A Frog-Free Project

All the grouting is done, leaving just one more tile-related step: sealing the grout. But I'll save that for later. The grout needs to be bone dry before getting soaked with the sealer. Sure, it feels dry now, but it's just trying to deceive me--underneath the grout it is as cold and damp as a frog's butt.

In fact, in the old days tile workers would hang up a frog and wait until its butt was dry before applying the sealer. And, no, they didn't use expensive silicone sealer. The human race wouldn't know how to do anything if it weren't for the old-timers.

We have no shortage of frogs in our backyard, but I'm not keen on the idea of hanging one by a string and letting it suffer and flop around. I could possibly use worms, but they dry out too quickly. Instead, I'll just wait for a long time.

So now I'm prepping the walls for painting, getting them ready to try another old-timer's trick (no animals are abused). I'm going to create an orange peel texture on the wall--the physical texture. Then I'll do some rag painting to get a textured affect with color.

But first I need to even out the drywall, and for some reason I've never had much patience with drywall.

Here's the project task description for this step: Earlier I installed a thin sheet of cement board on the ceiling above the shower and then tiled onto that board, so the tiles stick down a bit and the edge of the board would be visible (as in ceiling, board, tile). I'm filling in that area with compound to make it all smooth and level. On seeing these layers, the eye is tricked into believing that the tiles are applied right on the ceiling.

Except it take a little work to get it smooth. It all has to dry, of course, between layers. Fortunately it dries out much faster than a frog's butt, more like a worm's butt, though I can only guess.