Tiling isn't like riding a bicycle, I guess. Maybe safer (Ray M. had a fall yesterday; Karl F. last year). But I've forgotten my "technique." And I don't remember what I used for a mixing tray the last time, and when I found the directions for my tile saw, they had caustic, noxious, bubbly by-product of some paint that had escaped the bottom of its can. (I love the internet, and printed out a new manual for the wet saw, but the internet can't tile the shower.)
I know it's not going to be a fast job. I have a half-futzy plan, and have been collecting found and broken tiles and bits of pottery I've dug up in the yard, and a few other hard-as-glass (some are glass) things for a stripe of crazy-quiltish mosaic), and I have a plan. And there's going to be a lot of cutting and piecing around the bottom where the new tile meets the old tiled pan (a custom job done with concrete and an offset drainhole, so I'm leaving that all there).
This is one of those activities that causes me to think about my interests and personality. I WANT to do tile. This will be the fifth tile job in my life, so I do it about every ten years. Twice I made the tile myself, too. That was really fun. Those were counters for bathroom sinks, though, and not a big old shower (little old shower, actually, this one is). I can think it and I can (eventually) figure out more efficient ways to do this and that, and I can enjoy the progress, but I don't like working by myself. And I get restless and want to go and do something else.
I'm using Thinking Sticks for spacers. (Kind of. I'm using the blanks I use to make the fancy colored and sparkly ones.) I'm using a "sawed off" plastic milk gallon for a water bowl. A plastic coffee "can" for mixing bucket. Paper food trays for a tray. That part's not right. I should go look for a paint roller tray. Yeah. That would be better.
Okay, I'm fortified and off to do it again.
Gratuitous photo completely unrelated:
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