With the new header support, tearing down the 8 ft. false ceiling, widening the entry and ripping out cabinets, it was clear there would be a far amount of drywall work in this kitchen improvement. With he recessed lighting and wiring complete, it was time to close it all up. Two words about doing drywall: drywall sucks. The worst part of any renovation.
For the tile, we chose an 18″ square natural Travertine tile. The travertine was very porous on the back side so we used a larger than normal notch on the trough and “back buttered” each tile to fill the holes. Here is a tile summary:
- 18″ Natural Travertine Tiles, honed and filled on top side
- Each Tile “Back Buttered” with flat side of trough to fill all the natural holes
- 1/8 inch spaces – the combination of a large tile with a small gap looks outstanding in this size room
- High grade silicone reinforced thinset (used a lot more than a normal tile job due to the large notch and back buttering porous natrual holes from salt formation.
- Miracle enhance and seal sealant (notes below about how I screwed this up and how to fix it).
- End Result is simply beautiful
Drywall with recessed lights and a high ceiling equals difficult
Travertine Tiles Coming Along
18" Travertine Tile with 1/8" Spacers
Miracle Enhance and Seal Brings out the Unique Pattern of Each Tile
Mineral Spirits Clean up Sticky Residue from Sealing Floor
My mistake: A problem I had when doing the floor in this kitchen renovation was that I did not do a good job of using the Miracle Enhance and Seal. The directions clearly state that after you apply and let penetrate for 3-5 minutes, you need to wipe off all excess sealant. I wiped up the excess using a bath towel but quite frankly on a floor this large it got old quick. I should have had more towels on hand and wiped each tile dry. I didn’t. The result was an uneven shine with patches of stickyness on the tiles. This was clearly the result of leftover Miracle sealant. I confirmed this with a call to the company, and they recomended their own residue remover or simple mineral spirits.
I bought mineral spirits and a bag of cotton towels from the local big box. Poured the mineral spirits on a towel, wiped each tile, wiped up and dried each tile.
So here is the run down of all the work by round of hands and knees working on the tile floor for this kitchen improvement:
420 square feet covered this many times on the hands and knees:
1.) original tile lay with thinset and spacers
2.) scrape and clean each tile of excess thinset
3.) grout spaces
4.) First pass at wiping excess grout and smoothing grout lines with sponge
5.) Second pass at wiping excess grout (now just the residue) from each tile w/ sponge and multiple buckets of clean water
6.) Third pass at wiping grout residue from each tile, this time avoiding grout lines and buffing w/ towel
7.) Apply and wipe Miracle Enhance & Seal
8.) Clean and dry each tile with mineral spirits to fix the residue problem mentioned above.
After all of this I know each little distinct pattern of every tile ‘like the back of my hand”.
