I recently had an extraordinary oppurtunity to be a very small part of a quite special project- a very creative remodeling of the master bathroom at the home of a very special family, Scott and Amy Durso, who live with their two charming sons, and a loveable cat, and a hyper dog, in a beatiful log palace down in the Moncure wood.
I mention this here in this blog, for a number of reasons. Firstly I do see the work as a part of my on going investigation into working with Earthen Materials. And this shower, happens to be very much, of the earthen elements, notably, earth and water, as you shall see...
Furthermore, I found myself on the job thanks to Janice Rieves, whom I have lately been assisting on landscape jobs. This was to be my first tile job with Janice, something that I have been begging her to teach me since we have been working together, and I thought is was worth mentioning, as Janice has long been bringing earthen elements INTO her clients homes...and very effectively, I might add.
This was in fact not my first tile job- when I was in high school, I worked for a fellow, Bob Mason, who did bathroom and kitchen remodels. He gave me enough time on the wet saw to 'master' it (in his words), which I was always proud of. Since then, in college, I persued work in the tile trade, but was not successful in landing any work. So I was thrilled to finally get my hands back in this medium, at long last.
One of the things that made this project so special, to Amy and Scott, and to all of the rest of us involved, is that it was a collaborative effort of several local craftspeople, all shuffling in and out behind one another, like jacks, queens, kings and aces in a deck of cards (I would be the Jack, if!)
Besides the venerable Janice Reives
(with I as her humble and faithful assistant), installing shower artistry,
Across the isle, we had none other than Diane Swan, installing a set of her exquisite wooden counters and cabinets (with my bandmate Scotty Young acting as her faithful assistant, as ussual).
And to get us all started in the right direction, we also head none other than local green builder Mark Marcopolis leading the remodeling/framing end of the project!
And of course we had the fine sensibilities of Scott and Amy Durso, skilled craftspeople in their own right, leading the vision of the project! They also were very involved in the designing, setting and grouting of two of the bathrooms most exciting features, a river pebble step out, and mosaic!
This was like a Chatham All Star Team! And you know, it really got me to a thinkin'.....
And so we got to work!
My Station
My duty on this job, was essentially to make the various cuts in the tile that Janis needed to make everything fit together right.
Perhaps now is a good time to illuminate a little bit of what makes the tile trade a trying and tricky one...
You see, when tiles come to in a box, they are all caste in a mold, or cut by a lazer, and are quite reliably perfectly square. Much more square than you make, say a shower stall in house that was built by folks a long time ago, who were measuring each stud in picas.
And thusly, all of imperfections of a supposedly ‘square’ bathroom are hidden to the eye, UNTIL the guy comes along whose job it is to turn the place into 3D graph paper. Then, that guy, or gal, has got problems!
So, much as landscaping's challenges lie in reconciling the desires of mother nature with the desires of wo/man, tile setting is often very much about reconciling the perfectly square, with the not perfectly square, and, like landscaping, this requires a real nose for negotiating.
So anyways, Janice would do her best to negotiate these differences, and then order up the cuts to me, who would try to grind them into shape as faithfully as I could.
TRIUMPH
OK, this is a little bit of bragging here, but..
One of my major (well ok, small) triumphs of this project was the installation of the soap dish in the shower. I know this may sound petty, but due to the ideal height of the soap dish, and the chance location of edges of the tiles in that corner, this involved carving precise cups out of the corners of four different tiles, so that when all placed together in the corner, they would each together grasp a bumpout flange which sat behind the soap dish. Thus, each of these cavity's had to be cut with the utmost precision.
Well, Janice told me that we would probably need to find a stick or something, to prop the dish up on, as the glue dried, and one of these I fashioned from a strip of left-over backer board. Yet, when the time came to prop it up, lo and behold, the dish did not need such a thing...
PERKS
One of the many perks of working on this project, (aside from great clients, great co-workers, beautiful and comfortable settings, and a several darn good lunches), was the occaisonal, but persistant bobbing in and out of two twin boys, Cowen, and Onner, I mean Owen and Conner.
These two guys were a steady steram of friendship, and Art!
I mention this here in this blog, for a number of reasons. Firstly I do see the work as a part of my on going investigation into working with Earthen Materials. And this shower, happens to be very much, of the earthen elements, notably, earth and water, as you shall see...
Furthermore, I found myself on the job thanks to Janice Rieves, whom I have lately been assisting on landscape jobs. This was to be my first tile job with Janice, something that I have been begging her to teach me since we have been working together, and I thought is was worth mentioning, as Janice has long been bringing earthen elements INTO her clients homes...and very effectively, I might add.
This was in fact not my first tile job- when I was in high school, I worked for a fellow, Bob Mason, who did bathroom and kitchen remodels. He gave me enough time on the wet saw to 'master' it (in his words), which I was always proud of. Since then, in college, I persued work in the tile trade, but was not successful in landing any work. So I was thrilled to finally get my hands back in this medium, at long last.
One of the things that made this project so special, to Amy and Scott, and to all of the rest of us involved, is that it was a collaborative effort of several local craftspeople, all shuffling in and out behind one another, like jacks, queens, kings and aces in a deck of cards (I would be the Jack, if!)
Besides the venerable Janice Reives
(with I as her humble and faithful assistant), installing shower artistry,
Across the isle, we had none other than Diane Swan, installing a set of her exquisite wooden counters and cabinets (with my bandmate Scotty Young acting as her faithful assistant, as ussual).
 |
| (When I helped Diane move her table saw into her new shop space at 'the hanger', I got a peek of what was to come! |
And of course we had the fine sensibilities of Scott and Amy Durso, skilled craftspeople in their own right, leading the vision of the project! They also were very involved in the designing, setting and grouting of two of the bathrooms most exciting features, a river pebble step out, and mosaic!
This was like a Chatham All Star Team! And you know, it really got me to a thinkin'.....
So cool to be working with/for awesome friends.
Janice- "I feel like I died and went to Chatham County. So
true, Janice, SO TRUE.
And so we got to work!
My Station
My duty on this job, was essentially to make the various cuts in the tile that Janis needed to make everything fit together right.
Perhaps now is a good time to illuminate a little bit of what makes the tile trade a trying and tricky one...
You see, when tiles come to in a box, they are all caste in a mold, or cut by a lazer, and are quite reliably perfectly square. Much more square than you make, say a shower stall in house that was built by folks a long time ago, who were measuring each stud in picas.
And thusly, all of imperfections of a supposedly ‘square’ bathroom are hidden to the eye, UNTIL the guy comes along whose job it is to turn the place into 3D graph paper. Then, that guy, or gal, has got problems!
So, much as landscaping's challenges lie in reconciling the desires of mother nature with the desires of wo/man, tile setting is often very much about reconciling the perfectly square, with the not perfectly square, and, like landscaping, this requires a real nose for negotiating.
So anyways, Janice would do her best to negotiate these differences, and then order up the cuts to me, who would try to grind them into shape as faithfully as I could.
TRIUMPH
OK, this is a little bit of bragging here, but..
One of my major (well ok, small) triumphs of this project was the installation of the soap dish in the shower. I know this may sound petty, but due to the ideal height of the soap dish, and the chance location of edges of the tiles in that corner, this involved carving precise cups out of the corners of four different tiles, so that when all placed together in the corner, they would each together grasp a bumpout flange which sat behind the soap dish. Thus, each of these cavity's had to be cut with the utmost precision.
Well, Janice told me that we would probably need to find a stick or something, to prop the dish up on, as the glue dried, and one of these I fashioned from a strip of left-over backer board. Yet, when the time came to prop it up, lo and behold, the dish did not need such a thing...
 |
| The Immaculate Soap Dish |
 |
| Standing in Awe of the Immaculate Soap Dish |
 |
| The adulation of the Immaculate Soap Dish |
 |
| Here am I, looking very smug. |
|
| "Alright, get back to work kid. What do think this? A fricken' nativity scene?" |
PERKS
One of the many perks of working on this project, (aside from great clients, great co-workers, beautiful and comfortable settings, and a several darn good lunches), was the occaisonal, but persistant bobbing in and out of two twin boys, Cowen, and Onner, I mean Owen and Conner.
These two guys were a steady steram of friendship, and Art!
 |
| Look what I made! Do you like it? |
Future, pebbles, mosaic!
