June progress update

The past month has seen us complete a number of things, though it has been, as usual, slow going over here.  While we have been working on the house, one of our rabbits has taken ill and requires a fair amount of attention, so it is good that I am around during the day to keep an eye on him.  We are hopeful that with a lot of TLC (and antibiotics), that he’ll be able to recover and stay with us for years to come!

Here’s a picture of his girlfriend, lounging beside the box that we need to keep him contained in – for his own safety.

Miss Ivy keeping a watch over Sir Hops A Lot
Miss Ivy keeping a watch over Sir Hops A Lot

On the house front, with some help from my mother (who has been coming around to help out from time to time), I managed to get the drywall installed on the ceiling above the stairwell, which was fairly tricky business.  Not only did I have to accurately cut a hole in the drywall to allow access to our attic hatch/stairs, but we also had to build a platform over the stairs that we could put ladders on, to hoist up and fasten the drywall into place.  Thankfully, this all went fairly smoothly, as you can see in the following picture.

Drywall above stairwell
Drywall above stairwell

It will still be a bit of a chore to finish the rest of the drywall on the walls in there, but not as bad.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I messed up when I cut one of the tiles for our master bathroom floor, and was waiting for when I tiled the floor in the main bathroom to fix it.  I got around to this about a week ago, and fixing the tile wasn’t as bad as I thought.  I first pulled up the improperly cut tile, leaving me with a bit of a mess to clean up.

Improperly cut tile removed
Improperly cut tile removed

I carefully went over the area with a small prying tool and popped out as much of the thinset as I could, to leave me with the best possible starting area.  It was difficult to get all the thinset out, without damaging the Ditra, but it’s not super important that the Ditra got a little banged up in the process.  After I was done prying everything out, I carefully vacuumed the area out to remove any last remnants.

Cleaned up area for new tile
Cleaned up area for new tile

And here’s a couple pictures of the tile laid and then grouted, you can’t even really tell that I made the mistake to begin with!  Thankfully I still had some grout left over from tiling before, so it was no problem to match it perfectly.

Laying in the replacement tile
Laying in the replacement tile
Replacement tile grouted
Replacement tile grouted

As I said, I was planning to replace that tile when I did the tiling in the other main bathroom / laundry room – the process was much the same as with the master bathroom.  I added screws to the subfloor to better secure it to the floor joists underneath, then laid a layer of Ditra XL.  We didn’t really need the Ditra here for waterproofing reasons, but it is a great uncoupling layer for putting down tile and has the added benefit of coming out level with the 3/4″ hardwood floors at the transitions.  In the following picture you can see that I also spent a day or so installing our vanity in that bathroom – such a convenience to have warm and cold running water to an actual sink!

Vanity installed, Ditra laid
Vanity installed, Ditra laid

When I tiled the master bathroom, I rented a wet tile saw to cut all the tiles.  Because it was a lot of bother to rent the tilesaw (quite unweildy so I had to beg another vehicle from family), this tile I decided to just use my 4″ grinder with a ceramic/diamond blade.  It went surprisingly well, except for the one tile I had to cut twice because I rushed it the first time.  Trick is a steady hand and to let the grinder do the work.  Honestly I just watched a guy do it on youtube and then did it myself, it’s not really hard!

Because I wanted to lay the floors all in one go, I pre-cut all the tiles in advance and dry fitted them with their spacers to make sure everything would fit correctly.

Pre-cutting and dry fitting the tiles
Pre-cutting and dry fitting the tiles

The only difficulty with this approach was that I realized, I would have to pretty well be able to lay the tiles identically a second time.  When I came to that realization, I decided to do the tiles over two days – the first day I laid a row of tiles from the door to the far end of the room, and stopped there.  The second day I was able to walk on those tiles, so I could lay the tiles on the other side and under the vanity.  It all worked out pretty well, I think, and it seems our new cat Daisy agrees.  Another wipe-down with a damp rag to get rid of the grout haze, and it’ll look super!

Completed: tiled, grouted, and cat approved!
Completed: tiled, grouted, and cat approved!

Since the floor was complete I decided to get the washer and dryer tucked away in there, to at least get them out of the way, and make it easier to do laundry  (we had jury-rigged something before, but it was not really ideal.)

Washer and dryer stacked in place
Washer and dryer stacked in place

At some point I will actually need to hook up the dryer, but for now we can dry our clothes on the line which is better for them anyway (and they always smell so fresh after being out on the line!)  Next up, I’ll be working on the ducting for the HRV, and will endeavour to get a few photos of that as it progresses, as boring as it may be  🙂

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the photos!

2 thoughts on “June progress update

  1. Very impressed, as usual. I love how you can improvise ways to get around difficult and tricky situations. I love your updates and pictures! Hope your rabbit is better.

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