Sticky Situation

OK, if I have learned 3 things today it is this..........

A. I never want to work in a glue factory
B. Vinyl Tile guys rest easy, I will never try and take your job.
C. However long you think it will take to lay tile, double that.


We finally agreed on an Armstrong Commercial VCT tile.  It kinda has an oyster/off white color to it.  We wanted to keep it true to the early 60's vibe we have going.  It kinda has that school house hallway tile feel to it.  I spent a lot of time in the hall, during my  grade school years.  Hard to believe, I know.

Anyway,
We started out by finding the center of the trailer.  Which was a challenge in itself, because it was never square to begin with and it has rounded corners.

We really got excited when we were doing the full tiles, because it seemed like we would be done in a couple of hours........wrong.  All of those cuts eat up a lot of time.

We have never laid vinyl tile in our lives, unless you consider the peel and stick kind laying tile......

We learned a lot.  I learned that I hate laying vinyl tile.  I learned that the adhesive gets on every freaking thing in the shop, including your hair, clothes, and anything you touch.  It was like a bad 70's cartoon.  I felt like I would have an anvil sticking to my hand at any time, only to be tossed over a cliff.

  Here's a little secret for all you tile buckaroos.  Don't try and cut it with a knife unless you have one of these.

Harbor Freight heat gun, don't blow dry your hair with it.

Here's my kung fu ninja fighting knife.

I took this away from 3 ninjas in a dark alley.

If you heat the tile with this heat gun it cuts like "Butta" baby.

It cuts just like Butta..........

These types of cuts test your marriage skills........

I would call out the dimensions, while my lovely assistant would make a drawing on a piece of paper.  I have always heard that men and women's brains operate differently.  I know this for a fact, now.  My wife would look at the tile that needed to be cut, reverse image it in her head, then turn around and draw it on paper as a negative.  Whatever works I guess.

This is where that crazy cut above goes.

Most of the tile is covered anyway by the bed, the dinette, the shower pan etc.  But this makes a great wearing surface for storage boxes etc.  

Crappy picture, but it hides most of the defects caused by shoddy workmanship, no?

Here is a picture of the trailer finally tiled.  I took a quick snap shot to show that I do actually work on the trailer.  Sorry about the quality of the pic, but it was 11 pm and the neighbors were tired of listening to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy on Pandora cranked up to 9.  They'll get over it........a little culture never hurt anyone.