GROUT, GROUTING, GROUTED

This continues the saga of our shower remodel with mosaic tiles and glass.

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.

INTREPID OR CRAZY?

What a day!  After finally putting together my wet saw after it sat for a couple of years in my garage, I was able to finish tiling the step into the shower. While not wholly satisfied with it because some of the edges did not line up as perfectly as I would have liked, it was pretty much done.

Now the fun part. My goal was to finish the small side wall before I had to leave at 2:30 PM to help setup the Elk Grove Artists High School Art Show.  I transferred the layout from the studio into the bathroom so I always had about four rows of tiles/glass ready to put up on the wall.


Trowel time.  I troweled about 15"x13" swaths and pressed and tapped the clay and glass tiles in place.

I was pretty much done with the side wall by 10 AM!


Time to tackle the big wall.


I kept wanting to be sure the colors were not too dark, especially since they were so crazy and bright.  I began to feel that a 36" x 8' wall of intense color was too much, so I altered the plan to curve in toward the shower stall, in step fashion. And I added in more all-white tiles than originally planned.  But as the wall height increased, I did not like the all white tiles in the mix. I WANT BIG COLOR!  So I popped some of the white ones off and replaced them with teal/green tiles.


I put the popped off whites ones in the front of the step.


The stair-step effect was too pixelated, so I added in some of my swirls, some clay faces, some bigger glass pieces, etc., at the ends of the shortened rows.  I hoped it would shorten the blocky end-of-row appearance.  You be the judge.

OK, it was 2 PM and I needed to wash my body and hair - which had been pelted with tile juice from the wet saw earlier in the day.  Then I quickly grabbed some snacks and water and drove toward Elk Grove Park Pavilion after accomplishing a few important errands first.  Four more hours of helping to lift and put together lots of portable art walls, hang artwork, label it, and judge the sculpture entries.  By 6:30 PM I was BEAT, but I still wanted to finish the shower after eating dinner and relaxing watching mindless TV (America's Next Top Model) for 60 minutes.  Then it was back at it to add 4x4 tiles on top of the existing tiled shower stall.  My son had come home from taekwondo, so I quickly showed him how to adhere the tile.

Next was adding some bull-nose tile to the shower pan side.  That's the part that has me the most worried.  Where the step meets the shower pan is the most critical for ensuring that water cannot back up into the step, or inside the wall or under the step. So tomorrow I'll really be sure there is enough silicone to secure the step.

OK, everything was done.  Except the room was a disaster area.

Even though I was dead tired, and sweating profusely, I decided to clean up the bathroom and studio.  An hour and three glasses of water later, it was time to vacuum up the last of the job . . . for tonight.  SO here's what the job looks like.  The design and colors are not for the faint at heart.  Gotta be intrepid (or crazy) to appreciate it.  Which one are you?





Now to decide what color grout to use.  Do you have any suggestions?  I am leaning toward tan for the colored tiles to give warmth to the colored areas.  I'll probably use white for the step.  I want the step to generally be white so it blends into the existing shower pan and makes the area look bigger.

A PROPER JOB

I need to cut some tiles better than with my manual method. So I looked carefully in the garage until I found the wet tile saw that I bought a couple of years ago, but never opened.  Yesterday morning, I looked through the instructions, as I was listening to the coverage of Prince William's wedding on TV.  Several parts to put together somehow.


The instructions went overboard on their many explanations of how critical it is to pay attention to electrical concerns. Electricity and water do not mix.  Unfortunately, there was no info on what to do with the second cutting blade, or which position was "ON" on the power switch - the "O" or the "|" position, or exactly how to use the fence and the miter attachment.

So . . . as usual, I did my best to put it together, added water to the tray (how much? the instructions did not say), plugged it in, and moved it into the tub. Since nothing happened, I flicked the power switch up.  Immediately a stream of water shot out from the spinning blade area right toward me.  It was cold! I quickly turned the unit off and wiped my face. Well, at least I put it together correctly, but I soon learned that this would be a messy, wet business.

I turned the wet saw 90 degrees in the tub so the water would shoot toward the faucet instead of at me. But that meant that I had to twist my body and reach over the unit as the blade spun and I pushed big tiles thru the blade.  That puppy cut big floor tiles like butter!

After a while, the spouting water lessened, so I turned the saw back toward me and shielded myself with an old towel.  I made short work of all the cuts I made.  I sure wished that I could take off a couple of tiles I had hand-cut to redo them, but the adhesive I used was too strong and they wouldn't come off.  OK, gotta work with what I've got.

It sure is getting messy in my bathroom!



Use the right tools, people, and the job goes much better.  A proper job!

TOO GARISH? TOO BORING?

So the step was ready for tile, but what colors should cover the tile?

I had made so many cool tiles that I initially thought I should use 'em, even though most of my recent tile efforts had exploded all over the kiln:

I quickly came up with this layout:

AARRRRGGGGHHH!  How horrible is that?  Way too garish!  Even for me.

Maybe just white tiles for the step since the walls are going to be so colorful (this white fabric approximates all white tile): 

Too boring!

How about a mixture of white and colored tiles? I wanted the walking pathway in the center of the platform to be large tiles, so how about . . .


But I had a lot of angles to cut and I couldn't find the fancy tile cutter that I bought years ago, but never opened. So I had to do it the hard way with a tile scoring device, my old manual tile cutter, some make-shift tile nippers, and a tile file.  Way too much extra work because it was midnight by then and I didn't want to move both cars out of the garage to try to find the big tile cutter. Oh, you're thinking that I could have waited until the next day? Well, a good thing and bad thing about me is that I set goals for myself that I force myself to meet.  My goal last night was to tile the step so that on my day off (tomorrow/Friday), I could tile the small wall at the left of the shower stall.

I did not take too much time to ponder over it. The mixture was the winner!  I figured out a design that I liked, and cut the tiles to close to the proper angle and filed them down by hand. Then to trowel on the pre-mixed thin-set adhesive over the Hardibacker board.  Just enough for the initial pieces that I wanted to place. Bull-nose tiles went on the front lip.

 This morning before work I wanted to set one of the wall tiles.

Ta Da!

During lunch I would go back to Home Depot and get some plastic spacers, more adhesive, and more bull-nose tiles for the back/shower side of the step.

A STEP UP

So I had my marching orders from my brother on how to proceed with this project. I would forget about bringing in extra light with glass block right now.  Instead, I would concentrate on building a step platform leading to the shower.  I could always decide later to add a glass block wall on the platform to keep in water from the shower head.

Building materials were needed to get started, so we drove to my home away from home: Home Depot. I measured the shower area to be enhanced, figured out how many 2"x4"s were needed, as well as OSB wood, tile adhesive, more floor tiles, rubber liner/membrane, and Hardibacker board. Sunday night, I convinced my son, Matt, to help me build the step.

We did the Tim-the-Toolman-Taylor thing with all the power tools: circular saw, belt sander, drill, jig saw and a bunch of hand tools, and safety glasses, of course.

We measured three times and cut once . . . mostly.

The garage became full of sawdust.

We went back and forth from the bathroom to the garage, remeasuring, placing the pieces in the shower area, and examining the fit.  Then recutting, when necessary.  Later that evening, all but the circular saw ended up in the bathroom area - we got tired of walking back and forth!

First, a framework was made out of 2x4s, reinforced with supporting beams.  Matt did most of the measuring and cutting after I reminded him how to use the tools.  He is very careful by nature, so the cuts were straight and smooth.

We spent some time cutting support beams for the step framework.

Lots of angles.  Angles are not my best thing, but we were able to sufficiently create a sturdy framework for the step.  My Christmas present, a cordless drill, came in handy for attaching all of the support pieces to the frame and to the walls.  

"Are we done yet mom?" said Matt.  As usual, I wanted to get more done before going to bed. Let's get the step platform done tonight.  Back to the garage.


Matt took careful measurements of the top of the framework and distance from wall to wall and transferred them to a sheet of OSB wood.

 Matt cut two layers OSB that would go on top of the frame to provide the proper height to meet up with the existing shower step up.

 

 Pretty nice fit! 

We used the OSB boards to cut out the rubber membrane/liner about 4" wider than the OSB on all sides.

We also used the OSB as a template for cutting out the cement Hardibacker board, making sure it would fit snugly into the space for the step.

Then I screwed the OSB tops onto the 2x4 frame, countersinking the screw heads.


Now some silicone along the edges of the OSB before placing the rubber membrane on top.


More silicone between the membrane and Hardibacker should make for a self-contained unit. My brother explained that the mysterious "code" requires assurances that if there are any leaks from the shower that the water not get into the walls or under the floor to avoid wood rot.

By the end of the evening, the step infrastructure was done and ready for tile.

TIPS FROM A PRO

Last night I had completed all the demolition of the remaining shower door structure, but the gunk that came out of that effort is something that I never want to see again.  Therefore, and thankfully so, I am not publishing pictures of it here.  Suffice it to say, looking at pictures of what is putrifying underneath your shower metal door would make a person gag.  So this picture shows the shower denuded of grossness with me playing with what a tiled floor "might" look like.  The actual tiling will look much better than this, but I wanted to get an idea of whether big 12x12 tiles would be better, 3x6, 4x4 and/or 2x2 tiles.

My brother, the guy who knows how to do everything for the home - plumbing, electrical, fencing, tiling, flooring - came over this morning to lend his sage advice to my little project.

First, the glass block issue. He explained how the wiring in the electrical switch in the toilet room would impede my ability to easily put 8"x8" glass block above the switch. But he said I could put 4" glass block between the switch box and the nearest wall stud and explained how I would build a little shelf to hold the weight of the blocks.  We talked about possibly having glass block going along the top of the tiled shower enclosure instead of, or in addition to the 4x4 block next to the light switch.  However, since studs would most likely have about 14.5" between them, I could not put two 8x8 blocks next to each other.  But I could exchange the 8x8s for 6x6 blocks and put two of those between each set of studs; again, I would have to build a little shelf for the blocks then use silicone, etc., to secure them. There might be some issues with where the plumbing is and the electrical wires are though, so he felt that glass block might be more trouble then it is worth.

Brother went on to give other options for bringing more light into the space that might be easier than the glass block:

1) Install a "Solatube" in the shower stall ceiling, letting in natural light from my house roof.  I always get squeamish with people walking on my concrete tiles because I've had a lot of problems with rain water leaking in whenever someone cracks a tile from walking on it incorrectly.  But I LOVE the Solatube in my hallway and would like to have one in my closet too, so that might be something to consider in the future.

2) Install a recessed heating lamp above the shower. Code prescribes specific ways that this must be done.

3) Install a sconce or heating bulb light just outside the shower stall. This would be easier than #2 and allow me to shine light on the Kanika-tiles for added ummpf!

4) Use the glass block to form a 12-18" wide and 4-6' barrier between the shower stall and the rest of the bathroom. This would keep the excess water in the shower but let in all the natural light from the rest of the bathroom.

Then my brother spoke about my original idea which was to build a step-up platform that would be tiled and slightly angled to let the water drip down into the shower pan.  He did not know of any building codes that would prohibit such a design, as long as the main water flow went into the shower pan and the addition of such a platform was 100% sealed. He told me specifically what would have to be done:

Mock up of what the layers of items would be

1) Create a framework from 2x4s with the side away from the shower being about 1/4" taller than the shower side.  This slight angle will encourage any shower water that exceeds the pan to drip back into the pan.  Adhere the frame to the floor with silicone, and screw the frame sides to both walls.  The frame must be sturdy and secure in place.

2) Screw a piece of OSB or plywood, at least 3/4" thick, onto the top of the frame (I'll probably use two pieces of 1/2" OSB).

3) Carefully place a rubber waterproof membrane/liner over the structure with a bit of silicone to hold it in place, being careful not to breech the rubber barrier with nails or screws. The membrane MUST overlap the existing shower step, the walls, and the front of the frame, to ensure that no water can reach the floor or walls once everything is tiled.

4) Place a layer of Hardibacker-type cement board on top, ensuring that it overlaps the shower step.

5) Tile over the floor, walls, and above the existing partially-tiled shower stall all using a tile adhesive/mortar that is specially made for water/shower/tub applications.

6) Grout the tiles.

Simple huh?