25: A number to hate!

I thought tiling would be fun and rewarding. Wrong! The job is painful. The way my knees feel and look can now attest. Breathing dry thinset as it becomes air-born in an uncontrollable cloud when pouring it in water is unavoidable. This becomes a tad more tolerable when done outside as long as my car isn't in the direction the wind blows! Setting up 25lb bag of thinset takes 25 minutes no matter what, and cleanup of tools and buckets in 25 degree temperature is a vacation. Twenty five is a number I learned how to hate.

Let’s do some math: I have 165 sq ft to cover. It took me three and a half hour to cover the first 10 sq ft which means it will take me more than 57 hours to cover the whole kitchen! I bet this will take 25 days to complete! I'm about to think that $2,500 (twenty five hundred!) for a professional to do this in 2.5 days might have been worth it. Too late. I'm in till I... get done.

"Tuscan Leveling System" update: Not bad but no miracle here. The system is leveling unevenness between tiles up to 3/32" but it still requires spreading thinset in an even thickness to obtain professional results.