Tile Floor No-No

Hi all,

It's been  too long since I wrote a post. There's been a lot going on. So, first things first. The ranch Reno is moving along much slower than anyone expected. There's just been a lot to slow us down ( including not getting to put in more than 2 hours in any given day!!). Well ,the tile has finally been laid in the bathroom. I say finally because this has been a long time coming.  The original plan was to create a decorative border around the 6 x 6 slate tiles ( posted here) but that was vetoed as it was going to push the bathroom over the original budget. The budget had one very big enemy, Me! I changed the plans to accommodate changing the sink and adding bead board to the walls. Well, something had to go , so no border.

                                                       So, we went from this...
To this....

to add a little more style to the floor, the tile was to have a narrow border of the same slate tiles and the rest would be laid in a diagonal pattern.

That meant getting busy with the wet saw.

There were lots of cuts to make.

We thought this would be the hardest part of this job, ha-ha. Not even!! After laying the tile,

 It still has grout haze on it and is reflecting the red from the walls. I wanted a dark grout with this tile. It looked pretty good when it was finished.  But in the light of day, the next day this is what we found...

                               Every single grout line had cracked!!! Not good, not good at all.
After consulting my new best friend, Google, I discovered there were multiple reasons for this to happen, but the fix was the same. Remove all the grout and start over!

 Here I am using a great tool for this job, the Dremel Muilti Max with the grout saw blade.  And no, I didn't do this whole floor without knee pads! But I did do the whole floor. It was surprising how easy it was.

Here's a pic of a section with all the dark grout removed.

 After talking with the tile experts at Floor and Decor we discovered that grout that has lived on a shelf in your garage for more than 1-2 years, should not be used! Who knew! So much for saving a few bucks and cleaning off that shelf. Let's not think about how much we would have saved if we had just bought a tub of premixed grout in the beginning and thrown the bag of grout on the shelf away! Back to the knee pads and bucket after bucket of water.   Finally, the floor was done, and it looks great.

Well, the next step in moving water lines for the new sink and painting. Then the bead board can go up and the toilet can be installed. From there, it's all down hill. Stay tuned for more on the ranch Reno.