Tour Schmour...

I'm interrupting the House Tour already in progress to bring you the reason I'm, uh, interrupting the House Tour.

The Boys and I are undertaking a massive tile demolition (made even massive-r by the fact that I've never demolished anything before, ever.) in our MulberryHill House and this project needs to be at a respectable stopping point in a week. A WEEK.
Because we move-in, in a WEEK. Like, 7 dang days.

I am not freaking out and I have not yet experienced any Phantom Debilitating Back Spasms or any incidents of Freak Wandering Eye, thanks for asking.
But, the week's not over yet.
I'll keep you posted, Ma.

Anyway, in lieu of touring our house and joining me in my "Someday!" reveries, I'll show you just what in the Sam Hill we've been up to for the past 8 days, or so.

A little o'this:


A couple-a tuff guys, fer shur.



E. going to town, kickin' up the dust.



Z. is showing that tile who's boss.

 Last Sunday, just after we put Big T. on a plane to the Middle East, I decided to bribe my Boys into helping me take all the tile out of the entry, living room, dining room and kitchen of MulberryHill House. (They required Video Game payment. A real bargain, considering.) Figuring, of course, that it'd be a whole lot better to make that huge mess before we move all our stuff in there.
Man, was I right about that. What a flippin' mess.
 Turns out, taking out tile is a royal pain in the keister. Really, "taking out" is a sweet euphemism. Pulverizing, slamming, busting; all much more accurate descriptions of the effort this project requires.

We started out with the sledge hammers and graduated to these butt-kickers:

Good times.

We rented the 20lb chipping hammers from H.D. and they made quick work of chiseling out the tile.

Howevuh...taking up the tile is the easy part.

The real beast is the "thin"-set mortar.
Lemme show you sumthin':

An archaeological dig?

Jumpin' jellyfish, that is a butt-load of mortar.
Dear, sweet Mammy, I wish I could tell you that this little corner, by the stairs, is the only ThinSet Crater location we're dealing with, but it is not so. We've got ThinSet Crater North, seen above.

Then, this here's ThinSet Crater South:



 ThinSet Crater North East (Now with 2 locations to serve you!):

Oh, I know, it looks like we're digging for buried treasure. I suppose in a way, we are. But instead of some sweet booty (hee!hee!) we just wanna find the slab. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!

Apparently, yes.

Those Crater photos were taken last night. I'd rented a floor buffer with a hex-head attachment that sported these awesome-looking blades of death. The thing was supposed to laugh in the face of stubborn, stuck-on thinset, just beat the ever lovin' crap out of it.
Eh, not so much.
Oh, in the spots where the floor was mostly smooth and had just a widdle biddy bit of thinset, ol' Blades of Death was THE MAN. But, when the going got tough, Blades of Death was revealed to be a butter knife, in disguise. I kept thinking, maybe if I just keep this buffer in one spot (an Olympic sport if there ever was one), this thing will grind all that "thin"set down. But it would end up latching on to part of a Crater's ridge and trying to bolt out of my hands and make for Mexico.
At 1am, I finally gave in and decided that we should pack it in for the night. All that noise and dust was for almost nothing. (Well, other than the 3 of us got to learn to use another power tool.) The thing kicked up so much dust, in fact, that renting that floor buffer with it's mighty blades was more trouble than it was worth.

It's me! I couldn't believe that the great gobs of dust weren't showing up better in this picture, so I put in a few myself. You just gonna have to trust me. (Plus, look at my eyelashes and my hairline!) What did show up, quite well, is part of the Southern Crater on the right side of the picture. That's how deep this "thin"set is. Yikes.

After we swept up a Saudi Arabian sandstorm's worth of powdered mortar, I gathered up my big dust bunnies, Z. and E., and I sulked and crabbed all the way home.

Because it looks like it's back to the sledge hammers for the 3 of us!
Boo.

Smooches and Grumbles,
Amanda