DIY grout sealing

So with the weather forecast being pretty dire this weekend, I decided it was time to stop procrastinating and get the floating floor finished - only had to do a little finishing off in the study, kitchen and pantry, but the last fiddly bits took me forever to plan, measure, measure, cut, swear because it didn't fit, measure, cut again, and finally put it in properly. Anyway no photos because it's a mess and I can't be bothered cleaning up.

However, here's some photos we took earlier of sealing our tiles. Most people know the pain of scrubbing out mouldy areas of grout in showers, and while sealing the grout won't eliminate the problem, it should make it less of a problem.

The issue is that water penetrates grout, stagnates and forms the ideal breeding condition for mould. Sealing the grout essentially aims to provide a hydrophobic (water repelling) barrier, to prevent the water getting in.

So, this is what you need to get started: grout sealer (try your local hardware or tile store), some paper towels, fine brushes, a plastic tub, gloves and eye protection. Electric shaver is optional.


On the instructions for the grout sealer, our one said to spray it over the grout and use paper towels to mop up the excess. We thought a much more precise and efficient way to apply it would be to spray the sealer into the plastic tub, then paint it on using the brushes.

The paper towels are used in case any drips go onto the tiles. With doing walls, you can't use too much sealer as it'll drip.



However, doing floor grout you can put a lot more sealer on, as it'll pool in the grout line.

Also, if you've been using your shower, you should let it dry out for 48 hours before sealing it, and not use it for 24 hours after sealing it. We also did 2 coats in the shower to give the sealer as much coverage as possible.

This is a pretty simple DIY, 1/10 for difficulty. Just takes a bit of time and patience to do a neat job. You might need to redo it every 4-5 years or so depending on how you use your shower.

T&T

Carpet delayed, Metricon house for sale in Balwyn North

Got a call from Fowles today, saying that our booked carpet installer had an injury on the job today, so we won't be having our carpets installed tomorrow. A minor setback for us, but having experience a work injury a few years back, I just hope the bloke involved recovers 100%. So maybe sometime next week or week after - they'll call me back to confirm a day.

And what did we do, the day after handover last week? Went to check out a home for sale (of course) in Balwyn North - a Liberty that was finished about 3 months ago.


Quite a nice facade. Uses our bricks in 50mm, timber windows all around, and a big light aggregate driveway that extends in front for extra parking space. Zero maintenance gargens all around are great too. Up and down lights on the ground floor plus eave downlights are really nice for external lighting. The only issue for me is that the ground floor is below street level, set down a metre or so - bad feng shui!


Nice big kitchen. Tower wall oven allows more pot drawers.


The bathrooms all have this colour scheme - it looks OK in this photo, but in real life is horribly dark and claustrophobic. Tiling goes all the way up to the cornice, which wasn't offered to us when doing our selections.

A steal at $2.25m or so - includes a pool out the back too! If you want more details on it, click here. Looks like it's a private sale, so no auction date to attend.

T&T

Day 214: Review of the last 3 days of work - Electrical fitoffs!

First time back to the house since Tuesday - and wow, people have been busy! Electricians, plumbers, brickies and heating contractors have all been working in the last 3 days, but today's post will focus on lighting first.

Externally; the silver aluminium handrail has been installed over the balcony. Plus a downpipe has been run from the balcony gutter, though no connection has been made to stormwater drainage. Also you can see where the electricians have roughed in connections for external lighting on the balcony pillars, and a double floodlight I'll put in over the garage door.


Internally, the electricians have been very busy fitting off all the powerpoints, light switches, batten lights, downlights and exhaust fans. Unfortunately while most of the work has been excellent, there's a few of these moments going on as well.


For example, in our sitting room there are two lights. Most people would accept that having them lined up in the middle of the room is boring, yet necessary. However, ours are at least 70cm away from the midline of the room... not acceptable!


However it gets worse upstairs, where there are two lights in the open area/leisure room. So, you would think the light in the leisure room should be centred - rather than placed 40cm away from the wall? And the other light should be placed in the middle of the "hallway" leading from the master bedroom to the bathroom? Erm, no. I brought this up with our last SS, Monique, that the electrical roughin had left the lighting wires in the wrong spot. "No worries, the sparkies will put them in the right place!" I was told...... erm..... fail.


Anyway, that's the major issues with lighting, thankfully most other things have been done well.
The stairs have 3 step lights installed - upside down I think, as the light is placed facing up, just right for blinding you as you try to walk down the stairs. However, we may leave them like this (!), as the lighting makes an unbelievably cool shadow of the stairs on the ceiling when dark, which of course is impossible to photograph. Anyway, simple to flip them around if we want to.


Next pic, upstairs bathroom. The single batten light/"chinaman's hat" is wired in series with the exhaust fan, which is massive but fortunately not too noisy. We've got quite a few of these standard light fittings to replace after handover, but won't choose any light fittings until after handover is complete.

In addition, I think the powder room exhaust fan is meant to be externally vented, but no evidence of an external vent is present. Another issue to bring up.

And we've saved the best pic for last... we went with a whole lot of downlights in the open plan area - 5 over the kitchen, 5 over the dining table, and 9 in the family room, each with 2 way switches and dimmers. Expensive.... but we waited until early evening to turn everything on, and it looks incredible! Our colours are pretty much all cool grey neutrals which can sometimes look a bit stark, but with the downlights, everything is surprisingly warm (and definitely not as beige as the photo may represent)! Very happy with how this has turned out in this area.


So, adding to our list of things to check on with regards to electricals are:

• Sitting room lights not centred
• Leisure room, hallway lights not centred
• Damage noted: home theatre rear powerpoint (plaster damage), heating duct in entryway (split ceiling plaster)
  
• Laundry splashback tiles only 20cm high instead of 30cm high (not enough tiles were provided for the job)

Fantastic to see so much work done in the last few days, and though I've highlighted some errors, at least they're relatively easy to fix. Move light fittings, replaster, repaint, add tiles to laundry splashback. Next post will focus on plumbing.
T&T

Day 203: Tiling, and benchtops!

After another frustrating day trying to find out if my car would ever be fixed, went by the house and caught our tiler just as he was leaving. He told me a sorry tale where he'd been there first thing in the morning, when some special glue for the shower base tiles and a waste outlet were meant to be delivered - but they weren't. So he decided to go ahead and do as much else as he could, including laying all the grout - and just as he was packing up, the glue and waste outlet arrived, then the people to install the stone benchtops! Anyway, means he's gotta come back later to finish things off.

Balcony tiles: Luxe Anthracite exterior tiles.


Inside; 40mm Casarstone benchtops in Osprey to island and side bench.


Side benchtop has a few gaps around the edges where it meets the wall and window, but the glass splashback should cover all those gaps up. Also the top pot drawers don't open as they catch on the benchtop, something to be adjusted later.


And final pic of the day, Clark Razor double undermount sinks, with a little hole cut through the stone for the mixer tap.


T&T

Day 200: Laundry floor slab repaired

Concreters were on the job this morning, with the laundry floor repair now complete with new concrete poured and the laundry cabinet replaced - now laundry tiling can go ahead! The laundry cabinet and walls will need touching up though, due to the amount of concrete etc flying around.


Powder room next; floor tiling and skirting completed. Also the vanity kickers here have been tiled.


Close up of ensuite shower: tiled shower base, with cuts in tile to allow for correct fall towards the waste. One tile on the left looks a little peaked compared to the rest, but should blend in well after grouting. Also note the flush finished base - there's only that tiny white lip between the shower base and the ensuite floor, where the shower screen/door will butt up against.



And finally, just to highlight the extra care our tiler has taken, check out this join between floor tile and the door architrave. Even without any grout in yet, it's almost a perfect fit - great job!


Can't wait to move in - things look great! Tina was saying it looks even too nice to be our house, since we've lived in so many... erm.... not nice houses in the past!

T&T

Day 199: Tiling, day 4!

Tina got some great photos of our tiling progress today - not really much left to be done! The main holdup is the laundry floor still hasn't had the slab repaired yet, and that needs to be done before tiling the floor there.

Anyway, first picture: bathroom tiling - pretty much all the tiling in the bathroom is complete, except the caesarstone benchtop needs to be put in before the tiling around it can be finished.


Next pic: Ensuite. Wide shower, with long niche and feature mosaic tiles; looks great! WC is on the right. And for those about to select tiles, pay close attention to the chrome strips above and below the niche (and in the photo above, the chrome strip that runs around the bath hob). They're not standard, don't cost that much as an upgrade, but look really good. Without them, you'd be looking at the cut edge of tiles, which isn't so appealing (plus cut edges of tiles can be sharp and a potental danger).


The rest of the ensuite is pretty much done, but just as for the bathroom, the stone benchtop needs to be installed before the tiling around it can be completed, also the vanity kickers will be tiled.

Last pic of the day; powder room has a special tile - looks pretty dark in these photos, but has a metallic shine when light hits it. Waiting on stone benchtop to be installed, then the same mosaic feature tile as in the ensuite shower niche will go around the wall mirror.


No grouting done anywhere yet - got to wait for all the tiles to be laid. Very happy with the tile selections and quality of the tiling workmanship, that's for sure!

Also got our weekly update from John tonight - he's very good at keeping us updated on progress! The stone benchtops are due in next week (the 14th or so?) at the same time the wardrobe and shelving fitouts happen. Also lined up are electricians (around July 22nd?) and plumbers for their fitoffs. Some bricks were also delivered recently, just a matter of finding brickies to replace the missing kitchen window brick sill (and that one missing brick in our balcony pillar). And garage doors probably week after next.

And as for a hint on finishing? John said he's pushing to get us in by September (hooooraaaaay!!!!) but doesn't want to give us a rushed house (also good). I told him that before September would be awesome, but totally agree that there's no point in rushing the finish if it means quality is compromised. We'd much rather wait on getting a top quality result!

T&T

Day 196: Painting finished, tiling started

Today, met up with John and our tiler Mauro nice & early in order to go over all the details for tiling. Made sure that all the tile selections were right, orientation of tiles were correct, grout colours were correct etc - quite a useful meeting! Also gave us a chance to check out all the internal painting that was completed yesterday, but there's a limit to how many photos we can put in one post - so will add paint photos tomorrow.

Anyway, here's all our tiles in the study.

The waterproofers were also back today, the first sunny day in a while to waterproof the balcony.


And by the afternoon, the bathroom had tiling commenced. Floor tiles are Tecnico Charcoal and wall tiles are Gloss White 300x600. Up one wall of the shower are the floor tiles - they look really dark in the photo, but are actually a light grey with very fine darker grey lines running through them.

Another view of the wall tiles around the bathtub. There will be white grout in between the tiles.



Tiling may be complete by this weekend, and next week we should be seeing shelving and wardrobe fitouts go in.

T&T

Day 192: Peering in through dirty windows

Tina got a few pics of the house in daylight today, but only from peering in through very dirty windows. Note to self: bring some windex to clean the windows next time!

Think the front & rear doors have had another coat of stain, as they're looking a bit darker. Nice!


Also some of the internal doors have been re-hung. Peering in through the dining room window, we can see the rear biparts again to the right, and next to them some double doors leading into the home theatre room.


Now here's something to think about if you're doing floors yourself - you might want to check with your builder how much gap is left under the doors when they're hung. Looks like maybe an inch between the internal doors and the slab, which means if we're doing a timber floor, the underlay + floor thickness should ideally fit under this space. If it's too thick, we'll need to have the doors adjusted to allow for the flooring thickness. Didn't think about this before we started, and a little late to do anything about it now!

And last pic for today, looks like the kitchen is almost finished. The plastering around the moved window splashback looks to have been sanded and painted, as well as the infills over the overhead cupboards. Wish we could get inside to see how the ceiling and wall colours look up close, it's hard to tell from these photos.


Benchtops were scheduled to go in today, but maybe we'll see them next week. See that horrible brick wall visible just outside the kitchen window? We're definitely going to have to block that view; don't want to be staring at that through our windows! I think we'll put up some kind of bamboo screening in a dark colour (maybe the charcoal stain colour of our front/rear doors), with some nice fruit/herb trees in pots. Would be nice to have lemons and limes handily available for my Coronas!

This evening I also got an update from John on my voicemail - apparently painting is pretty much all complete now. Termite protection was put in the laundry where the waste pipe has been moved, and hopefully the concrete repair will be done on Monday and the laundry cabinet replaced on the wall. And next Tuesday - tiling starts!

T&T