Dealing with the Details

Now that the tile is up, I'm faced with the nit-picky tasks of finishing the trim work on both sides. Given just a quick thought, a person (or a project manager) might see this as a trivial single task, just a quick swipe of paint and be done with it. But no, if things are to be done correctly, many steps and many types of work are required.

To start, I spent time yesterday cutting out little triangles of trim and gluing them into place so that the molding would be square under the corner of the step. No one would ever know about this if not for my plan to tell it to every single person who steps into the house.

Next I put on strips of joint tape and then joined the edges of tile to the wood trim. This will need another application or two, just to even it out. And then I'll tape everything and paint.

To our project managers this all looks like busy work. They are impatient now because the tile went up so quickly, and now they are certain that I'm dragging my feet. They don't realize that the worst is yet to come--I still need to grout and apply the silicone, and in this regard I admit that I am especially hesitant to go forward quickly.

The grout will be too white, I fear, and will look funny against the tile. And depending on my mood at the time, I may not care. I have a mood, a personality, a person inside me that is not allowed to work on projects. He does not give a damn if the grout color does not match. He tends to fix things with a hammer. For the most part, he is allowed only to watch TV and walk the dogs. Oh, and mow the lawn and pull weeds. Anything that is not permanent...