Shower Remodel, Weekend 12-14

Well it's long past time for an update.  I'm excited to say we are getting close to a functional shower again!  I think it's been 3 weekends of work now (maybe 4?) although some didn't have much more than a few hours of work.  It started with the last of the tiling on the curb and leading up to the corner where the shower will meet the wall tile outside it.  Here is the curb:

 

 

Once the tiles were finally set, it was time for the grout.  This should have gone quickly, but of course I didn't want to use standard grout!  Everything I've researched says grout is the weak link - it is porous enough to stay wet and provide a home for mold and mildew growth (unless you wipe down the shower with a squeegee or towel every time you use it and that is so not happening).  So there are epoxy based grouts which are better and don't require sealing, but they are supposedly very difficult to install on walls.  And then there are a couple of urethane based grouts.  They have the same qualities as epoxy and are slightly easier to install on vertical surfaces. They also have the best color consistency, and they are the most expensive of course!  So guess what I used - Urethane.  Specifically QuartzLock 2.  

Grouting the walls was SLOW!  This stuff dries super fast so you have to clean as you go or it leaves a shiny film on the tile plus well adhered sand where you don't want it.  Fortunately I discovered acetone is my friend for clean up in the places I was really concerned about the film. Now it's finally done and the grout does look nice.  All I have left is caulking the corners and installing the shower fixtures.  

and some closeups...

 

The drain still has a protective film on it - it will be brushed stainless when it's removed.

and lastly, I've started on the corner.  It will have the shower tile, slate on two surfaces, and Travertine marble on the flat shelf.  This sucker is tricky, but I have a plan now so it should move along quickly. 

Memorial Park Maintenance

Our Memorial Park event turned out to be a big success! Somehow I remembered to take a few photos after lunch so here is our work crew:

Joining the faces you may recognize is the Pratt family (PratFamily777) on the left, who discovered letterboxing two months ago. They also brought their adorable "baby" Cooper who made fast friends with Dragon Warrior (Alex). I have to admit I'm not much of a dog person, but Cooper was an absolute angel!

We started off with the usual round of exchanges and split up for the morning to check on different sections.  We regrouped for lunch shared our mud stories.  While the weather was beautiful Saturday, it rained enough Thursday night and Friday to make the trails a mess.  Some of the boxes required wading to reach them, and everyone had to navigate sticky portions of the trails.  We are proud of our mud!

After lunch we headed back out on the trails for the afternoon.  Somehow after lunch, most of the group ended up boxing together and this turned out to be a big help.  We found several boxes by pure accident just by having several people looking in the general area.  Our big find for the day was The Patchwork Girl of Oz.  It's home turned into a clearing (probably bulldozed) filled with logs and branches.  Can you find the box in this photo?

Let's make it a little easier.  Try this view:

Give up?  Ok, here is the answer:

Somehow Wry Me managed to spot the little corner sticking up out of the dirt. So she was our hero for the afternoon.  The box was broken and soaking wet,

but somehow the stamp was in great shape.  So we put it in a new box, added a logbook and moved it to a new and hopefully safer home.

When it was all said and done we had a great day with some great company!  I'd like to thank everyone who came, and Boots Tex who recently updated the Nada Clue series everyone enjoyed so much.  (and the new location is beautiful!). Thanks for playing in the mud and saving some boxes!

Memorial Park Information

Memorial Park in Houston is a significant part of Texas letterboxing history.  It was home to several events and at one point boasted the highest concentration of boxes in the state.  Sadly the drought in 2011 caused many of the park's pine trees to die, and the park is actively removing them and changing some sections of the trails.  On May 11, I'm hosting a small gathering of letterboxers to check on as many of the boxes as we can, update their status, and move any which are in danger.

Memorial Park is a delight for letterboxers and filled with boxes.  Don't expect to find all the boxes in one weekend.  It will keep you coming back for more with new suprises - boxes with high find count restrictions, mystery boxes, puzzle boxes of different levels, and others I can't talk about.  Many of these are there thanks to dewberry who hosted events and planted numerous boxes in the park.  So enjoy the park, and if you are looking for dewberry's boxes - she has very short steps!

Here are some link's to maps of the park:

Memorial Park Conservancy's official map - the best one for trails

Recent new trails - this shows some trails not on the main maps

Texas Mountain Biking map - this little map shows a trail around the picnic area that connects the green and blue trails.  This may be useful for the boxes around the picnic area.

I'll be consolidating the maps for the event next week and marking locations of as many boxes as I can.  Check back in a few days for more details.   

Letterboxing Lake Somerville

Last month I took a short trip up to Lake Somerville to get the remaining boxes which I missed on my previous trips.  By chance I camped at Nail's Creek State Park on the southern side of the lake.  By arriving on Thrusday night, I had my pick of campsites and I got a great view of the lake.

On Friday morning, I looked for PI Joe's Calvaryman box which is a decent hike even from the closest access point.  On my way back I heard a loud hawk nearby, and realized I parked right under the nest!

 

I continued on to Birch Creek State Park and picked up a few boxes.  In the afternoon I met up with NativTxn who lives nearby and spends a lot of time at the park.  She helped me find two boxes I missed, and we planted one of her newly carved stamps.  By the time we finished I had walked about 10 miles for the day and we headed back to our campsite.   We enjoyed the evening and exchanged some stamps at our picnic table.  

Saturday morning, NativTxn had to leave so I spent the morning finishing up a stamp to plant at Nails Creek.  I've censored the image so you don't get a spoiler, but you might notice all the colored pencils below...you will want to color this one in!

One of the highlights of the trip was waking up to a glorious sunrise over the lake.  So I'll leave you with some sunrise photos.  The one picture I should have taken was on the way home...there were hundreds of people on the roadside taking pictures of bluebonnets outside of Brenham!  They caused quite a traffic slowdown.  But back to your sunrise pics...

 

Shower Remodel, Weekend 10&11

Has it really been that long?  Well this tile thing is finally getting wrapped up.  I put in some serious hours to get things moving over the last two weekends.  First we finished all the walls and the little step.  This took lots of custom cuts for the corners and bottom which kept Steve busy cutting while I measured and put them up.  I also got the inside edge of the curb.  That took us up through last Saturday.   

I'm reasonably happy with it, but of course I notice every mistake!  Here is the inside wall.

Well I guess I should say we got most of the walls.  I still have this problem corner below.  I want the tile here to meet up with the tile we will put on the wall around the bathtub.  Unfortunately we need to get that planned out better.

So the next step was the floor, and that starts with laying out the tile and installing the drain - with help of course!

One thing you may notice in the picture above is how uneven the floor is where it meets the wall.  This is due to the Quick Pitch tool we used to help set the correct slope of the mortar bed.  What we didn't think about up front is that the longer plastic strips going to the corners make the corners higher than the middle of the wall.  You can either have a constant slope OR a level floor along the walls - not both.  So now the floor and bottom edge of the tiles don't line up.  But I think a nice thick line of caulk will take care of it.  And here we have the completed floor.

I still have to clean up all the excess thinset (the white stuff you see everywhere), finish the problem corner and curb, then grout it all.  So we still have a ways to go, but at least it looks like a shower now!

Shower Remodel, Weekend 9

Weekend 9 - April 6&7.  The tiling continues.  I didn't think I realized how long all of the tiling would take.  I believe (well hope really) that it's becasue of the pattern I chose.  You can't really work upward because the large mosaics won't support the weight of the larger tiles above them.  So I finally just went against conventional wisdom and started working from the top down.  Then you need tape to hold all the tiles in place.  So here you can see the work in progress, with blue painters tape holding tile in place as it dries.

A big thanks to Angie (Wry Me) for coming over to help for a few hours. She worked mainly on the wall while I started putting on the tiles along the curb and the edge near the vanity.

Shower Remodel, Weekend 7&8

This post is all about tile!  With the problems I had completing the flood test (leak test) I decided to just start tiling and avoid the bottom of the shower.  With the recessed niches being the hardest part of the tile layout, I started there first. 

This took an incredible amount of work...over 50 of the tiles here had to be cut to fit.  And the little mosaic accent tiles had their own problems.  I spent a good part of the first Saturday just planning the layout and deciding what to do for this part.  Then there was at least 12 hours of work getting the suckers cut and put on the walls.  The mosaics are attached to a mesh backing so they don't have to be installed individually, just cut out as much as you want and put the pieces together. The problem is that they can be squished together - so they can't support the weight of tiles placed above them until they dry.  Here is a detail of the back wall on the shelves.

 

Once the detail work was finished we were able to make some better progress.  I love the accent mosaics so I used a lot of them.  Maybe too many (I think it looks a little busy), but I'm happy with it.  

And lastly, I was finally able to complete the flood test by plugging the drain with a water balloon!
72 hours and no leaks!