Notes from Maine - 2024/05/05

I like tile floors, especially in wet locations. They’re pretty much worry free and fairly easy to clean. In Maine, the big downside is the temperature. With a big, open, unheated cellar beneath the floor, the tiles get cold at night and hold that chill during the day. For the last three bathrooms I’ve tiled, I installed under-tile heating to keep the chill off. It’s not difficult, not terribly expensive, and if you don’t need it you just don’t turn it on. The installation adds a few steps to the process, but it’s difficult to argue against putting it in. Better have it and not need it…

A kitchen is a different scope than a bathroom. To install the floor mat, I first put down a layer of cement board. The wire and mesh is taped and glued flat, and then the whole thing has to be encapsulated in a layer of self-leveling concrete. That concrete is easy to pour in a small space—it’s just mixed and dumped. A little coaxing gets it to flatten out. As long as you keep to the exact timing (it has to be mixed well, but it starts to set up in minutes), everything goes smoothly.

The problem for me was the scale of the kitchen. I needed to mix and pour twenty-four buckets of self-leveling concrete and, ideally, the whole floor would get done in just a few minutes. Fortunately, I have a bunch of very good friends. I hoped that at least a few would show up to help. Instead, every person I told about the project arrived at the same time yesterday.

Everything was ready.

I woke up early and went to the fancy donut shop on the other side of the river. The place was packed. The back of the line was curled into a tiny corner of the shop. We were standing, shoulder to shoulder, inches from the poor people who had chosen to sit in a booth near the window. Up at the front of the line, customers stood politely back from the counter, waiting a full stride back from the divider between the registers. The same people who grumbled about the close quarters in the rear of the line would make it to the front and then give all the space in the world to the people ordering. They had somehow forgotten the strife they endured just minutes before. I had the urge to start barking orders—“Tighten it up, you front people. Forward! Forward!”

In general, I’m in favor of one line that splits at the register, but this was definitely a case where two lines would have optimized the queue. The problem is that nobody wants to commit to left or right when you don’t know how long each customer is going to take. You might choose the left side just to find out that the young, fit person is looking for two-dozen donuts and they’re going to agonize over each choice like they were scrolling through Netflix trying to pick out a movie to watch. You just spent thirty minutes in a line. If you can’t get out your order in thirty seconds or less, what were you doing while you were standing there? Who doesn’t practice their order while they wait?

Anyway, I got the donuts and returned home where everything was already set up. I had buckets, mixers, bags of concrete, water, and seven helpers who arrived right on time. After a quick planning session, we had one person weighing out the dry product, two people mixing, one timing and measuring, one on water, one person carrying, and my brother helped me inside pouring and spreading. Every two minutes, two more buckets arrived. Even when one of the drills started smoking and then caught on fire, the schedule kept pace. We had precisely the correct amount of cement. I added fifteen percent to my estimation when I bought the bags, but we used them all. 

My mother helped with demolition last year and painting this year. My sister and I dug the footers and poured the concrete in the cellar for the new footings. Friends helped with some wiring and plumbing, and my brother did most of the finesse work with the taping and mudding of drywall. But this was the only part of the process where I really needed a lot of help all at once, at least so far. There are some heavy things to move in the future. We’ll see how that goes. 

I’m going to put some color on the walls before I tile. Most of it will be covered up by cabinets and backsplash, but I want to get some sort of paint up before I put tile down. It’s the last chance I have to be a little sloppy in there. Perhaps with the right amount of focus and hard work, this kitchen remodel would have been finished in a couple of weeks. I’m almost certain I’ll be done this decade.