Flash Drive Vanish!

My flash drive has learned a ninja trick and disappeared on me.

In other news, we recently moved the stove and refrigerator back into the kitchen. I'm pretty stoked about that, but Annie is way MORE stoked about that. The tile is holding up well, and I might as well describe the next step in the tiling saga, even though I don't have the pictures with me.

Once the plywood was down properly, and all the screw heads were sunk slightly below the level of the plywood, it was time to lay the concrete backer board. I looked up the manufacturer's specifications for how to install the backer board, and they were nothing like what the home improvement store people were telling me. The steps were basically like so:

1) Ensure a flat, rigid underlayment (the plywood took care of that).
2) Design your layout of the boards so that there are no four-corner joints.
3) Use a mortar conforming to some particular ANSI spec (the cheap mortar fit the spec).
4) Spread mortar for a single board, press it into the mortar by standing on it, then nail the crud out of it with 1 1/2" (or longer) galvanized roofing nails at 8" grid spacing.
5) Let set for about a day.

The worst parts of this were hammering all of those nails by hand, especially those nearest the cabinets. The second worst part was cutting the concrete backer board. We got a special tool for that, and I still had a hard time. The process involves scoring the same line over and over again.

It worked, though, and the floor was then ready for the actual tile!

Gen 3:19 - In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.