time for tiling.

So after Scott and I finished setting all the field tiles, it was time for me to cut the perimeter tiles and finish the job. I brought my trusty $20-garage-sale-find tile saw into the room to do the cutting (and wore ear plugs - that thing is loud!), which went quickly. And since the layout worked out that the edges were just under half the width of a tile, we ended up with over two boxes of tiles leftover, and very little waste.

The only complicated cut (which required the tile snips again) was for our bedroom door, but it was easy -

Boom. And in short order, the floor was tiled!

Meanwhile, I was trying to find a toilet that would fit the 10" rough-in dimension of this bathroom (older bathrooms tend to have 10" rough-ins, while modern plumbing allows for a 12" rough-in). Thankfully, they're still made - and Kohler (the sponsor of our bath fixtures heh) has a few. But they're still bigger than the toilet we ripped out of here, and so I took a sketch from the Kohler website, blew it up to scale in InDesign, printed it, and set it on the floor after marking where the vanity will be to get a sense of the space between the two -

There isn't much... maybe 16 inches. But... oh well. That's kind of how big toilets are, and I'm not about to, well, not use the vanity I spent months crafting. Onward...

Next, I need to grout the tile, which was on the schedule for today. I mixed up 5 pounds of pewter sanded grout (which we'll also use with the white subway tile in the shower enclosure and on the wall behind the custom vanity for a nice, contrasty look) with 16 ounces of water, which turned out to be exactly how much it took.

I forgot that it's not critical to get the grout perfect with the float - and how that is achieved with a sponge 10-15 minutes after finishing setting the grout.

The wet sponge smooths the grout to perfection, while wiping off the excess from the tiles. It took three passes, each with two buckets (one of fresh, clean water and the other for wringing out the filthy sponge), but in time the floor was finished!

The grout needs to set for 72 hours, then I'll have to seal it. In the meantime, I'll be able to finally connect the floor programmer to the electrical and turn it on to test. Hopefully (my last check still measured the right resistance, so everything seems to be working) I'll feel warmth beneath my feet...