The hearth tiles.
Half of the tiles around the fireplace were loose, so I pulled them up, cleaned them and then re-laid them.
Turns out the undersides were covered in tiny roots - the previous owner had a potplant sitting on the tiles and the roots had grown down through the bottom and out under the tiles:
The stairwell windows.
The new glazing was installed, and I repainted the frames - they look so much better.
The kitchen bench.
Looks great!
The painting.
The painters finished off the indoor painting - including the chimney and the mezzanine, which now look spectacularly good.
The cork tiles (this is the 'sigh' part).
I think I may have made some stupid decisions here. I may potentially have been fondly reminiscing of the very small area of cork tiling I had done previously (I can't believe I even tried to suggest I was a 'pro' back then).
Anyway, after the debacle of our cork tiles, I did manage to source about 110 packets from Bunnings (i.e. all of the packets in the country). We had estimated we needed about 100, so I was hopeful this would be enough. About half of them arrived last week, so I picked them up.
The I spent Monday night at the house mixing epoxy with this guy:
...and waterproofing the floor.
And yesterday I started putting the tiles down. This is where I think the stupid part of my decision making kicked in. I should probably have waited for someone to actually explain how to do it.
"What do you think?" I asked the painters (who were working outside) after I'd laid about 6-7 tiles.
"Great!" they said. "Keep going!" "Looks about perfect".
So I kept going.
It did kind of look ok:
...but a few of the tiles started lifting in the corners, and the painters said "use more glue!" So I did. Turns out painters aren't very knowledgeable about tile laying. They started lifting even more.
Our builder eventually showed up. Here's a photo of him and my uncle (who had popped in to see how it was going) puzzling over my terrible tile-laying:
The corners and edges all started curling up before our eyes. It turns out I probably used too much adhesive. We fetched heavy paint cans and bricks to weigh them down. It looked ridiculous when I left last night. I had to work my day job today so didn't visit, but got a call from the builder who thinks we may have to pull them all up and start again. And most of them won't survive this, so we will now definitely not have enough matching tiles.
I can't bear to think about it. What an almighty fuck up. And all my fault (well, I'm blaming the painters a bit too).
But the real victim here is Boo. She has been so good at the house, but really doesn't enjoy sitting and watching me get stressed. The sooner this is all over, the better.
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