!  GRRR!!!

They do not make a bullnose in either of the tiles we are using for the walls, so we have to use an extruded aluminum piece called Schluter for the finished edge.

For whatever reason, I have a mental block on the name Schluter.  Unless it is written down in front of me, I cannot remember the name.

While we were in the tile store on Saturday, after we had picked out the 3 different tiles, the grout, the different thin-sets we need for each different tile, etc., I looked at the sales-gal and said, completely innocently: “Now we need to see what you have for wide sphincter”.

It took me a second to realize what I had said.  I felt terrible for the poor sales-gal.  She was about 24 or 25 and just stood there looking at me with her mouth agape and completely red faced.  Another salesman, who was assisting our sals-gal because she was new, was doubled over laughing.  Of course I apologized profusely and once they figured out what I was talking about we got our Schluter, tile and other stuff and left.

Needless to say, it has been a fun week at M.T. Acres.