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September 26, 2004
Operation Tile: FINISHED
After a week of morons traipsing merrily through my home, my kitchen floor is tiled.
The Tile Guys were supposed to start on Tuesday, "between 8:30 and 9:30." Well, long about 10:45, the Tile Guys showed up. There were two, and then....one of them drove away, leaving me one Tile Guy, who was suffering from a serious tool deficiency:
"Do you have a:
hammer?
extension cord?
crowbar?
screwdriver?
putty knife?
broom?
dustpan?"
The first day, he did get a fair amount done. At the end of the day, a different guy came to pick him up. The second day started like the first, meaning that it started waaaaaaay later than I anticipated. The second Tile Guy from the end of day one returned on day two to stay for the duration of the project. Sort of. Mostly his job was to lie on my deck on his back and smoke cigarettes. Lovely. He also was rude, asking me, "So how much did your house cost?" And, "Boy, whoever sold you this grout did a good job, it's really expensive." The tile was supposed to be completely installed by the end of Wednesday, but they did not finish in time. They said: "Oh, we'll be back around noon Thursday to finish."
When the Tile Guys showed up at 4:45 pm, I was hopping mad. I had been cooped up in the house babysitting these yahoos. Plus, I just don't like strangers in my home, wrecking my little routine. They stayed until 9:00 Thursday evening to finish grouting, and returned early Friday to put the major appliances into place.
My husband and I spent all day Saturday recovering from the fallout of this project. The house needed cleaning anyway, but there were extra things that needed doing. Also, we had to assess the wreckage:
--Broken dustpan
--Grout caked on glasses (I was nice and offered water. HA!)
--Grout caked on "borrowed" tools. My husband flipped his lid: "This goes against all the Man Rules," he cried.
--Tile dust everywhere: had to clean out all the cabinets, drawers, etc. in the kitchen
--Worn spot on our deck where they were cutting tile. Granted, the deck needs another coat of finish anyhow, but still...
--The wood reducer strip I found in my backyard.
Here is the final product. I'd say that all the grief was worth it. Even though the Tile Guys were knuckleheads, they still did a quicker job that my husband and I would have done ourselves. Our kitchen was only out of commission for four days, If we had undertaken this project ourselves, I think it would have taken us two weeks. Seriously. We are just not very handy.
Posted by Lisa at September 26, 2004 04:24 PM
Comments
looks great!
and there is something so nice about having work done FOR you.
(altho your tile guys sound a bit rude)
Posted by: lisa at September 28, 2004 01:02 PM
Beautiful! And since this summer we had the house replanked, repainted, the kitchen retiled and recountertopped, the bathroom stripped, puttied and painted and my bedroom repainted...I can totally sympathize with the disruption of routine. I was sooooo ready for it all to be done and the "workers" (HA) to be gone.
I love your tile choice! It looks very Italian palazzo-ish.
Posted by: Faith at September 29, 2004 11:28 AM