Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Dishwasher and Slate Installed

Yesterday, Wayne and I installed the dishwasher.



It was a long, painstaking, and frustrating task that I'm very glad to have done. It's still not perfect, but it's in there and it looks good. We washed our first load of dishes last night; it ran calmly and quietly, and Jessica said that when she took them out this morning "they all looked perfect," so I'm leaving it alone.

Tonight, I finished laying the slate in the kitchen. It was a momentous and liberating event. The task was very tedious, and only slightly less difficult than laying the shower tile; it's nice to have it done, and I reckon I'm satisfied with how it looks.


The feeling of freedom will be short-lived, though, for grouting awaits me. Grouting slate is a lot more difficult than grouting tile because you have to be much more careful about the grout getting on the surface of the slate; it has a tendency to discolor the slate and will cause major problems if any grout is accidentally allowed to dry on the slate. All this is because the slate is very porous compared to tile. Unless it goes much more smoothly than I expect, grouting will probably take me two weeks or so. Then, finally, I'll have to apply two or three coats of stone enhancer/sealer (which, by the way, will make the slate look darker and a little "shinier" than it does now). It will be so nice to have it completely done, but I know that's still many hours of work away.

Jessica accomplished a lot today, too. Most notably, she got all the interior doors hung, which was not nearly as simple as it should have been. I was dreading tackling that task, but she surprised me by doing it all herself. Thanks, Jess!

3 comments:

Amalie said...

I just came by your site via the smell question on Housblogs.net... As far as that's concerned, I'm stumped. Anything electrical back there? We had a funny smell that I thought was the AC, but was in fact the outlet the AC was plugged into melting out of the wall due to a short. It smelled terrible.

Anyway-- not why I wanted to comment! I think your slate looks wonderful, and you've got great tips! I'm planning to put some slate I got for a bargain into our laundry room, so I'm keeping a running list of things to remember. No grout on the tiles. Check.

Nathan said...

Thanks for the complements on the slate! It was quite an experience; I'm glad someone else can benefit from it. One thing you'll definitely want to consider doing is to apply a coat or two of sealer to the slate BEFORE grouting. This will make it much easier to clean off any grout that does end up getting on the surface.

No electrical stuff in the closet AFAIK, but the a lot of the wiring in the house is pretty old, so I'll look more closely at that possibility.

Jessica said...

Hus,
I like doing jobs around the house that help you out and surprise you.
ILY