This was our shower room, the last room to require tiles and this was the last task on the last piece of tiling in that room. I wiped my sticky siliconed finger clean and prepared for the onerous task of getting my self back up onto my feet again. My first tiling job in the house was the Kitchen floor way back in January of 2011 and since then I seem to have been tiling for the following two and a quarter years. Literally the day that I started this marathon tiling event my knee received a trauma and although I had an operation to fix it I still suffer some stiffness and so getting from the kneeling position in a cramped shower to a standing one is a challenge.
As I struggled to get upright with an awkwardness that only a camel could replicate I started to wonder just how many tiles I must have stuck to the walls and floors of this place in that time.
My knee gave a reassuring click, much like the clunk of the car seat belt, as I stood at my full 6' 1" as if to demonstrate that it is safely locked into position and we are safe to move on. Stiffly I squeezed out of the narrow pivoted shower door (I made an error of judgement there and wished that I had plumped for the concertina style door). By now the cat had got bored and wandered off to terrorise my new lounge carpet with her sharp unforgiving claws.
This left me with my thoughts, pondering....... Mmmmm, I wonder how many tiles.... in fact I wonder how many times I had cut a tile. It had seemed to me that I had cut absolutely hundreds of the damn things. Well of course that was it, I had just simply gotta know so I started counting.....
1,2,3,4,5,6, No this'll never work it will take me for ever, no I need pen and paper. Now how shall I break this down? After much thought (2 minutes with pen, paper and a chunk of cake to aid the little grey cells) I had created 3 columns.
Whole tiles Cut tiles Meters of Grout
I marched around the house late yesterday evening collating this wholly useless information. I became quite pedantic about getting it absolutely correct, garbage in - garbage out I reinforced the necessity to be accurate with myself. Only to then find that I had to immediately stop the count as I had just prompted myself to put the dustbin out for tomorrows collection!
So here it is, the end result of all that hard work (not the counting, but the tiling). In the 2 years and 3 months we have .......
Laid 829 whole tiles.
Cut and laid a further 518 tiles of which I estimate I have made approximately 1,030 cuts.
That is a TOTAL of 1,347 tiles laid!
(887 were wall tiles and 460 were floor tiles)
The most painstaking to measure were the lines of grout but with very careful calculation I even managed to calculate how long all the lines would be if they were all lined up end to end. I know, I know, you're thinking hasn't he anything better to do?
Well apart from 26 piles of washing (and ironing), preparing the guest rooms, vacuuming, shopping, gardening and the allotment I've really got nothing better to do!
So how much grouting have we slapped onto our walls and floors then?
100 meters?
200 meters?
Perhaps 500 meters!
Nope.........
We have inserted some 756 meters of grout, or 2,480ft.
To put that into perspective it is approximately two and a half times the height of The Shard !
All this work done despite my wonky knees and having guests coming and going throughout whilst at no time seeing any evidence of our vivacious tiling frenzy that we have perpetuated in the pursuance of our dream.
Perhaps I can steal a moments rest-bite from this all consuming task..... Fat chance. The grouting in the Cottage's shower are becoming a little stained and so I need to head over there soon and give them a freshen up.............
Will it never end!
7,946
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