Choosing tile

I had a moment of clarity over the weekend while out looking at tile with the family; the miniscule differences of my opinions on different tiles mean I basically don’t care what tile we ended up going with for the fireplace hearth. With that in mind we grabbed a few sheets and got ready to put them on. 

A quick aside, apparently you can’t go anywhere in the ‘burbs before Halloween without running into some kind of “safe trick or treating environment” where people hand candy out from the trunk of their car. We stopped by HD after a morning swim and there was one in the parking lot. Went to the grocery store afterwards to get milk, there was one there. Both full of kids in full costume. And it wasn’t like they turned our kids away b/c they were just in normal clothes, but how does everyone know about this kind of thing? We were just running errands, we didn’t expect this trip to end up taking almost three hours. And Halloween was still three days away. The kids have been riding a sugar high for days now.

Anyway, I was excited to go home and tile but it seems I had gotten a little ahead of myself. Apparently you can’t store a tile cutter in a detached garage over Chicago winters, b/c my 14” cutter from the condo backsplash refused to slide. And here I was congratulating past me for keeping this in it's original box for 3+ years just in case. Oh well. A few drops of lubrication and hopefully we’ll be cutting tiles soon. 

I guess we'll have to add wd-40 to our shopping list.

Yeah, that's not going to work for cutting tile.

Although getting this done means more grouting, so maybe I'll pretend it needs more time that it actually does. It's not like I'm going to find time to finish this during the week anyway. 

Art without a home

I stole yet another project idea from somewhere else. But I had some surprise quiet time at home, a spare canvas, and needed a bit of mental distraction. I keep telling myself the next idea I get is going to go on a canvas I’ve made myself but honestly I can’t imagine finding the time to get one done.

Not a bad sketch at least.

It’s been a crazy fall; with the kids so busy I can’t believe I choose this semester to both take and teach a class. We’ve all been up to our elbows in things to do, hence the opportunity to post about projects other than the fireplace growing pretty rare. But with the wife back home and taking the kids out I had a quiet evening to myself after a stressful day at work so I thought I would sit down with some paint.

Huh. Maybe I should have done the tiny tiny letters first...

I’m not sure if I’ll leave the right edge as is or fill it in; I like the definition it gives the image but the all black side looks pretty good on its own too. We’ll see what the kids say.  

Just in time for Halloween.

Regardless of whether it’s finished or not I have no place to put it; I just put a new hook in a living room wall for some Halloween decorations but somehow I doubt the wife, as cool as she is, would approve of putting this going up once it’s time for the ghouls and goblins to come down. Maybe the boy will want to put it up; it’ll match his lightsaber nightlight at least.  

You're not done until the wife says you're done.

The wife was pleasantly surprised to see the shape of the fireplace when she came home last week. So pleasantly, in fact, she thought the mantel looked a lot better with a gray fireplace vs a white one, and "suggested" maybe I should just tile right up to it instead of leaving a gap and covering the mantel with wood. So yeah, I got all the tiling supplies back out, along with the left over tiles I had planned on returning.

The small finishes have the biggest impact sometimes.

I was not happy about having to grout again, but she was right, as usual, and finishing the tile up to the mantel does make everything look a lot better. Which is giving her a lot of confidence about suggesting tiles to finish the hearth with, which is great in that she's got good taste and I trust her judgment, but also awful b/c she really liked the look of some aluminum mosaic tiles we saw this weekend and I'm not crazy about the idea of getting a hacksaw out.

Still not done, but not having to cover the mantel will make things easier.

Cross that bridge when we get there though. The lesson here, yet again, is that my wife is always right. It's a running joke around our house but we've been telling it for years for a reason, and that's b/c there's truth to it. If it means a little more work for me when we're ready to tile the hearth so be it. For now I'm happy with how things have turned out and willing to do some research into what our finishing options are.

I hate grout

I can’t explain it, but I’ve done two tile jobs now and for both, finishing the grouting had me ready to burn the entire job down. Maybe I’m just not patient enough. Thankfully there was less of it to do this time around, but that was evened out by having to use a stepstool for half of it.

ugh

First time around, I let the grout dry for too long and it was impossible to scrub off. I was determined not to make that mistake this time, working on smaller areas at a time but I wonder if I didn’t go too far in the opposite direction. Was I just spreading grout around and making the tiles cloudy? I couldn’t tell. And that’s just one more reason I fucking hate grout.

I can barely tell the difference anyway.

Things ended up not looking too bad though, and I think I got the tiles fairly clean. Things were definitely a darker gray on the grout label but I can live with what it dried to. Honestly I don’t see much of a difference between grout and open space until I get up close, but things do look more finished now. Tile the hearth, cover the mantel in something that matches a little better, and this will look great. Just in time to hang some stockings I would imagine.

Steak steak steak steak steak

The week the wife has to spend out of town is one of my least favorite weeks of the year but it does have some perks. When it was just me and the dog we’d order multiple pizzas and eat the left overs until she got home. With kids that doesn’t sound quite as glamorous/debauched as it used to so I was looking for a more adult option to try. And since even they were going to be out of the house for a night, why not set off the smoke detectors cooking a big steak. 

That's a surprisingly good looking cut of beef.

A quick trip to wallyworld and I dug up a discounted NY strip, thick cut but had to be used by that day. ‘No problem,’ I thought to myself, I’m sure I’ll cook off anything harmful. So off I went to season and sear and enjoy. A little more work than simply ordering a pizza but for a bigger reward.

Simple.

I coated it in oil, pepper, and garlic salt as soon as we got in the house. I left it out while the oven heated up, and when it had reached 450 I put the skillet on a burner and got ready to smoke things out. Open windows, covered smoke detectors. A little more oil on the pan and away we went.

Almost...

Based on the quiet sizzling noises I got when steak first hit iron I think I should have let the skillet get a little hotter. But at that point I couldn’t wait for some steak. Two minutes on each side, 30 seconds on the edges. Better sizzle after a flip, and things were looking good. Dropped some butter in the pan and threw everything in the oven for 5 more minutes with an extra flip thrown in there just for luck.

Closer...

First look after 5 minutes had things still looking a little blue for my liking but 90 seconds more seemed to do the trick. Tin foil tent, rest while I poured a whiskey, and then, finally, things were ready.

Oh yeah.

More work than ordering a pizza but sooooooooooooo worth it.

So good.

I really do hate this week but little like a thick steak cooked exactly how I like it make things a lot easier to deal with.