I pulled myself out of bed at 8 AM, after almost 7 hours of sleep from tiling until late last night. A quick trip to Home Depot to get some "Sahara" tan-colored grout and I was ready.
Bucket? Check. Float? Check. Bowl for mixing the water with grout? Check. Rubber gloves? Check. Tarp the cover the work area? Check. Right shoulder ready for several more hours of straining it? Well . . . that's what ice packs are for. OK, ice pack? Check.
So after spreading the tarp down, I read the instructions for the grout. Don't lie Kanika, you did not read them. OK, I poured some water into the mixing bowl then slowly began pouring the dry grout into the bowl, letting the liquid dissolve the granules. More, more, more dry grout was being gobbled up by the water. Once the rapid dissolving slowed considerably, I started stirring the mixture. Still too thin. More dry grout, more, more. Until the bowl was nearly full and the grout slurry was still too loose - it was like waffle batter but it needed to be closer to chocolate chip cookie batter. So now I read the instructions. "Stir for 5 minutes then let it rest for 10 minutes." I crossed my fingers that it would set up sufficiently by then because I could not add anymore to the bowl (and I didn't want to get a second bowl).
Rubber gloves on. Ice pack attached to my shoulder. Ten minutes elapsed and the grout/water mixture was still a bit too wet, but I started anyway by dipping the float into the mixture and slopping it onto the middle of the big wall of tiles. Some of it stayed in the crevasses of the tile, some of it dipped in large heavy blobs down the wall. Even though this looks goopy, I knew it would solidify soon, especially with the help of a portable fan aimed at the work area!
As I continued pushing the mixture into the crevasses of the tile with the float, it started to shape up. I went over each area several times, at a diagonal to the straight seams, then at 180 degrees to the first direction. Like painting, that was the most effective way to ensure adequate coverage of the material. I was so excited, seeing my creation come to life! I loved the tan color next to the colorful tile. The adjacent wall to the shower is a warm rust-cinnamon color, so everything was coming together nicely.
There was now more room in the bowl, so I added a cut more dry grout to get a thicker consistency. Then I was able to start at the top of the big wall, for the mixture wasn't dripping so much anymore. A proper job. Start at the top. Make sure all crevasses were full of grout. Back and forth. Row by row down the wall. Especial attention was played to the edges of the wall to make sure the grout coverage was adequate.
It probably took 45 minutes to grout the big wall. Then, before the joints got too hard, I went back with my gloved finger and scraped away the excess grout from the joints. I prefer doing it this way instead of using a wet sponge first. Once the entire wall was treated this way and the joints were somewhat clean, I started at the top with the float and removed lots of material from the face of the tiles, so you could begin seeing the colors underneath the haze of dried grout.
Then I dipped a large sponge into the bucket of clean water and began wiping away the remaining excess grout from the tile and joints.
I did it this way because the grout had been a little too wet to start with and I wanted to be sure the joints had solidified enough before putting more water on them. I do my Kanika African Sculptures tile/mixed media projects like this all the time so I was confident this would work just fine.
Now it was time to start on the little wall, using the same process described about. It was about 11:00 by then and I was surprised the big wall had taken that long.
Now to grout the 4x4 tiles along the top of the exiting shower enclosure. Standing on a stool, I mainly pushed the grout in between the tiles using my left hand, as the right shoulder was complaining too loudly to use the float in my right hand. OK, so far so good. The whole top part was grouted, now it was time to remove the excess grout. Then I had a (what I thought was) a brilliant idea. Put some grout on top of those tiles to look like a unifying tan border over the top of the tiles. For this I had to use the float to add another 1/2" of grout extending from the wall to the front edge of the top level tiles. Messy. After doing all of that, I stood back and noticed that it looked stupid, so I tool the big sponge and removed the excess grout on top of the tiles. Much cleaner. Much better.
But the edges of the side walls were ugly. Some of the tile edges were unevenly glazed, so another brilliant idea . . . the same brilliant idea as the upper tiles, but this time on the sides. Kind of a Suessian look (Dr. Suess, that is), or for you south westerners, a freeform adobe kind of look. Great idea! This cleverly disguised the edges of the tiles so I would not have to finish them with anything else. As long as I was careful with the grout when cleaning the walls over the years, the freeform grouted edges would hopefully perform beautifully. I plan to spray the entire project with a sealant anyway, so I maybe also spray those fully-dried grouted edges with a product to strengthen the area forever more. If you have any ideas on this, please let me know.
Now to buff the last of the grout off, like you do when buffing off the wax from the car. Circular motions with a soft white towel brought out the full color of each clay and glass tile. The pictures below show the haze left from the sponged grouted piece, the towel, and the finished gleam of the tile underneath. I did this process for every one of the hundreds and hundreds of tiles in this project.
The last thing was to grout the step with the remaining bowl of grout and the leftovers from the grout scraped off the walls. After the grout set up, excess was removed and sponged clean.
The end was in sight! I removed the tarp, vacuumed the area of grout and dust particles and cleaned up the remaining tools and stuff from my bathroom. It was about 1:30 PM. I absolutely LOVE the result. The wild colors may not be for everyone and since I don't ever plan to sell the house that I worked to hard to own, it does not really matter.
Time for a dip in the spa and some more See's Walnut Squares and water! Then on to the boyfriend's house where we are entertaining some old friends tonight.
Wow!!! I love it.
ReplyDeleteJohn