I am terrible at tiling.

The house is quiet early this evening.

We are three weeks into school, it's only mid-week, and everyone is tired and cranky.

New routines, the stress of the kitchen renovation, and several various extra-curricular activities has all of us a bit out-of-sorts.

The good news is the kitchen is in its final details stage.

We have all the appliances.
They are all working.
The cabinets are in.
The dust has been cleaned.
And most importantly...cookies have been baked.

I would like to report that the first batches of muffins and cookies turned out perfectly-perfect.

We are only waiting on the new kitchen window and at that point the tiling and trim around the window can be finished.

Speaking of tiling...

What a disaster.

"It's easy."  I heard people say.
"It's easy."  The tiling experts at Home Depot said.
"It's easy."  I told myself after I practically became an expert by watching lots of HOW-TO videos on You-Tube!

Baloney.

In the back of my head I kept hearing my brother's words of advice "Every project will take twice as long and cost twice as much".   I didn't believe those words of wisdom.

Phooey.  This was going to be a morning project.  Easy.

The blogs said this would take just a few hours.  The videos showed me exactly how to do it.

AND I did everything I was told, read, or watched.

It took me exactly 21 hours.  Twenty-one hours.

That's a little.bit.longer. than a morning project.

Leveling.  Sticking.  Grouting.  Repeat.

What a mess.

I persevered.

I loved the look of the tiles.

I loved the look of the dark grout I chose.

This grout turned out to be a nemesis.

It turns out that dark grout stains.  My fingers.  My clothes.  And my new white cabinets.  Grr.

But the contrast is lovely.  

Especially with the stainless steel appliances.

I was pretty pleased when I went to bed super late that evening.

But then, by the time I woke up in the morning the tiles had slipped.  They were crooked.  They were uneven.

I wanted to rip each pretty little subway tile off of the wall.

It wasn't a pretty sight.

Mark was able to gently took peeled pry the sledgehammer out of my fingers.

And slowly and painfully the two of us repaired the worst wall in its entirety.  We replaced several other crooked tiles.  And we decided the bad ones that would hide behind the refrigerator could stay crooked.

The rest we'll fix and repair when the window comes in.

And the next time I have the bright idea to tile an area...I won't.