Since the tile went in (the second time) a couple of weeks ago, I’ve had a renewed motivation to finish the mudroom. Helen was away for five days for work, so while she was gone, I spent my evenings finishing the drywall, rather than lounging around like we usually do.

After filling the house with dust when pulling up the tile, I decided to tape off the end of the house while sanding the drywall to avoid making a huge mess.

With a Dexter-like shield in place, I spent five days taping the drywall seams and corners, putting three layers of mud on all of the tape and nail holes, and sanding everything perfectly smooth.

I have a real problem with textured drywall. I feel like it cheapens the look of a home. The problem is, keeping drywall smooth requires a lot of extra finish work because without texture, EVERY imperfection shows.

And as usual, after I thought everything was smooth, I applied a PVA primer to seal the virgin drywall. When the primer dried, I noticed a few spots that weren’t smooth. So I re-mudded and sanded them before painting.

For the walls, I used leftover paint from our bedroom – Benjamin Moore Abalone. And for the ceiling, I went with a leather-ish color – Grey Squirrel – from the now discontinued Martha Stewart line. I’m usually a Benjamin Moore loyalist, but the BM paint store isn’t exactly in a convenient location, so for the ceiling, I just picked a color I liked at Home Depot and had it put into a Glidden base. I was actually really impressed by the paint. Even with a dark color, it only took one coat for complete coverage.

With the paint dry, the lovely Rejuvenation Lombard lights were installed, and the washer and dryer re-installed to their permanent location. Hopefully for the last time.

It’s all coming together! The next step is to build the cabinets, stain and install the interior doors, and replace all of the siding on the outside of the house.

Anyone have advice on where to get cabinet-grade plywood and sheets of fir veneer in Portland?

We’ve been thinking about refinancing the house. Which was great, because it motivated me to get moving on the mudroom. Open permits + half complete construction = low appraisal.

We’d already insulated and hung the drywall on all of the walls but the one where the dryer vent is (needs mechanical inspection). But progress has been slowed on the rest, as I’ve been waiting to take a day off of work for inspections. When I started thinking through what was left to complete, I realized I could easily get started on the floor before the inspection, to move things along.

So I sealed up the old crawl space trap door, cut the Durock to size, and mortared and screwed it all in place.

When I did the bathroom floor, I bought enough tile to do the laundry room as well, as I knew I’d someday want a new floor in there. So I took up a few of the doorway tiles, and got to work tying the two rooms together so there weren’t any awkward seams.

With that done, I snapped a square line across the room to use as the guide for all of the tiles.

And then using spacers, I went around the edges of the room, and started filling in. And that’s where things went horribly wrong. After two full days of doing squats, I sat on the half finished floor in agony, realizing that I’d messed up big time.

So I returned the saw, and tried to figure out what to do next. For a week. And I realized that only thing I could do is tear up the floor to the point that the misalignment started. So I did. I pried up the tiles, and when I realized that Durock isn’t exactly reusable… I got the circular saw, attached a masonry blade, and cut through that, filling the entire house with dust. Since all of the screws – which are placed every 8 inches – were covered in mortar, it was impossible to simply back them out and lift the piece in one section. So I started prying. And pebble by piece of sand, 6 hours later, I had taken up the 3×5 piece of Durock, and was ready to start again. I cut a leftover piece to size, mortared and screwed it down, and started my tiling job over – this time working across the room, rather than from the edges in.

And well, even though I can barely raise or lower myself out of a chair, I’m glad I did. The grout lines are perfect, and the tiles fit in the center of the room without having to be cut. I did have to adjust the cuts on the edge tiles, but it was minimal.

So, morals of this tiling story:

1. Work across the room. Starting from your straight line, tile outward toward the edges of the room. Never start at the edges and fill in. Spacing will be wrong.
2. Don’t be a mother effing cheapskate. Want to know why I did the edge tiles first? Because I didn’t want to have to rent the saw for another day, so my cheap little brain thought, “Oh, if I do the outside tiles first, I can return the saw and be done.” And what did it mean? I had to tear up the floor, use an extra piece of durock, an extra bag of mortar, buy an extra box of tiles, oh… and rent the saw for another day. (By the way, you tightwads… If you rent a saw from Home Depot at closing time, you can pay the 4-hour rate, and return it the next morning by 9 a.m.)

Any other tiling horror stories/pointers out there?

Remember when the bathroom mirror cracked, just weeks after I had installed it? And when I spent a day removing it, and massively scarring the drywall behind it because I’d been an idiot and used an entire tube of construction adhesive to glue it to the wall?

Yes? So do I. Sure as 1,000 shards of mirror littering the floor.

Well, after nearly two months, thirty coats of drywall mud, 4 sanding pads, a gallon of paint, and a $20 IKEA mirror, the bathroom is looking better than ever.

If I only would have just shelled out the $20 to begin with.

There are a few morals to this DIY story: 1. Never be a cheapskate and attempt to salvage a mirror that has experienced a trauma… it will have weak points, even after cutting off the broken pieces. 2. Never…. I repeat NEVER… affix a mirror directly to drywall with construction adhesive. Use Any. Other. Method.  If/when it breaks, or you want to renovate your bathroom, removal will ruin the wall and likely your life. 3. Drywall repair sucks. No explanation needed.