Happy Birthday, Conan! Here's your grout float!

You know the saying "Rome wasn't built in a day". Well, they didn't have Conan. 

Last night, home skillet spent his last few hours of being 32 in the floor of the powder room, grouting the tile. 

That's right! Today Conan turned the big 33. Thirty-three years on this earth, and only five of those have been spent doing stuff like laying tile at 10 o'clock at night. So in a way, he's led a very blessed life ; ) 

So, before I go any further let me say

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CONAN!!!!

You're the smartest person I've ever met, you're soooo patient (seriously, Conan has never yelled once in the 7 years that I've known him), you're good at everything you try, and I loff you forever and ever. 

So, if you feel so inclined, wish a Happy Birthday to our #1 tile-guy, Conan! 

Now, about that tile. 

IT IS BEAUTIFUL. Beyond beautiful, actually. You'll remember upstairs we used dark grout and it looks wonderful and everything but this white grout it soooooo much easier/less messy to work with. 

The tile odyssey started two nights ago. I ordered us a pizza and my mom and Conan sat in the floor between the basement and the powder room, cross-legged for at least three hours, laying the tile.

Just like the upstairs bathroom, we used tape and seam patch to cover up the seams in the backer board. Not like the upstairs bathroom? We didn't have to use the tile saw ONCE! *Tears of joy*

They were able to carefully cut and snip the tiles that went around the edges of the room using a handheld tile cutter like this one:

It may have taken them a while to get the tiles all laid out but once they started mortaring it to the floor, all of that prep work paid off. They were a well-oiled machine. Conan laying the grout, my mom cutting the little pieces to go around the edge. Bam, boom, tile! 

One thing we did a little differently from last time was putting on the mortar a little thinner. Upstairs, the mortar squished in between the tile joints and we ended up spending an ungodly amount of time with toothpicks, cleaning out the joints so the grout would have a place to go. 

So, after drying for 24 hours, we mixed the grout with water, grabbed the grout float and started grouting. 

Conan smartly suggested we do the floor in sections because even though it's a small room, you wouldn't want to sit on the part you just grouted to reach the back wall when it's time to clean it up. 

We divided it into fourths, grouted each section, set a timer for 15 minutes and then wiped it off carefully with a damp sponge. 

All told, it took us about an hour to grout it and then another hour to wait until we could buff off the "grout haze".  Which if you're wondering is the name of our new band...

Here it is now, all finished up. It still needs to be sealed but it is stunning and I couldn't be happier with it. 

There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to installing 1" hex tile and we're getting better each time. Unfortunately, I can't imagine us ever tiling anything else in the house but, who knows...hex tile attic anyone? 

Next up, prime and paint the base shoe there, get it down, and start working on the sink and toilet! 

Wish us luck!