Tile cutting

Sticking to schedule today, more or less -- a little bit less, but not for lack of trying. Today had some ups and downs, which started with a downer late last night when I went to bed. Closing the curtains, I happened to look up and see... (it's not a bat, don't worry):

First light (really, I was up from 4:30 AM on), I went up and checked out the attic, then looked outside and at the roof. I didn't spot anything, but our handyperson, Amie, did see some water damage in the attic -- it was just little distance away from where I was expecting it. Looks like it's probably a roof-joining-chimney issue, or possibly just a chimney issue. The chimney also needs "tuck pointing" (where they re-fill the mortar between bricks that's been worn away) pretty badly.

Since I was up (and Home Depot opens at 6 AM), I went up and bought a couple of cheap porcelain tiles to practice on with the angle grinder. Here you can see notches (the large container of windshield wiper fluid is there to keep the tile from shifting during cutting):

And circle cutouts, which are a little harder, and sometimes very time consuming. But very necessary for that big toilet flange (also called a "closet flange" for "water closet").

And a video (the sound of the angle grinder is horrific, and quite loud -- I recommend turning volume to low before playing):

And in slo-mo (I was hoping for sparks, but they're actually kind of rare; the sound here, slowed down enormously, is actually kind of interesting):

The temperatures kept rising, so around 10 or so, I decided to get to work on the real thing. The Ann Sacks tile is about twice as thick, and I had to adopt some new methods. I drew out what needed to be cut out on the tiles, and labeled each of the tiles as if they were states in the US, so I'd remember where they needed to go. Unfortunately I only started photographing once I had the East Coast, the South and the Eastern Midwest down -- that's because only Florida (see below) needed any cutting to make it fit, while Maine, Virginia, Minnesota, Missouri and East Texas could go down as is. The rest would not be so easy.

West Texas/New Mexico needed another small cutout for the door posts.

But the big cutting was obviously reserved for Utah and Montana. It went very slowly. I watched a professional tile guy, using exactly the same equipment, and he does it in literally 90-120 seconds. I think the two pieces took me two hours. Here's Utah:

Joined in an unholy alliance with Montana:

The remaining pieces should have been easy. They weren't -- partly because nothing is straight and nothing is even in a 90 year-old house, and partly because it was 92 or 93 degrees at this point, and I kept having to move my little work station to stay in the shade. Also, you cut conservatively, but then you discover it's not enough. So you re-cut. And again. And again. And again. All of these pieces needed 5-6 sessions of trimming and cutting before they would fit. In the end, Oregon was the biggest challenge, because of that projecting toilet tank-feed pipe. I thought a small notch, and I'd be able to slide it in? Nope. Rotate it around from a different side? Nope. A deeper notch? Nope. Only cutting out that corner entirely worked. So eventually, Oregon/Washinton fell.

By comparison, Northern and Southern California didn't take too much work:

...although at this point I was ready to throw in the towel and just give up. I didn't, but I'm trying to figure out why I'm not enjoying this. I had a blast with the kitchen, but this bathroom has not been like that -- anxious, unhappy, lots of work, slow progress, etc. I had imagined being done by the end of June. Now I'm thinking the end of July would be more appropriate -- if I'm lucky. But maybe Monday or Tuesday we will have a floor.

Remaining issues:

The transition strip area needs to be addressed somehow. Of the pieces of tile I cut off the West Coast, literally none can be used for the strip. I only have one spare tile, and that's not enough. A random assortment of this tile that won't match the pattern? A neutral non matching tile? Some other kind of transition from tile to linoleum. Research is called for.

A couple of areas are *not* level. Virginia is the worst offender, with a big bump underneath, making the tile rock back and forth. It's pretty bad. I tested everything with a level yesterday and it was all good. Now it is not. It should probably be dealt with now, but I just don't have it in me. Amie suggested cutting away the DITRA in that area and seeing what's happening underneath, so that may happen tomorrow (I don't know if that's easy or possible, just that's it's an idea. Otherwise, I'm pretty much baffled as to how to proceed -- the uneven underlayment will result in cracked tiles, so that's a non-starter, but also I'm unclear on what else I could possibly do at this point.

I think I'd better take tomorrow off, other than looking at the underlayment. In the meantime, happy Negroni Week!