Tile Trials - Feb 2017
YAY! Our tile is finally done! The last two years Jordan and I have had a strange tile issue in our kitchen. The tile was "tee-peeing" or "tenting" in several spots which we think was caused by three factors: 1) a poor installation job by the previous homeowner and 2) a slight shift in the foundation of the house [even though the foundation is well within the threshold of variance] and 3) leftover glue from laminate flooring that was at one point in the kitchen. Sometimes, we would hear loud popping noises which turned out to be the tile adjusting/settling/breaking. That noise was loud enough to hear across the house and strong enough to make grout fly 10 feet away!
The whole process has been an education. Over the years, we've spent a lot of time talking to foundation companies, measuring moisture levels of the floor, and arguing with our insurance company. We even had a certified engineer come out to inspect the floor which resulted in very few answers...
After all that, we decided to save up and start shopping for new tile. I'm so relieved the job is at last complete!
I've got lots of pictures of the journey to share.
The whole process has been an education. Over the years, we've spent a lot of time talking to foundation companies, measuring moisture levels of the floor, and arguing with our insurance company. We even had a certified engineer come out to inspect the floor which resulted in very few answers...
After all that, we decided to save up and start shopping for new tile. I'm so relieved the job is at last complete!
I've got lots of pictures of the journey to share.
These are all "before" pictures. In the bottom left picture you can see an area where we were comparing tile color/quality. This area was the worst so Jordan went ahead and pulled up the original tile so we could take a sample to flooring stores.
These are more "before" pictures even though the lighting is poor. Also pictured is our new living room rug. We thought about rolling up the rug but decided it would be easier to tape plastic over it. We knew the house would get VERY dusty once the tile demolition began.
This was a messy (and noisy) day at the house. (Abby was pretty freaked out the whole time!)
In these pictures you can see that the original tile didn't have much mortar holding it to the slab. The tiles came up pretty easily which is a big indicator that it needed to be replaced.
Not pictured here is a bit of a water fiasco... When there is a leak, the priority is to turn off the water, not take a picture!
While removing the dishwasher, one of the crew members accidentally busted a water valve under our sink. It wasn't entirely their fault as we think the valve was already a hazard. Fortunately, I'd planned on a visit from Murphy (as in Murphy's Law - anything that can go wrong will go wrong). So, we called a plumber out to the house to fix the broken valve.
After day 1, we recovered from the water leak (no damage as far as I can tell) and began the clean up process. That's when Murphy visited us AGAIN! We had a good freeze in Texas this Winter and it turns out that the water in our pipes to the water hose froze over! The freezing water busted the pipe so when we used the water hose, water started coming out from behind the bricks! EEEK!
Bottom: This is the pipe that froze over and split. You can see the gash on the left which is about 1 inch in length.
We had the plumber come visit us for a SECOND trip to replace this broken pipe.
So, lesson learned... Don't ever forget to winterize the exterior pipes on your house and ALWAYS remove the hose during the Winter months!
These are a few more demo pictures after the water incidents. In the top left picture, you can see the floor is still a bit damp from the water leak.
These are a few pictures from the end of day 2. You can see the the concrete slab is clean and smooth again!
We set down a few tiles to get an idea of what the new tile would look like. It is really difficult to shop for tile because you often only have a 12 x 12 tile to look at. Plus, most tiles have a variance level (V1-V4) which makes it a little risky to chose a tile! You can read about the interesting variance levels HERE. I think ours was a V2. The tile we chose was a Daltile Exquisite Glazed Porcelain EQ10 Ivory in 12x24 inch.
We set down a few tiles to get an idea of what the new tile would look like. It is really difficult to shop for tile because you often only have a 12 x 12 tile to look at. Plus, most tiles have a variance level (V1-V4) which makes it a little risky to chose a tile! You can read about the interesting variance levels HERE. I think ours was a V2. The tile we chose was a Daltile Exquisite Glazed Porcelain EQ10 Ivory in 12x24 inch.
The tools that our contractor used were pretty awesome!
Top Left: This is the wet saw. Fortunately, our second water hose didn't freeze so they were able to connect the wet saw to a water source!
Top Right: This is a combination of spacers (black color) and leveling clips (orange color). The leveling clips were pretty cool and looked a lot like a door stop. They were used to keep the tiles level with adjacent tiles so that the surface would be completely smooth.
Bottom: This was another tile cutter which looked more like a paper cutter. Serious business!
Top Left: This is the wet saw. Fortunately, our second water hose didn't freeze so they were able to connect the wet saw to a water source!
Top Right: This is a combination of spacers (black color) and leveling clips (orange color). The leveling clips were pretty cool and looked a lot like a door stop. They were used to keep the tiles level with adjacent tiles so that the surface would be completely smooth.
Bottom: This was another tile cutter which looked more like a paper cutter. Serious business!
These are "in progress" pictures! You can see LOTS of spacers and leveling clips! This picture also shows the variance between the tiles that I was talking about earlier.
Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of the grout process. We used a 2 in 1 grout that acted as both the grout and a sealant for the floor. Since we wanted to compliment the existing floor, we used the color "10 antique white".
One of the decisions that we had to make was the thickness of the grout. Our existing floor had 1/4th inch grout lines but our contractor said that really thin grout lines (1/16th) were in style. There is a good argument to minimize the thickness of the grout because it tends to get very dirty over time. For our project, we decided to split the different and opted for 1/8th inch grout lines. This also helped to line up the tiles on the threshold a bit closer.
We also discovered a new product called grout caulk! This was a "Non-Sanded Ceramic Tile Caulk" that was "siliconized" and made by Polyblend. According to the label, this is used mostly where horizontal and vertical surfaces meet to allow for a little flexibility. We used this at the threshold were our existing tile touches the new tile. Just in case our foundation shifts slightly, this caulk will help provide a little "give" for the tile. It wont fix a huge problem but should help with the weather mood swings of Texas.
And lastly, I have FINISHED tile pictures! The lighting is a bad in some of these shots but you can get an idea of how the floor looks now.
I'm very happy with the color choice and I think it turned out beautifully!
This is the finished floor from a different view. Just gorgeous!
All in all, I'm very happy to have the tile done but, boy, we sure had a few life lessons to learn along the way! But I suppose it's always better to learn them on a "small ish" job in our first home.
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