DIY entry #3

Day 4 Finishing the subfloor
Thursday night, I took a few hours to mortar and tape together those backerboards I screwed into the plywood. In this phase, I mixed up some mortar in an old plastic garbage pail by slowly adding water to the mortar mix. You want to get a good consistency with the mortar, adding enough water or mix as necessary to get a toothpaste or sour cream thickness. Once you get the right combination, you let your mortar sit for 5-10 minutes to allow the adhesion to develop in the mix. I think this part is similar to letting dough rise before baking it. In the meanwhile, I precut all my tape for the backerboard seams. While I was at Home Depot earlier in the week, I asked the flooring guy why I needed to join the boards together when I already screwed them into the plywood. He told me screwing in the boards doesn't limit movement. Screws prevent major movement, but there can still be minor movement between the boards. Mortaring and taping the boards together helps to make them one unit. This is important so that you don't have boards moving in opposite directions, which would crack the grout. I said, "Oh yeah, that makes sense."

With everything all set, I took my triagular trowel, scooped up some cement and ploppled it down like a scoop of sour cream onto the seams between the backerboards. I spread out the mortar, filling in the seams, and laid the tape onto the wet cement. Then I splatted another layer of mortar onto the tape to fix it in the mix.

I liked this phase cuz i got my hands dirty. Working with the mix was like working with wet clay and sculpting.


Day 5 Laying out the tile.

There are two general ways that people tile. Some people like to use little plastic spaces that keep the tiles a consistent distance apart. Other people like to first grid out the entire floor, making sure that the lines are at right angles. You can then use these grids as reference lines to lay out your tile. The first method takes a little less prework, but if you're not careful with your spacers, you'll find that your lines are no longer straight. You might end up with curving lanes and weird cuts. The second method takes a little more work. Guess which method I took?