Lynda's Birthday

The picture of the antique school desk was Lynda's birthday present. We actually got it a couple months ago and very cleverly hid it in the cab of Kevin Jr's truck with the blown up engine. Yes, the same truck that was the subject of a blog post last year about taking the transmission out and living to tell the story. As you can see, a desk like this is a perfect fit in our house. The desk, much like the house, has a very high "cool factor" rating and because of that, it gets to be part of the craziness of our project. This blog post will give you an idea of what it's like to celebrate your birthday at the Farmville Reality Project. It's not for everyone but I do believe the birthday girl had a great day.

The pampering began very early that morning with me making sure she got to sleep in until almost 6:15 am. About that time, the cats were acting like they needed to be fed or they would simply kill and eat us, so we got the day started. A quick happy birthday card exchange, usual morning routine of coffee and tea, sort of healthy breakfast food stuff, and we were on our way to tile a bathroom floor. I know what you're thinking, this guy goes far beyond ridicules when it comes to helping people celebrate their birthday. I guess it's one of my strong suits.

Once we got to the house and gathered the tools, we did a quick huddle to make sure we knew what we were doing and what the final product would be. The final product would be an 8 foot by 8 foot floor of one inch white hex tiles. At very well thought out locations, there would be black hex tiles arranged in a snowflake pattern. The idea for the floor came from a blend of many different pictures we had looked at the past few months, actual places we went and visited, as well as what materials we could find in our price range. That led us to the tiles I posted pictures of and described in this post, http://thefarmvillerealityproject.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html. Through a strange twist of fate, today, Lynda's birthday was the day to get these installed.

As mentioned above, these are small, one inch hex shaped tiles and to get the snowflake pattern, it meant taking some of the black ones from some sheets to use in place of white ones on the sheets where a snowflake was to be. We did this prep work a few days prior so there were empty spots where each of the two different colors needed to be relocated to. The plan would be to install the sheets and put the relocated tiles in place as we moved across the floor.

Like all good plans, this one was little short of being realistic. We spread a section of thinset (you do remember that stuff, don't you?) and placed four sheets down. After a few minutes of over-the-top perfectionist type of adjustments, it was time to place the tiles to finish the pattern. This went fairly smooth except the thinset dried very fast in the heat, so we had to smear some more on each little tile before putting it in place. This made a bit of a mess that had to be cleaned because once thinset dries hard, it is literally like cement. Much easier to clean goopy excess up while it's still wet. Now onto the next four sheets. This is where things started going downhill. The small amount in between the tiles sticking out had dried and needed to be scraped up and new thinset troweled down so the new row of tiles would set correctly. About the only tool that worked right was my finger. A knife, screwdriver, or trowel tip were too awkward. If you misjudged and caught just a little bit of the edge of a tile already laid down, it would break its bond and cause it to pop up. The problem with using your finger is it is not as durable as the metal tools and it wears out over time from the abrasiveness of the surfaces being cleaned. Long story short, bloody finger tips that hurt really bad. That tends to slow things up. We kept plowing along though. We would spread thinset, place sheets of tile and then to the painstakingly, labor intensive process of filling in the snowflakes. As time went on, we seemed to go slower and slower. I asked her more than once if she was having a fun birthday and she always said yes every time. I hope she isn't hard at work planning something as equally torturous for my birthday next year.

As darkness forced us to scrounge up work lights, we did a survey and both of us agreed we needed to keep working and get the floor finished. By this time, some of the lay out lines were not lining up right and the thinset seemed to be drying almost instantly as it was troweled down. I could go on about how we kept our heads down and kept working but truth be told, only one of us did that. It was a she, if that helps solve which one us worked tirelessly without complaint. Don't misunderstand me, I kept working too. One thing every one who knows me will agree on, I never quit working until the job is finished. I just complained the whole time about how tired and sore I was. Somewhere pushing 10:00pm that night, the last tiles went down at the point where the doorway meets the hallway and we both breathed a huge sigh of relief. We had completely blown past the stage of being tired and were exhausted. I did what I do best at that point and grumbled about some of the places that got crooked and didn't line up right. Lynda looked at the floor and said it looked great to her and then we drove the long drive back to find refuge in a nice soft bed for our tired selves.










As you can see from the picture, the snowflakes turned out great and I have to admit, they were well worth the effort. The floor of our bathroom truly does give it a historical look and we both know it's durable enough to last a hundred years into the future. Hopefully someday, many years from now, folks will appreciate how a birthday was spent making such a beautiful floor in this old house. Happy Birthday!