Well, our weekend ended up begin a lot busier and more hard work than we were expecting.

Our story begins on Saturday morning. As part of our ongoing battle with the house to try and make it look as nice as possible, Tegan decided that we might put some new tiles in to our bathroom – just a couple of rows of nice, small, blue, glass tiles above the existing ones around the bath/shower. Little did we know…

This was the easy part – the tiles were cheap, we got the tile cement, grout and tools from the hardware store and some advice on using them – all well and good. Tegan was doing most of the work putting these up and it was all going well – and it looked good.

After coming home from a BBQ to farewell the Fletchers (who are soon to be moving to China for several years), we decided to do a last bit of work before heading to bed. Tegan started sawing out the grout from some old tiles so she could re-do them when she put the grout in between the new tiles on Sunday. However, she soon discoverd that the grout was the only thing holding them to the wall, and the tile cement behind them had pretty well worn out – not to mention that the paint behind them hadn’t been stripped when they were put up and was now wearing out. Basically, all but one of them just fell down when the grout was removed. Note: this is happening at about 10pm on Saturday.

What to do, what to do? Tegan’s parents have some spare tiles, so Tegan goes out to see them first thing Sunday morning to see if they will work for us (they will), and she brings them back and cleans them up ready. Tim prepares the bathroom for them and then heads out for the day to help Andrei and the Fletchers with some computer stuff, before going and setting up ready for evening church. We also decide to buy a Dremel tool, which we have looked at before and we know it has a tile cutting attachment.

The Dremel tool is fun. I first heard about them as a tool that people to use to modify computer cases – cutting funny patterns into the metal, or removing or making new fan grills – things like that. But when I looked at one in a hardware, I realised they can do all kinds of things. Basically, it’s like a little drill, but more versatile and better for smaller jobs. They come with a whole range of attachments, from drills, to router bits, engraving tools, sanding drums, polishing wheels – all kinds of things, Unfortunately, the tile cutting attachment we bought for it didn’t prove all that useful for cutting tiles (although it was kind-of funny when it flew off because I hadn’t tightened it enough and it started melting the carpet where it landed), however the wire brush attachment was great for cleaning up metal taps (removing old paint from them) and the cutting disc (like a mini-angle grinder) did a great job of cutting some old ruster screws so we could remove the bracket they were holding down. Anyway, it’s a great little multi-purpose tool and we can already recommend it.

Anyway, by the end of Sunday, we had most of the tiles up, bar the ones that need cutting to fit, and we will be going back to do the grouting tonight. This whole process has also meant we needed to go to Tegan’s parents place this morning to shower! Assuming everything goes according to plan, it should all be done before Larissa comes and stays with us on Wednesday (and hopefully we’ll still have enough time to get the place tidy etc before then as well).

Overall, it’s looking better, but it’s been a lot more work than we were expecting. We’ll be very glad when it’s done and when we can actually sit down and relax for a bit.

Oh yeah – fun with power tools: well, it was only a jigsaw, a cordless drill and the Dremel – but the Dremel was such a novelty that it counted as a ‘fun with power tools’ weekend.