Laundry Room Makeover: I Saw The Light

We'll pick right up where our saga left off: Broken tiles and a bare subfloor. But never fear, our intrepid heroes will prevail.

First things first, a wet saw. We picked up this one from Lowe's for under $90, and I must say, it's a little champ. Through the online reviews we learned to make a small cut along our line on one end, then flip the tile around and make the long cut to meet the small one. This 100% prevented broken corners and left us with basically perfect cuts the first time, every time. Now if that's not success, I don't know what is. Here's Nate in action:

You can see the initial smaller cut in the photo below as the blade making the longer cut comes to meet it.

 We also picked up this mixing drill attachment for around $10. It seemed like a great idea, but really, we could have done without it. The drill wasn't quite strong enough to go up against the Thinset mortar, so we ended up detaching it from the drill and whipping it around with our hands.

Nate pours in the Thinset.

Mixed and ready for action!

 We took turns spreading Thinset (using corner and notched trowels) and placing tiles and 1/8" spacers:

Me trying not to Thinset myself into a corner.

Nate lays the last few from the garage.

 And after only about 45 minutes, we had a tile floor. Pretty miraculous after the prior day's events.

 The only bad part about making over your laundry room: Lots of laundry, no working washer and dryer. Don't wear clothes you care about on a tiling project - If you're anything like me, you'll plant your butt in the Thinset bucket more than once. I wish that was a joke.

Monday: Grouting, caulking, and the big reveal!

Recap day one here, and if cheat you must, here's day three.