Tiling is one of those jobs where everything can go wrong

19 January 2011

I am nearly recovered from my horrible cold so no moaning about that this week. Apparently I have been going on about it too much and the whole family has been getting a bit sick of it. I have been told that if I am sick I should be in bed and that if I insist on going into work then I get what I deserve. Whatever happened to “in sickness and in health” I wonder? I guess Claire never agreed to “and when I moan incessantly...”

So I have made good progress this week on the top flat. The bathroom was delivered and thankfully the delivery bloke took one look at me and asked if I needed a hand getting it up the stairs. I must have looked like I needed the help. Once the bath was in the house it was a real squeeze to get it down the hall way and into the bathroom. It was one of those really tight right hand corners. I don't know quite how I got the old one out, but I struggled on my own for about half an hour and ended up having to remove the bathroom door, so there's another job to do.

The bathroom is a pretty basic white suite with a shower over the bath. Even the tiling is plain white and the floor is going to be grey vinyl. Not very inspiring, but at least it will last a good long while and will be easy to keep clean.

Chris tells me he has already arranged someone to move into the top flat in two weeks time. Of course I am running behind with my schedule. All of the big jobs are done, but it is the tiling and the flooring which takes the time. Apart from the fact that I am super picky when it comes to getting the tiling looking right, I really don't enjoy doing it at all.

Tiling is one of those jobs where everything can go wrong. You need to make sure you have perfectly prepared walls first, so this can mean having to plasterboard everything out. Then you have to spend ages measuring to make sure it is all centred nicely and won't look uneven. Cutting the tiles usually results in a fair few broken ones and uneven edges which need filing – or is that just me ?. Then just when you think it is all finished you have to grout the whole lot.

But it doesn't end there because after the grouting has dried you need to clean the damn things. And don't even talk to me about natural stone and the fact you need to seal them before you start...

A while ago I made a big mistake while I was tiling over a bath. I dropped a big glop of adhesive into the bath. I didn't think much of it and just rinsed it down the waste. It wasn't until I was nearly finished the whole bathroom that I ran the water to doubled check it was working that I discovered the adhesive had hardened in the pipe and the water wouldn't drain away. I had to remove all of the waste pipe work under the bath and replace it. This was after I had installed a tiled bath panel!

So me and tiling don't like each other. I can add that job to the list of jobs I don't like much. Sometimes I think that I should just stick to the electrics, which I really love. The pay is probably better too.

Carpets go down at the end of next week and then it is time to move onto the middle flat. I will have to consider the fact that a tenant will be upstairs though, so no loud music and singing at the top of my lungs. But who knows, maybe they like Tom Jones!