1st November 2022 Tiling the hall.

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Tuesday 1st November 54F. Heavily overcast and very windy. The trees are thrashing about. 12-14m/s gusts is around 30mph in old money. Rain forecast for this morning. Up at 6.15.  

 I must go shopping this morning and will take the trailer full of garden waste. The recycling yard is always open for garden waste.

7.20. Light enough to be safe on the roads. I had better get going.

 8.30 Still blowing and heavily overcast but dry. My secondhand, fleece jacket wasn't very windproof to start with. By the time I was on my way back, into the wind, I had warmed up. It was only as I walked away for the house that I realised I had put on the wrong boots. I was wearing my safety boots. They proved to be quite comfortable for the half hour stroll to the lanes and back.   

 Plans for today: Tiling the entrance hall. First I must mark a centre line along the hall floor. I shall measure half the width at both ends and use a magic marker. The line will be steadily lost as I spread the tile fixing compound but it will still help me with alignment. The later built walls are skewed relative to the kitchen and hall ceiling joists.

The line has been drawn and a row of tiles laid dry. To confirm spacing is optimum for the tile size and the 6mm plastic spacer crosses. I had already done this once but it doesn't hurt to measure twice. 

11.00 One long row of tiles has been laid with adhesive to the drawn line. 16 tiles per row. I use about 2kg of tile adhesive to 0.6L of cold water. I need enough adhesive for five more rows. 

 So 5x as much adhesive to complete the floor. About 10kg. The bags hold 5kg. So I ought to get two more bags. Then I will have some surplus for other small jobs. I also need enough grout for 2.5m^2. I will lay another long row. Then I will have to go shopping before lunch.

 I used up most of the tile adhesive to complete another row. Everything has been cleaned up with water. Including wiping over the tiles with a wet sponge. So the adhesive doesn't set while I am out shopping. 

 The newspaper is supposed to stop me traipsing tile adhesive through the house. Though I am working in slip-on sandals and taking them off when I leave the hall.

14.30 Just finished a late lunch after going shopping. I chose a bag of grey grout. There wasn't much of a choice of colours at the builder's merchant.

 15.45 Having completed all the full tiles I am having a rest. Rather than cut tiles around the fussy architrave profiles I'm going to saw the architraves instead. I just need something the thickness of a glued tile to act as a disposable height reference. Then I can cut the profiles away at tiled floor level. Using the oscillating multi-tool and the packing piece. 

 Had I thought about this, I would have left fitting the architraves until after the tiling. However, I have filled a lot of the cracks where the profiles met the walls. So I don't want to remove them again now.

17.50 Picture of the tiles after wiping off the excess tile cement with a wet sponge. They can be polished up further once they are safe to walk and kneel on. Photographed by artificial LED light. Then image processed to bleach the warm white lighting to a more natural colour. It is years since I did any tiling.

Dinner was fish fingers, pasta, peas and tinned tomatoes.

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