Has it been ten weeks of ceramic tile?

Floor tile, wall tile, kitchen backsplash tile -- seems like that's all I've been doing for more than two months now. When you do kitchens and baths for a living, you have to be prepared to do some serious ceramic tile work. Lately, however, it feels like I spend more time trowelling thinset, cutting tile, and floating mortar than anything else.

It started way back in July with a major bathroom overhaul. Everything went into the dumpster, including the drywall. After about two weeks of prep (and some serious help from my son!), I added a full-height ceramic tile tub surround and a new tile floor. The floor was interesting because the tiles didn't "match." They varied in shade from very pale to an earthy brown speckle.

I'd had a nice break before that with a full kitchen for a very nice family. The big bath job was done during the delay while the kitchen cabinets were measured for granite countertops. After those tops were installed, I returned to add in a fancy tile backsplash with glass insets in a Rubik's Cube pattern (sans the colors). That was a few weeks ago, and it was the last time I can recall installing tile on my feet.

For a great change of pace, I had a tiny bath makeover. It was only a powder room, but that small space got a whole new look with a modern tile floor laid over the original mosaic-over-concrete. This half-bath originally featured a wall-to-wall vanity that seemed to fill the whole room. After the new tile floor, a tidy pedestal sink and new toilet made the small room feel much larger and look decades newer. My customers were so pleased with the results that they've started planning for a similar re-do for their upstairs bathroom. Since that tile is laid over a wood floor, the install for new tile there will use more typical methods.

I'd never done tile-over-tile before, and was pleased with the results. Oddly enough, the very next job required the same approach. This was a big old house in a very nice neighborhood. It was a lovely home, but in many ways hopelessly dated.

The homeowner was on a tight budget, but wanted a new look for his two 40-year-old bathrooms. Leaving the original tile floors in place and using them as "subfloors" saved a lot of money. With some solid help from my youngest son, we transformed those dreary old rooms in less than three days. My son must have done a good job -- the customer gave him a tip!

Somewhere in between all that I spent a day kneeling on a kitchen floor installing 12x12 tiles as fast as my brother-in-law could cut them. It was hot that day and I was sweating from the humidity, so some of that job is just a blur to me. Since he did all the grouting himself, I'd almost forgotten about that job. My poor knees remember it well, though. I also remember tiling inside a pantry closet that was shaped like something you'd find in the video game Tetris. I did that one mostly by feel.

This week started with a new ceramic tile floor in a 70's-era sublet condominium. The tear-out was easy because the toilet had apparently been leaking for years, so the original concrete-base tile floor had almost completely lost its bond with the wood subfloor. I think I set some kind of re-do record on that job, just because everything went right.

That job really set me up for a fall on the next bathroom, started on Thursday. Man, was I over-confident! The old floor was every bit as strong as it was Year One, and the new tile floor was designed on a diagonal. So the tear-out was incredibly exhausting, and the new work involved at least twice as much cutting. I have to admit, however, that the results are pretty impressive. With luck, I'll finish that bathroom on Monday. Maybe I'll be able to put away the tile tools for a few days after that. We'll see.