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Sticky Fingers.
Jul. 11th, 2015 06:46 pmThe Rolling Stones are playing the Ralph tonight. We're not going. If I want to see grumpy old men, there are plenty of them in this neighborhood.
Rather, the header refers to my job du jour: I took a crack at the cracks today, and grouted a significant section of the tiled backsplash in the kitchen. This is one of those many skills I never learned growing up and would never have had the aptitude to figure out on my own. Quirks like the applicator (a rectangular gizmo known as the "float") really only working if you apply it (a) on the diagonal rather than in up-and-down or left-right strokes, and (b) using only the edge of the rectangle, since pushing the entire float against the tile creates a sucking effect. But Eleanor talked me through it and kept an eye on what I was doing, so it worked out pretty well.
It's only one section, but at the end I got the nicest compliment you can ever give to a n00b: probably because my arms are longer, stronger or both, the grouted tile in this section is one of the best-looking in the whole kitchen....
and soon enough, the new microwave will go in front of it and hardly anyone else will ever know;)
----
The grout itself is, yes, a sticky mixture that has to be redone roughly every fifteen minutes so the stuff doesn't cure in the bucket. And it did get all over fingers, clothes and, unfortunately, some of its residue on the brick wall of the house backing up to the greenhouse. But nobody will see that, either.
While I did that section, Eleanor worked on removing the "haze" from sections she'd done earlier. This is just a wipedown of the previously grouted tiles that gets more of the traces of the goop from the surfaces of the tiles themselves. I can't tell as much of the difference as she can, but I can, somewhat.
Probably Mick and Charlie could figure it out, too. The two of them took a pre-concert side trip yesterday for a private tour of the city's most famous Frank Lloyd Wright house. Keith, I presume, was checking out the meth labs in Tonawanda.
Rather, the header refers to my job du jour: I took a crack at the cracks today, and grouted a significant section of the tiled backsplash in the kitchen. This is one of those many skills I never learned growing up and would never have had the aptitude to figure out on my own. Quirks like the applicator (a rectangular gizmo known as the "float") really only working if you apply it (a) on the diagonal rather than in up-and-down or left-right strokes, and (b) using only the edge of the rectangle, since pushing the entire float against the tile creates a sucking effect. But Eleanor talked me through it and kept an eye on what I was doing, so it worked out pretty well.
It's only one section, but at the end I got the nicest compliment you can ever give to a n00b: probably because my arms are longer, stronger or both, the grouted tile in this section is one of the best-looking in the whole kitchen....
and soon enough, the new microwave will go in front of it and hardly anyone else will ever know;)
----
The grout itself is, yes, a sticky mixture that has to be redone roughly every fifteen minutes so the stuff doesn't cure in the bucket. And it did get all over fingers, clothes and, unfortunately, some of its residue on the brick wall of the house backing up to the greenhouse. But nobody will see that, either.
While I did that section, Eleanor worked on removing the "haze" from sections she'd done earlier. This is just a wipedown of the previously grouted tiles that gets more of the traces of the goop from the surfaces of the tiles themselves. I can't tell as much of the difference as she can, but I can, somewhat.
Probably Mick and Charlie could figure it out, too. The two of them took a pre-concert side trip yesterday for a private tour of the city's most famous Frank Lloyd Wright house. Keith, I presume, was checking out the meth labs in Tonawanda.