December 12, 2014

Tracy / December 12, 2013

(These are pictures from yesterday.)

I think I must suffer from some form of stage fright.

It seems when faced with a project, any project, I gather my materials and make my plans but when I get just up to the minute to start my work, I freeze. I have to push myself on to actually start.

You spend so much on materials for each project (Paul works hard to earn the money he brings home!), I become fearful that I’m going to mess up and ruin it all.

Such is the case with yesterday’s project.

I’ve been planning to tile Courtney’s bathroom floor. At some point, I’ll post “before” photos again and you will see what the floor looked like before we started. It had horribly outdated linoleum that had been nailed every couple of inches along the floor. There was no floor trim- it was really something to see.

We knew facing an appraisal (and really, we just wanted it changed anyway), that this was one of the things we needed to address. Courtney and I taught ourselves to tile years back, using a book from Home Depot and the internet. Though, I would never suggest tile in a mobile home again (unless you are ready to REALLY reinforce that floor!), it did give us great experience. Right now, Courtney is a whiz with the wet saw, and I lay all the tile. Courtney actually decided on the design and Tim and Matthew assisted where they were needed.

Jacob spent some time last week taking the old vanity and toilet out. (What a nasty job…I’m so glad I’m a woman. In my house that is “man work”. Yuck.)

This week, I was ready to start. Monday and Tuesday were just too busy. Wednesday came. We finished school time and I knew it was time to start but I could feel fear creeping back in….I decided to take a nap! 🙂

After my nap, I realized I couldn’t move it off any further, I just needed to start. Courtney set up the wet saw (well, she had done that before my nap…), and Matthew helped me assemble materials.

I read the instructions on the mastic bag and we began to lay out the floor.

I think in the end, the floor took us about 3 hours.

Courtney and I didn’t eat before church BUT we did manage to get out the door after at least changing clothes (tile work can be nasty!).

My church family held our service for a few minutes until we arrived…I knew we had to finish once we started. You really don’t ever want to leave wet mastic on the floor.

Last night, after church, I walked back in to look over our work. I think it looks pretty great. Courtney is going to work on paint in that room today and I’ll be grouting later this afternoon. Our goal would be to have this room completely done by the middle to end of next week.

The Lord willing, that will be the case. It would be really nice to have another project completely off the list.

In addition to grout, I have a few errands to run. Tonight, we are figuring out how to turn our bi-fold doors (I detest!), into french doors, and continuing to hang insulation and drywall in the basement. Jacob is changing out the outlets in Courtney’s bathroom and then installing a door on our new supply closet downstairs. Courtney and the little boys are working on cleaning out another section of the new finished basement (it’s such a mess with all the construction materials), and working on painting my “found on an auction” new back porch table (which was really nice for that wet saw, I might add!).

I’m tired thinking about all of it, but the Lord made us to be active and to make the most of the time He gives. I’m actually excited to see what the end of each new days brings!


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