tiling the laundry room floor

continued!!!

the tile is layed and ready to be grouted. we chose a black grout to give it a modern look.

before grout

mixing the grout

applying grout

after application

the tile still needs a good cleaning. after it cures in three days, we can seal it. until then, its still vulnerable. since we have to be able to get back to our laundry room (which for now is also serving as our living room!), and with all of our critters running around, we are keeping it protected with throw rugs and blankets.

today, off to "build it naturally" to order flooring replacement boards for the front of the house!

and maybe some paint!

laying the tile

meanwhile, nick is laying the tile in the former laundry room.

(which will soon just be referred to as the back part of the kitchen)

laying tile

standing in the kitchen looking back.
there will soon be a glass door where these two windows are.

someday, this door will go away and the refridgerator will go there.

tile. habitat restore find. $1.00 per square foot.

laundry room celing

catching up: these pictures are from january 10th-ish

we have now added extra support to the laundry room underneath. added a few floor joists, some new subfloor, new plywood and tile board.
after tearing out the ceiling we finally got a chance to see what the new ceiling height would be like!

new ceiling height

 we tore out the old closets, mostly because it was just easier

the old ceiling was just above the door frame!
look how much taller it is!
also take note of the new tile backer board.

new ceiling height

next on the list, bye bye drywall!

laundry room

well wouldn't ya just know it? our washing machine has bit the dust!  

renovation conundrum: 

do we A) freak out and get really mad that everything keeps going wrong (um, okay, maybe just for a second) or do we B) keep that glass half full and find the positive in this situation?

 that's right boys and girls, we went with option B. (important side note- choosing option B is really really important. this is how to maintain sanity during an epic home renovation!)

remember that girder we just replaced underneath the house? it was directly underneath the laundry room. and let me tell you, that floor was a mess! rotten-VILLE! mushy everywhere. so, with the washing machine out, we are taking out the dryer and everything else and building us a new floor.

ripping up the floor

now we all know that there wouldn't be just one layer of flooring underneath that laminate (that IS why this blog is called 18 layers of wallpaper!).  nope there was five, at least. not counting the floor we have seen everyday since we've been here or the sub floor, there were three layers of heavy duty flooring and at least two layers of laminate! 

layers upon layers

it appears that this room was once a porch. the bottom layer was slanted like the old porches used to be to keep water away from the house and facilitate cleaning. when the porch was enclosed, they built up the floor to make it level and then added more layers of flooring as necessary, maybe for aesthetics? maybe to cover rotten spots? who knows...

nick ripped up all of the flooring and supported the utility closets in the room and added and leveled some new floor joists. it was a long day!

 i left to go make pots and came home to this:

our new floor!

just kidding! this is not the new floor, but we had to have a way to cover the floors for the night. we considered just putting a board across across the floor to create a bridge from our newly created den, to our kitchen. but with an adventurous cat, an arthritic senior dog, a spastic schnauzer dog, one really good dog and a fairly clumsy wife, nick decided it would be best to cover the whole floor for the night. tomorrow, getting ready for tile!