Project Complete

Tonight I finished the tile mosaic on the side of the tub in the master bath when I grouted it. This wasn't more than about an hour's work and made for a nice little after dinner project.

Lessons Learned:

1. Before cutting, make sure all your tile is of uniform thickness (should be a no brainer, right?)
2. Getting the goobers of grout out from in between all the little individual peices is a much larger task with irregular mosaic peices that it is with uniformly square tiles. That cheap toothbrush the dentist always gives out works wonders
3. Wear gloves even though you don't want to (good advice for life in general)
4. When doing a 1.5x2' section, as opposed to tiling the entire bedroom, don't mess around with mixing up mastic. Just go buy the premixed can of it.
5. Plastic picnic ware works great as a trowel
6. When cleaning up the grout use an old kitchen sponge with the abrasive scrubby side - again, great for getting in between the mosaic peices

Stuff to try for next time:

1. Cut and fire my own tiles. The pale blue and rose red glazes would combine to make a hazel nutty color that would blend well with the brown tile we have - maybe a leaping Chinook with a red back and a brown underneath and gray/silver on top under belly? I could probably do a fairly decent woodland stream scene with a little pre-planning
2. Try photographing scenes from around Clark Creek House and then running them through the mosaic filter in photoshop. I might get some pretty decent patterns for cutting tiles. Look into expanding the black lines in the filter so as to match the offsets inbetween individual tiles where the grout will go
3. If mosaic projects are going to get involved, look into tiling onto a cement board for later hanging - sitting on the bathroom floor is getting old fast.
   

posted by Scott in Washington at 7:18 PM |