Home is where the Hearth is.

Hey, remember how our grout got all screwed up and we had to wait for the new grout to come in and we decided that while we waited we could rip up our hearth in replace it with tile to match our kitchen? 

And remember how that all happened before Christmas?

Well.  We finally finished it.  (Almost.)

The last post showed how we leveled off the concrete that was under the original hearth.  After we got it level, we had to build up the height, so when we layed the tile, it would sit flush with the fire brick inside the fireplace.

We did this by simply layering plywood on the concrete.  Each layer of plywood was attached with good old Liquid Nails, and then screwed into the layer beneath.

(You probably haven't noticed throughout these posts, but it seems that whenever the tv is in the shot, we are watching some sort of sporting event.  It makes me laugh.  Here, it's football...college, by the looks of that logo.  )

My right shoulder is on the verge of falling apart from all my years of volleyball, and it is hard to screw into concrete, so Joe got to do most of the screwing.  (Dirty jokes here.)  

Here, one screw of many.

We added weights to feel like we were at gym.  :)  (And maybe to help out with the Liquid Nails.)

We did all of that work you see above back in December.  What you see below is work we did yesterday.

Onto the almost-level final layer of plywood, we added a layer of cement board.  The tiles had all been cut waaaay back when we started this project, so all we had to do was mix some mortar and slap the tiles down.  We wanted the look of  a single piece of stone, so we didn't leave a grout line.

I neglected to take pictures of the process, so you get only one of the semi-finished result.

(Notice, now on tv, golf.)

The tiles were not perfectly square, so there are slight gaps where some of the tiles meet.  We haven't yet decided what we are going to do about them, but they aren't that noticeable, so we're not worried.

Now all we have to do add some molding around the egdes, and we'll be finished!

Even without the molding, it looks great.  It's a vast improvement from the old, stained, gross stamped concrete.  When you're in the foyer you can see the kitchen tile and the hearth, so it's great that they match now.  It's almost like an actual cohesive design...something the house lacked when we moved in.

And we're just getting started.

Picture Pages.

These are just some random photos I thought you would enjoy that I never added to any posts.

Here are the glass doors we put on the corner cabinets by the sink.  They have textured glass with vertical stripes.

(Notice we still don't have any trim on the window!)

This was one corner of the ceiling that needed an extra piece of sheetrock.  I just liked how the mud looked.

Here's Joe using the wet saw we borrowed.  We did all of the tile cutting after work.  It was always too dark to see anything.  And it was FREEZING to cut the tiles in the cold dark driveway.  I did all of the measuring while Joe did all of the cutting.  Everything was soaking wet and cold, so we didn't mind too much that we only ended up having about an hour of light each night to cut tiles.

A random picture of us.  Joe, wielding a dyson mini vaccuum and I, the handle that doesn't fit on our faucet.

A funny picture of the door that leads into our basement.  It's old and wooden and all rotted out, so we did the best we could to brace it together.  Don't worry, we are getting a new door soon, and will be able to remove the barricade that is inside the basement door.  :)

Jed Clampett will be giddy to get his door back.

How to dry work gloves.

Our trusty work dog.  He had to be in the kitchen with us at all times, so we moved his crate into our work zone so at least nothing would fall on his head.

My dad dropped the hammer onto the work platform and this is how it landed.

Otter on the work platform.  No one dropped him there.  He got up there all by himself.

Otter again. How we recognize him best...sleeping.

Otter, again.  And our shop vac. 

Our completed tile.

So we finally got the grout from Home Depot.  This time, we mixed it by eye instead of following the directions on the bag.  It came out much better that way.  

I did most of the grouting.  

This is the mess I made.  :)  

This is the giant blister I got on my hand from the grout float.  It sucked.

Here's what the finished floor looks like.  All in all it came out great.  I'm glad we had tiled the bathroom first, because it gave me a little bit of practice.  The grout lines in kitchen came out really even and straight, slightly unlike the bathroom. :)

We also tiled the stairs and the little landing by our side door.  We used cool, stainless-looking edger things for the edges of the stairs.  I forget what they are actually called, but they look awesome.

The only things we have left to do to complete the tile job are to put down the transition pieces where the tile in the kitchen meets the hardwood floors in the dining room and foyer.  

But we can't do that until we put trim on the doors.

And we can't do that until it gets warm enough to start working in the driveway again, since we have no place else to set up the chop saw.

Hopefully, we will regain our driveway workshop soon.

Who says it's not fun to fly?

Champions

The New York Football Giants have won Superbowl XLII.

Sorry, Patriots.

18-oh, you didn't win the superbowl.