Ceramic Tile installation hell.

Last week we had talked about heading to Home Depot to check out ceramic tile. You know, see what we like, get some info, the basic stuff. Well in typical fashion (for us) that evolved into coming home Saturday night with 320 square foot of tile in the back of the truck as well as tools to boot, even a wetsaw! After much debate regarding if we wanted to tile over the vinyl or pull it and tile to the concrete we decided it would be best to pull it up. That is the optimal way and I don’t want to be “half-assing” a project. So with my trusty how-to tile book in hand we began removing the vinyl at the entrance way. WOW, it pulled up easy! Just get a corner up and yank! Wait a sec, what is that gray paper down there? Oh SH*T. The paper backing was still glued to the floor. Hmmm, no problem, I’ll just get out my flat bladed shovel and edging tool and scrape that stuff up lickety split. Hahahahahaha. After attacking the 3 foot by 5 foot area with the shovel, the edger and a hand putty knife/scraper and clearing maybe 2 square feet, the ugly reality hit us that this was going to be a nasty job. We bagged it for the night and I said I would go to home depot in the morning to find some sort of tool to assist in the vinyl removal process.

I woke up bright and early and motivated to attack the project. I got to Home Depot at 7:45 am Sunday morning. Doh! They don’t open till 8 on Sundays. I grabbed some coffee, went back and stepped up to the rental counter. “What do you have that can make removing vinyl floor bearable?” I asked. He said he had just the tool, brand new, never rented before. 50 bucks a day to rent it! Whew, a little steep but I figured with this fantastic tool I could strip all of the vinyl areas in a single day! This machine was big and HEAVY. I asked the guy if I could get it into my truck myself, he said SURE, it has a handle in the front to lift it. It probably weighed close to 150 lbs if not more. I managed to swing it up onto the bed barely. One guy asked me if I was ok, I guess the veins popping out of forehead and neck were a giveaway. I called Ali with the great news of the super vinyl removal machine I was bringing home.

I unloaded the behemoth and shortly afterward began attacking the vinyl at the front entrance. It worked well, stripped it down however we noticed that we had to do some lifting of the machine to get enough downforce to get certain spots to come up. No big deal. We got the entrance done in maybe a half an hour. Time for the kitchen. The kitchen is a large area. We had to first pull the top layer of vinyl off by hand and then go after the paper and glue underneath. It seemed like if I wanted to get all the way down to the concrete I pretty much had to have the machine lifted all the time. This was ok at first, but shortly resulted in very sore forearms and ribs. 5 hours later we were done with vinyl removal in the kitchen.

Removing the vinyl revealed a very ugly picture. The concrete underneath looked like it was jack hammered and then filled in sloppily with some low grade patch mix. Evidently they were not concerned with it being very flat. It was a wavy, ridged mess. Not a good thing for laying tile. Grrr. We should have called it a day there. Shoulda have taken a breath and come up with a game plan. Nope I pressed on. I wanted to get some tile laid damn it!

We laid out the tiles “dry” so we could figure out the cuts we had to make. After doing so I went to our new wet saw and went to town. This went well except I couldn’t find a way to avoid being hit in the face with ceramic, watery spray from the saw. I had to wipe the film off my safety goggles after every cut. 30 seconds into my first cut, the sky opens and rains on me as I’m cutting. I ignored the bolts of lighting around me and pressed on. Must, get, tile laid.

After getting the tiles cut for the entrance I had to mix the thin set, the stuff you stick the tiles into. Ok read the directions, 6 quarts of water, mixes with 50lbs of thin set. No problem, throw in the water, then throw in the mix on top and fire up the drill mixer. Haha. Hmm not going so well, it is very stiff. Hmm maybe if I press the mixer to the bottom where the water is it will go better. Doing so locked the bit in place and instead spun the bucket, throwing thin set mix all over me and anything within 6 feet of me. Argh. I get out the hose and water it down (even though I’m not supposed to do so) 6 quarts my ass, there is no way that was enough water. After a messy 10 minutes of mixing I have something that looks like it should work.

We start spreading and laying. Wow this is a mess, a big mess. Quickly my hands are encrusted with the crap. I try to keep somewhat clean with rags but it doesnt work. Why did I wear shorts? Initially I was the spreader but soon we noticed that Ali did a better and cleaner job of it than I did. I became the tile placer. I worked the tiles in and tried to make sure they were level. They were for the most part but there were certain ones that were off some due to the uneven areas of the floor. I tried to pull some of them to readjust. It was a major battle to pry up a tile that was put in place only 30 seconds ago, it was stuck like super glue. Because of the force I had to use to remove it, normally when it did release it would result in me getting coated in even more thinset. It was really a bad scene.

We pressed on into the night. Got about 20 tiles set in the kitchen and bagged it. I was more frustrated than I ever had been doing a home improvement project. I was dejected, beat up, tired and miserable. To her credit, Ali was upbeat and did a great job of keeping me from totally blowing my cool. We cleaned up the mess and finally got to eat dinner at 9:15. As discouraging as it was, as bad as I felt, I was back at Home Depot with a positive attitude today getting a few items to help me win the war against the tile. I will prevail. I think the final outcome will be nice I just need to realize that I can’t do it all in a day.