Tile Shmile

As promised, here's a post about tile...all about tile...ceramic that is.  Yep, that peel-and-stick's out of our master bath and the new stuff is in.  By no means is this 'instruction guide' of sorts the best tutorial in the world (if you're reading and wanting a tutorial, this one is awesome).  I'm really just writing about it to toot my horn since I did a little over half of it myself.  :)  Under the apprentice-ship of my handy hubby, it was my very first-ever tile job y'all!  But anyway, enough about me and my horn, here are the deets:

First, I carefully picked up the next-in-line tile:

Then, I slathered said tile with pre-mixed mastic using a ridged tile trowel:

Once slathered, I made pretty little lines in the mastic to ensure it's thickness was even across the entire tile:

Then, I carefully placed the tile in it's destined spot and smooshed it down just a tad:

In went spacers to make sure grout lines would be consistent throughout (might I add that it's no coincidence they're cross-shaped - Jesus loving sacrifice, mercy, and grace serves to keep us nice and straight):

And last, I appeased my perfectionist self by placing a level over each crevice to further ensure a level surface was evolving:

After the laying part was all done we waited, and waited, and waited...48 hours to be exact...to give the mastic time to dry and harden.  Then my taking-a-study-break hubs went in and grouted, which I didn't take any pictures of.  Again, that's why if you're lookin' for a tutorial, welcome, but you're at the wrong place.  :)  To grout, basically all he did was smoosh (my fave word of the day?) the pre-mixed grout we bought into and over each space separating tiles with a foam-padded trowel.  He worked in sections, or study breaks, however you wanna look at it.  After each space was filled he first let the grout sit in the cracks for an hour to begin it's hardening process.  After an hour he went over each particular sat-for-an-hour section with a large sponge to remove excess grout.  Then after the first sponge go-over, he waited another twenty minutes and went over that section again, repeating that process every twenty minutes following until all of the grout residue sitting on the tile was gone and we had some smooth little grout lines.

And that, my friends, is how we unpeeled and unstuck...

our happy little selves to a more happy, solid, underfoot surface.

And that's all we've got for ya folks...this weekend anyway.  We've got about 30 projects up our sleeves (not even exaggerating) ranging from painting to sewing to gluing to reupholstery, mixed in with nailing, filling, and spraying.  Whew!  There just aren't enough hours in the day for us...or maybe we're just a little to obsessed with doing.  Either way, our list will just continue to grow because our minds never stop and I'll continue to do and write, do and write, do and write.  :)  Have a great weekend!