Sunday, August 10, 2014

I should have done this years ago: grouting the mosaic

It has been three years since I started my mosaic project on the garage. The first time I posted on it was August 6, 2011. It is embarrassing that it has taken this long to start on the grouting of the tile. I finished one side of tile work a couple years ago and it has sat, without grout. This year several tiles started falling off so I figured it was about time I get off my butt and finish this thing. 
Mixing  and applying the grout per the manufacturers instructions was simple enough. This is the first time I've grouted anything and it was an easy project. Easy is a relative term though. It still took time and I still needed to pay careful attention to what I was doing to make sure all of the joints were properly filled. After filling, you wipe it down with a wet sponge, ring it out, wipe again, repeat and repeat and repeat... until it is clean. Paying attention to the removal of the excess grout was also important. It was tedious but somewhat therapeutic.   
The result is great. The detail in the tile seems to pop a bit now and the shapes and design seem more refined. After I finished the damp wipe-down, I went over the entire thing with a dry rag to remove any excess dust.  
This has given me renewed interest in finishing this project. Sadly, the garden-side of the garage doesn't look half as good as the pergola side of the garage. It faces south and suffers from a lot of pealing paint. I also didn't take much care in adhering all of the trip boards to the substrate. I ended up spending a day screwing the boards back in securely and sanding all of the areas where paint came off. I hope to get another coat of paint on it today and start to complete the rest of the mosaic work.  




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