One of those weekends...

Well it has been one of those weekends. We were trying to get the house looking reasonable for the surveyor (we are remortaging with a new company for a better deal).

Neither of us has laid tiles before so we HUGELY underestimated the time it would take... I forgot to take a piccy of what it looked like before as in a fit of grrrrritude I had taken the lino up during the week , but saturday morning we basically had this:

So we set off, me applying the adehesive to the floor and John laying the tile behind me.

For the first row we cut all the edge bits, but soon decided that took too long so would lay all of the complete tiles and then go back and fill in the gaps.

Mid-afternoonish we had something that was beginning to look floor like and were very proud of ourselves.

Then began the long and arduous task of cutting all the bits, mostly done by JJ I will admit.

About 6ish John popped to sainsburys to get us something for tea, however he sat at the traffic lights and watched the aftermath of an accident that had obviously just occured and, when the lights turned green, pulled away. However, a guy coming the other way that was also staring at the accident, didn't notice the lights had changed and went through them at speed and JJ adn he had a "coming together". There isn't a huge amount of damage to the volvo (the other guys car was trashed) but we think, as the volvo is so old, it is likely that the insurance company will write it off, which is exactly what we don't need right now but never mind. Both men were unhurt except John sprained his thumb getting it caught in the steering wheel as it span round on impact.


By about 10pm Saturday night we had finished laying all of the whole tiles and had cut all of the off cuts (the off cuts being a swearing fiesta in itself!). I had blisters on the tips of all the fingers on my right hand and a couple on the palm. JJ began planning the ultimate bank job so to take advantage of the fact that I had now completely worn away my finger prints. He couldn't have helped in the hiest however as he had done in his back and leg muscles.

Sunday was fathers day and, when he rang to let us know his plans for the day, he then stupidly allowed himself to be suckered into helping us for the day instead! Mum and Dad appeared about lunch time - we had just finished gluing down the last of the cut off tiles and re gluing two of the tiles which were loose - and after a quick breakie of KFC (hmmmmmm) we got to it.

However, Dad insisted on doing the floor properly (Dads are so bad annoying sometimes) and leaving the floor to dry completely before grouting - I was going to grout the whole tiles and leave the rest til later. (What is more the whole "quick drying" adehsive ("ready to grout in 3 hours") wasn't so even the whole tiles weren't quite dry yet. Instead, we blitz tidied the rest of the house and Mum and I attemped to get in the door of my study and clean it. All in all, we got loads done and it made life a whole lot easier (thanks Mum and Dad!)

The next day Mum and JJ threw a sickie and Mum popped over to fold washing and do washing up while I grouted and JJ went to Oxford (where I was supposed to be) and was generally helpful. We finally finished grouting at around 7.30pm and we are really pleased with the effect.

So all in all, despite the fact that it took WAY longer than we had hoped and resulted in writing off the car, I am a happy bunny, as are the dogs who have been either shut in the garden or the lounge for the last 3 days and have been extreamely put out, as you can see: