10/31 Workday

Another successful Saturday on our house. We had lots of volunteers both from Northrop and from LaTisha and her family. The main goal of our workday was to get started laying tile down onto the kitchen floor. I know this would be a daunting task and managed to get Mike and Craig to help me Friday finish laying the cement backerboard in the kitchen and figure out where the keystone tile would go. The keystone tile sets the pattern for the whole floor and should make the pattern be balanced across the floor, i.e. if only a third of a tile is needed one the left wall, a third of a tile should be at the right wall as well. We decided to lay a diagonal pattern for the kitchen floor which made finding the keystone a little harder. But once Saturday was underway, we just started mortaring tiles next to the keystone tile and moved out from it. Having the keystone tile in the center of the floor allowed several tile layers to work in their own directions and avoided having too many people in one spot. A bunch of people preped the tile by slapping mortar on the tile back, while still others worked on cleaning the tile and spacing between the tiles. The kitchen was a very busy place, but we successfully laid about 130 tile, or 130 square feet. It is going to look great when it is all finished. The rest of the volunteer team on Saturday worked on getting window sills made as well as handling lots of other smaller tasks. Here is a picture of the kitchen pattern laid out. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the tile mortared down, but I'll get one next Saturday.

-Rob