So, we’re tiling y’all. Pressing on, and pressing little oblong slabs into some mortar.

You can place subway tile like this on the wall using regler tile adhesive. It’s goop in a bucket. It holds the tile pretty well, and dries in a day or so. We used it on the backsplash tile in the kitchen, if I remember correctly. But we’re deep in mortar country here, folks, so keep your hands inside the ride at all times.

I used to use Custom mortars, if for no other reason than the Orange Place, the local lumberyard, and the hardware all carried their brand. The stuff let me down when I was mortaring the tiles on the floor. Wouldn’t set properly. I had to scrape it out from around the drain and start over. It’s then I discovered that the Blue Place had Mapei mortars and grout. Mortar is basically just dirt in a bag, so I don’t understand how Mapei could get it so right compared to Custom, who got it so wrong. I finished the job with Mapei stuff, and loved it right through. They’ve got a modified grout that’s right next door to epoxy, too. I used that as well. It’s bulletproof compared to most grouts, and has stayed clean lo these many months. It even smells better while it’s giving you silicon silicosis.  Most men have dreams of being slowly suffocated by too much silicone, not silicon, but I’m not most men.

We finally did get around to the wall on the right. When you place tile on the wall in a bed of mortar, you put little plastic spacers shaped like a cross to get the lines right. However, you have to roll with the punches a little. The old walls are slightly off-kilter, and since some of them lean back a little, they are essentially longer than the wall right next to them. That can wreak havoc with your spacing. We need to keep the tile on level lines, but also line up the grout lines with the wall next to the wall you’re working on, or forever banish obsessive compulsive bathers from the bano. You can see that I’ve dealt with the problem by aligning the tile on the left hand side, and then slowly making up the difference with business card shims. Once I got to about the shower valve, the wall took a turn for the better, and I breezed the rest of the way.

That sheet of paper taped to the back wall sure looks interesting to you, I’m sure. Perhaps it holds some secret to the inner working of a great mind. Inside info is best info. Maybe the real skinny is on the paper. We’ll zoom in and let you get a gander at the thought process of the genius tiling the shower:

That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it.

The Blue Place artfully placed solid surface slabs next to the tile aisle (I’ll let devotees of alliteration and sibilance and couplets and suchlike chew on that sentence for a while. It’s more fun if you read it aloud in Daffy Duck’s voice). I bought one to forestall the need to tile the top of the curb. It’s quartz-y, if not actual quartz stuff. Really heavy, but kind of floppy, actually, which surprised me. When I cut it with an abrasive disc in a grinder, it emitted a familiar smell to me. Jayzuz, are they charging $100 a square foot for Corian again, only calling it quartz this time? Whatever. I laid the strip atop the curb in one last bed of mortar, and the tile job was finished.

[Tomorrow, we’ll fit this baby out]