"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure."
~Joseph Campbell
"If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try."
~Seth Godin
Well, I've committed to moving aboard now. I gave notice of 30 days to my landlord yesterday--April 1--no fooling! I've been a bit nervous about this, which, ironically, is exactly why I decided I HAD to do it.
She's not 100% ready (and I'm not sure I am)...but here we go!
She is really close to ready, though. The head has been tiled! There are a few small places we still need to tile, but the majority of the work is finished. This was a learning experience, and I am VERY thankful for the help I received! Don Atwood and Melanie Walls helped get the tile installed, and Mees Distributors helped answer questions about products to use in a boat.
Before tiling, I started doing some searching online--trying to determine what others had learned through tiling their boats. I was worried that the flexing of a boat would crack the tile and/or grout. I found this conversation in the CruisersForum. Important learnings from this: the adhesive and the grout both need to be flexible.
The tile that I chose is Icelandic Pencil by Jeffrey Court (available at Home Depot):
The tile is a mosaic with both marble and glass pieces.
The adhesive we used is Super Flex Latex Modified Mortar (more information can be found here):
We also needed flexible grout. Mees Distributors was very helpful in selecting one. I chose Bostik QuartzLock in the color birch:
Before adding the grout, we sealed each of the marble tiles so that the color would not change.
I am amazed that many think tiling is a DIY project--especially on a boat! It requires the correct tools, precision cuts and ingenuity to get the job done well.
Without the proper tools and experience, I would not have wanted to take this on. Don Atwood (Atwood Remodeling) was very generous with his time and patience in helping me with this project. I do not hesitate to recommend him to you for your tiling or renovation needs (513.378.2671). I can't express how grateful I am for his help! And it looks fabulous!
The windows provided a extra challenge! They are parallelograms, not rectangles, and the edges were rough:
To give the edges a smooth, clean finish, we used an aluminum Schluter Strip (available at Home Depot in lots of colors):
In this pic, you can see Don Atwood placing the Schluter strip around the bottom edge of the window. |
And here is the clean finished edge with the strip in place. |
Here are some more pics of the head:
This pic shows the high cabinet and the sink cabinet (from IKEA--Godmorgon series in high gloss gray). The wall above the sink cabinet will have a medicine cabinet. Once it is installed, we will tile around it:
The shower wall is not completely installed yet. When it is finished, we will tile the ~5 inch band around the top, as well. You can see the wall cabinet (another Godmorgon piece from Ikea).
I love the way it is all coming together. Several people have commented that I did not choose orange tile. The sink will be orange...
But, I did find this tile (Interstyle Barcode Tile), and I would love to figure out a way to incorporate it:
Any suggestions?...
The head is almost finished. The good news is that the marina has a bathroom with showers...this may come in handy, because I have committed to my adventure! Ready or not....scared or not...I am moving aboard!