02/02/2008 The latest in Construction Zone

So this is the latest. We had a week slow down due to waiting for some materials, and I was sick & not feeling like having someone working in my house. Well as of Friday we had all the rubber underlayment (you cant see it cuz it's covered by the cement board) and all the cement board all in the shower/tub surrounds. So Monday we should be ready for tile. I say "should" because we found out that all the tile we got for this endeavor hopelessly clashes with the exisiting floor tile!

Who cares? What does that mean? Well that means that one more trip to Missoula Lowes so we can pick up the matching floor tile....and all that tile that we layed last summer has to be ripped out. FUN ! FUN ! FUN! The new tile we like so much has a grey hue to it, and the floor tiles that we thought were so neutral and match everything looked really yellow and hideous. That just wont work! The upside is that this time when we lay the NEW floor tile we are going to do it on the diagonal-which we wanted to last time, but chickened out. I think it will look great this time.

Here as you can see (below)begins the daunting task of chipping up each individual ceramic tile. After that, the white mortar that was layed must come out also. So a few hours later, out come the mirrored closet doors, the toilet, the previous mortar and cement board, all ripped out down to the subfloor. More fun. DeRell and Erick get it done in about 3 hours. Not bad for a bathroom thats only like 12' x 12' huh? Ugh.

Now comes the fun part, there are like 2 tiles left after all this and Bubba wants to "help" so daddy gets him outfitted with some goggles (ski goggles qualify right?) and he starts hammering away and I have the camera for the photo op. So I'm trying to zoom in for just the cutest little shot when the tile slips out of Bubba's hand. Well since it was broken it was sharp like a razor and sliced his little finger. So all the camera caught was the screams beginining. Little man was cleaned up and batman bandaged and good to go in a few minutes. I couldn't watch cuz dang there was alot of blood - and to my untrained eye i thought some stiches were in order. DeRell assured me it was not that bad and "he'll be fine". Ugg I hate blood. Why do certain areas bleed sooo much. But oh...the perils of being a laborer on our crew! The work continued and by 11pm they were done.

Sunday begins the even more fun task of taking all the previous materials plus what we ripped out to the dump. The floor will be beautiful but likely wont be installed now until after the shower and tub are complete. So now that means no toilet, sink, etc. during this process, and the world can see into my closet. Fun Fun Fun. I keep telling myself it will be beautiful when it is all done. Every project is worth it. We can't wait until daddy leaves out of town next week to California - more exciting projects are in order. Can't devulge the details, but lets just say no more easter egg greens in the bathroom or the bedroom. Stay tuned for future developments!