Oops! Entry Floor

If you’ve read my Entry Floor post where I decided to remove the linoleum and replace it with tile, then you have an idea that there’s some oops – lessons learned in that project.

As you read through my posts and Oops, you’ll find, as I have, that many of the Oops moments come from my impatience to get moving along on a project.  Most of the time, you’ll notice that if I had taken just a bit of time to review a process or run to the hardware store or decide to spend a little more $$, many of these Oops could have been prevented.  However, you’ll also find that is not my normal modus operandi or mode of operation in layman’s terms  🙂  

The largest issue with the Entryway Tile project is the subflooring.  As mentioned in the post, a friend of mine, Kara, suggested I take the time and effort to install cement board to give the tile a solid base since the linoleum had been installed on plywood subflooring.  While plywood is just fine under linoleum, it does not work so well under tile because it has some ‘give’ to it.  I look back on the picture below and realize how simple it would have been to install that cement board….***sigh***

Prior to this project, my tiling experience consisted of some mosaic on the kitchen wall and the mud room floor which was tile over cement.  While I trusted Kara, I didn’t quite understand why it was so important to use cement board and I definitely didn’t feel qualified to install it myself.  My option would have been to hire it done, but since this was another add-on project, I wasn’t interested in spending any more $$ than necessary.  I also didn’t have a grasp of what the result would be by ignoring her advice.

The tile installed beautifully and the floor looked great for quite some time.  Over the years, though, the grout began to crack.  I ignored it for awhile and finally decided I should do something about it.  Rustling through my tile supplies, I found a little hand tool that I call a ‘scorer’ because I don’t know what the name of the tool actually is.  If I recall, I was told it was to remove excess thinset that has seeped up between tiles while it’s wet before applying the grout.  It has two sharp prongs on it so I used it to chip out some of the broken grout to make room to replace it.  

Once I had chipped away on the grout tiles that were cracked, I vacuumed the mess and went to mix new grout.  Now comes the 2nd Oops with this project – grout color.  If you came to this page from reading the Entry Floor post, you’ll know that I chose to mix two grout powders to get a color to match the tile. Of course, I didn’t measure the powders when mixing, I just eyeballed it until it looked like a good match to the tile.  I also didn’t mix extra powder to have on hand for future needs like what I was now facing.

• 

• 

I did manage to obtain a close match to the grout I originally mixed, but it’s not quite right….now worries though as the grout lines are showing signs of cracking once again  🙁

Now, you may be asking – ‘Why not just remove the tile, install cement board and retile?’  That’s a great question!  I have thought about doing just that over the years….however, now I have installed a 7ft tall mirror and edged that in with baseboard, created a newel post that sits on the tile and edged the top step of the bottom set of steps with wood….all of which would need removed before even starting to break up the tile, it’s just a bit too much to consider doing at this time.  Sooooo, I’ll be working on replacing the grout again in the near future.

Lessons Learned

• Pay attention to advice from others
• Take the extra time to install correct materials
• When mixing grout colors use a measuring cup and make extra
• Label the container with the contents and with which tile it can be used