Brand new reasons to get yourself a Canadian

(Vancouver got cold and rainy so I left. Now I’m back. Let’s resume activity…)

Laundry room: part 2 of a few

(Previously: Death by Vinyl Tile Glue).

With red eyes and quivering lip, I nodded agreement to the next best thing.  A different box of groutable vinyl tile in a more rough-&-ready beige stone. Random hits of turquoise are a complete fluke but perfectly match the walls. (No one else will ever notice this, but it stands out to me). It’s duller than pearl grey, keeping the bling in the bathroom alone.

It won’t surprise you that the washing machine’s surrounding surfaces hadn’t been cleaned in over a decade — confirmed after finding a 1996 receipt for some zinfandel. (How I wish it had been for Zima). I wonder what I’d look like if I hadn’t seen soap or water since 1996?

Since I’d scrubbed the old bathroom floor on my hands and knee(pads), I told Paolo that the laundry room floor was his problem. Amazingly – bless his little cotton socks – he agreed.

How to tile when the washing machine is totally in the way?

Half & half. It was decided that we’d (by we I mean he) be able to install half the vinyl tiles (left side), move the washer/dryer on top of them, install the other half, enact a swift baseboard attack along the machine wall, return the washer/dryer to their home, and finish the remaining baseboard.

He and my dad managed to wiggle the beast on to chocks without disconnecting it, and poor Paolo spent the entire day trapped in the laundry room. See him?

Every so often we’d hear a pathetic little bleat from an unseen creature asking very politely for a clean bucket of soap and water.

Canadians and their human rights, it’s adorable.

Once he’d finished I even managed to send a paint tray and roller back there, and the remaining surfaces were completed without objection.

Grouting was even more fun the second time – and it was lucky I’d already had a grouting practice session. For some reason the laundry room is always boiling hot – so the grout was drying before I’d even touched the sponge. Luckily I had help: Mummy and Me is a much more successful, productive combination than Marley and Me and, together, we made grouting history.

Lessons learned:

1. If you’re ever given the choice between hanging out in a dark, dirty closet all day, and not – pretend at least to consider it.
2. Small laundry room? There’s nothing better. This was undeniably a one-man job.

#

Muddy cow photo c/o Garrett Ziegler via Flickr Creative Commons