we did it!

We've finished the kitchen floor! I am inordinately, ridiculously happy. It looks good, which is rather surprising given how little we knew about tiling before we embarked on this. We're bloody experts now... We wiped the last grout off at 11.45 last night, having only started the grouting after dinner, first spending a good hour or more dithering over how thick the grout should be. Cheapo vanilla ice-cream is the texture we went for in the end. Half melted.

Here is a before and after... We had to let it all dry out, de-mould it, seal it, then lay a flexible underlayer before tiling... it took up too much of our lives.


(above) Before. Sodden fungal mess.


(above) After. Huzzah.

The verdict is that whilst we like to think that we would one day like to renovate a house, really we're not the world's most enthusiastic DIYers. I think we won't be tiling anything for a good long while after that. And all that was because the washing machine leaked and destroyed our old kitchen floor. Nothing worse than non-self-inflicted DIY emergency repairs.

Today we are off to Wembley stadium to watch not one but TWO games of football. My beloved Tottenham are playing Barcelona in this random competition called The Wembley Cup, but first we have to watch Celtic play an Egyptian team called Al Ahly. We couldn't get Tottenham tickets so we will be sitting with the Al Ahly fans. I'm quite excited. Sad, aren't I?