Got a late start on Saturday. Most of the day was spent prepping the floor(getting all the paint and drywall mud scraped off of the subfloor), and then laying the backerboard. Cutting and fitting the backerboard was almost as much of a pain as hanging the drywall. The sheets are only 3x5, however, so they're a little more manageable. I'm using Hardiboard instead of Durock, as I read that it's a lot easier to deal with than Durock. I suppose that's true, and if so, I'd really hate to deal with durock. Only bad thing about Hardiboard is that it contains a lot of silica, which apparently has been found to cause cancer if exposed to a lot of the dust. Because of that they tell you not to use any power tools to work with it, nor anything that will generate a lot of dust(read saws). The good old score and snap was pretty much all I had to work with. That works well for 90% of the cuts I had to make, but there were a few places(around the closet) where I broke down and just used a saw to cut some of the L-shaped cuts to get around the wall. All in all, it wasn't TOO bad...just fairly time consuming.
By the time I was finished with that it was 6pm and time for the SEC championship. Awesome game, btw... If you didn't catch it, AR gave FL a good run for their money, but FL stepped up and showed them who was boss. Really interesting play calling too...Florida fakes a punt from their own 30 to convert a 10 yard 4th down. Completely unexpected. Lol, and it turns out that 5 people threw passes for big yardage, 4 for TDs. It was like they were seeing who could top whom for the most unexpected play. Really exciting. Normally I wouldn't care all that much about either of these teams, but since it turned out that UCLA upset USC(woohoo!!!!), FL would have a chance at the championships if they won the SEC. They found out around halftime, and at first it looked like the news kinda shook them up. AR came out of the locker room on fire and FL couldn't answer. AR scores 2 unanswered TDs to reel in the score, and their defense has completely shut FL's offense and Leak down. But then, after a lackluster drive by FL, resulting in a 4th and short. Apparently FL is reeling so badly, they don't know what to do and have to burn their LAST timeout(this is the middle of the 3rd qtr, btw) to decide. Cooler heads prevail and they wisely decide to punt it down inside the AR 10 where the AR receiver CHOKES and fumbles the ball! Florida recovers in the AR end zone for a TD. This completely knocks the wind out of ARs sails for the rest of the game, and FL is off to the races. AR never recovers from the loss of momentum, and FL wins convincingly. Pretty amazing game. However, the play of the day(or the year for that matter) was UCLA LB Eric McNeal making a game-saving play when he deflected AND intercepted a USC pass to stop the game-winning drive by USC with 1 minute to go in the game after USC had driven down to the UCLA 20. Clutch!
Heh, I digress...So, I got the backerboard down on Saturday. Sunday I was hoping to get the tile at least set so that the next session could be grouting and installing fixtures. Unfortunately, but as usual, it took me a lot longer to get the tiles ready than I thought. I decided, since the room is so small, that I'd go ahead and just dry-fit and layout everything before setting anything. Doing this took all of my time on Sunday, but it was worth it. I think I have everything fit perfectly, and now all I have to do is mix up my thinset and start laying the tile. Cutting the tile, for the most part, wasn't TOO difficult. 90% of my cuts were all straight cuts, which I did with a score and snap cutter I rented from HD. I decided that the critical area(i.e. Full tile) was next to the tub, so that's where I started with the layout. I got lucky and this worked out great. I only had to cut 6 tiles on the exterior wall, and 6 tiles on the entrance wall. The sink wall worked out to not need to be cut. Plus, I got lucky and ended up with a full tile right in the middle of the closet doorway transition so that looks pretty smooth as well. All of the interior closet tiles were straight cuts as well. The only tough cuts were the 4 tiles that touch the closet doorway(not bad as these are basically just corner "notched") and the tiles where the toilet drain are. Two tiles intersected are the toilet drain, one covering about 20% of it, and the other covering the other 80%. I was able to use my tile nippers and "sculpt" the smaller cutout, but the one where I had to make a larger cut(the 80%) eluded me. I destroyed 5 tiles before I decided to give up and try something else. As of right now, this is the only tile that isn't finished. All the other tiles have been cut and laid out. When I went to Lowe's on Sunday before I started, I noticed they had a tile cutter set up in the tile section(like they have the pipe cutters in the pipe section..etc). I'm hoping they might be able to cut this tile for me. It's going to be a pain, but it's only *1* tile and we've spent so much money there I don't really have a problem asking them to do it. I really don't want to spend 50 bucks to rent a tile saw to cut 1 tile. We'll see.
Here's how the room looks with the tile laid out. We're definitely getting there. I think my wife did another good job picking out the color. The first couple of pics was taken with flash to get the detail(notice the one tile with blue marking on it that hasn't been cut yet :P), but I took one without(the last one) that's much more accurate from a color standpoint. It's pretty darn close to the actual color of the tiles and the walls.
One for color:
So, next up will be setting the tiles, then grouting and sealing, and then finally installing the sink and the toilet. Once that's done the room is usable again, and we can actually use it while we install the trim and do all the little clean-up tasks. Almost there!
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