I started a thread called My Ceiling about a coffered ceiling I did for a doctor. He also wanted a fancy floor in the home office / library. Here it is. 5″ Brazilian cherry bordewring 4 pieces of 12″ DalTile porcelain. The tile has a very subtle grain (it’s through-body tile) and a matte finish, so it looks old and (very evenly) worn. This was a bear to put together, but he is thrilled.
In the picture the joints are still open. They are 1/16″ wide and will be filled (all of them) with grout caulk … no cement grout at all.
I’m sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
Edited 7/23/2005 10:24 pm ET by Ed Hilton
Replies
Looks very nice Ed.
Doug
nice.
that Doc is helping make for one nice portfolio!
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa
Very nice looking, Ed. Lots of class in that floor.
What would you say was the trickiest part of that job?
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Dino the whole frickin floor was tricky. Layout of the wood was critical. I made a couple of squares of plywood exactly the size of the finished opening, and I could lay them in place for spacing and to nail against. I snapped chalk lines in one direction to be sure I didn't wander too much (there are two problem areas when I slipped). I nailed heavily on the tongue side, then went back and installed slip tongue on the groove side and nailed that too. I also used a heavy bead of adhesive between the wood and the sub-floor, which prevented me using tar paper as a slip sheet.
The tile was ever so slightly too thick to clear the top of the tongues, so I used a diamond wheel in my grinder to cut a small chamfer on the back edge of the tile. I tried a couple of methods of getting the height of the tile right, and finally ended up using pieces of 1/4" underlayment grade plywood screwed and glued to the sub-floor, then layed the tile directly on that with thinset. I am not worried about the tile moving or cracking because each "square" has a single piece of 1/4" ply and I'm hoping that it moves as a unit since there are no joints.
Caulking is a bear, very time consuming. Trying to keep squeeze out to a minimum, then using a razor blade to scrape caulk off the tile (no problem there) and a combination of the razor and a damp cloth to get caulk off the wood.
The doc and I have a special relationship going on this job, but if I were to do it again I would charge heavily. Like a price they might gag on.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
The doc and I have a special relationship going on this job, but if I were to do it again I would charge heavily. Like a price they might gag on.
Ed, does that translate as "I've been on my knees for 3 weeks for $1.25 an hour?"
Looks great, Joe H
Something like that Joe. :)
Started off as a small job, supposed to last 5-6 weeks, and that was Jan 2 of this year.
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
Ed, maybe this is a dumb question, but when you're caulking in the grout, couldn't you have masked the wood to avoid having to clean it that way?
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Yep, that would have worked. And the dumb part is ... thew wood was masked off when I set the tile with thinset ... and then I pulled up the tape! Dummy.I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
Ouch!
Dinosaur
A day may come when the courage of men fails,when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship...
But it is not this day.
Beautiful Ed! I know where you're coming from on this one. Everything has to be perfect. I've done a few insets in the past after the stone guys left the building. In both cases we glued the hardwood with bostiks(using small wedges between stone and hardwood to keep it aligned before the adhesive set) after spending alot of time dry laying the whole thing. I handled one that covered 600 square feet and the stone guys were absolutely perfect--absloute top drawer work! Then there was another about the same size and the danged thing(stone) ran off 3/4" Horrible work.That of course was back in my subcontracting days and was often like this:"What do you want to do with it?""Make it work," builders response.I could never go back to that kind of work.
Very handsome work!
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
- Fyodor Dostoyevski
Purty neat, I hope there were no jogs in th room..I could see that being a hair puller.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Beautiful work on the ceiling and floor. What is planned for the walls? Panels? Drywall? Plaster?
Mike here's a pic of the wall in the rough. The paneling is raw wood here, but it will be painted off-white like all the rest of the house trim.
Lifted the design from a Pottery Barn catalog. 1/4" luan ply, 1/4" x 1-1/2" battens (sold as screen lattice at a real lumber yard), all sitting on top of 1x4 poplar. The cap is 1x4 ripped, with 2-1/2" verticle with a 1-1/4" horizontal piece. Went up really easily. Battens are at 16" to match the studs. Top of the cap is about 46" off the floor, which happens to aliogn with a shelf.
The whole idea was to make it look like an old doctors office, or maybe an old universityt clasroom.
View Image
I'm sorry, I thought you wanted it done the right way.
Edited 7/24/2005 12:41 pm ET by Ed Hilton
Nice. I too discovered the latice section at a local yard, great material for painted trim projects and such.
Nice......
Outstanding work, Ed. Give us a couple pics when the room is done.
jt8
The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.
-- Walter Percy Chrysler