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The first picture shows the
counter before any work was done on it. It had become pitted and no mount
of bleach would clean it. Let me say this; unless you want to lose your
mind, don't even think about doing this project.
The second picture is of
the little curved tile that goes over the edge of the counter. Lowe's has
a machine and they will cut the tile for you but for some reason twenty of
these tile went perfectly along this edge.
The third picture shows my
little fat hand and brown skin, partly from my Ponca blood and some from
loving the outdoors. I am squeezing out this hard as nails glue called
"Grab it" from a tube. I've used this glue on floor tile before and it
is immovable. Ordinarily professionals use a grout down first to hold the
tile in place. I prefer the glue. For that matter I have used Elmer's
glue. It is so strong a person has to tear up anything under it to get it
off. Glue works and is 100 times easier. Instead of putting those little
spacers in to keep the tile straight I simply set a yardstick in between
the tiles and it works just fine.
I couldn't get a good
picture of the finished tile, that white kept bouncing the light back and
created a glare everytime. Here is a picture of the pickles I did and you
can see a bit of the tile here with its black grout.
http://electricscotland.com/history/america/donna/wenona/000_0907.jpg
Doing the grout was the
killer. I finally mastered it but thought I was going mad before I did.
The secret for me was not to let it dry too long before cleaning it off
the tile, around 20 minutes was long enough. Here again, just remember
what an impossible job it is to clean grout in a shower and unless you
want to multiply that by 100, don't even attempt this insanity, not even
if it does turn out well. Another thing I learned was to put a dropcloth
on the floor so as not to get any of the gritty, difficult material off
the floor. The grout is a fine powdery dust before mixed with water and it
can get on everything, too.
Hopefully, this will last
the rest of my life time. If not, guaranteed I will have a gentleman come
in and set a whole new formica counter top in for me. I've had it with
grout and tile, believe me.
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