Why I hate remodeling (or why the word “pro” should be used very loosely).
Why I hate remodeling (or why the word “pro” should be used very loosely).
I’m in the middle of putting in a tile floor in a 16 year old custom built home. Extremely reputable builder in the area with lots of expensive homes under his belt. So I rip the old floor out and go to put down underlayment. I just happen to start at the wall that divides the kitchen and the living room and I am having trouble getting the underlayment in square. Doesn’t take too long to figure out that the walls on either side of the passage way between the two rooms are at least an inch off from each other across a 36″ opening.
Its going to be a WHOLE lot of fun trying to make square tile look good across an angled opening. ARRRGGHHHH!
Replies
Why I love remodeling AND why the word "pro" is an apt..........
description.
Because whether I follow uncle fred, the professioinal well respected and high priced builder, or a hundred or more years of transition to the house, I am still met with a challenge. Some great, some impossible and some just plain amazing.
What you do is what makes you the man (or woman)!
Can you fix it, hide it or fool the eye? Some can, some can't and some don't even try.
This makes you the "pro".
Best of luck.
This is why a lot of tile goes in diagonally.
Seriously?
Most diagonal tile is that way because someone wanted the look of diagonal tile. If the room isn't parallel... diagonal won't hide it.
The part that bugs me the most is somebody had to have noticed it during construction. They put underlayment on this floor before. Yes, you get used to adjusting for out of square issues but this is an inch over 36". I can understand them not wanting to reframe because they would have to move an entire 18' wall on one side or a bedroom wall and closet on the other. The thing is, all you would have to do at the framing stage to fix it is fir out opposite sides of the two walls by the inch in the kithchen and you are done. You wouldn't even have to touch the bedroom wall and the only way anyone would pick up on it then would be if they noticed you had custom width dividing wall.
Bullsheet!
tile is done diagonally when specified for the look the HO or designer wants
At the framing inspection, our BI goes around the house and kicks the floor plate on each side of door openings to find what I'm guesssing is the cause of your problem--framer didn't securely nail down the plate on each side, and then when the section of plate gets cut out for the door, there's not much resistance to the carpet layer's stretcher pushing against the wall.
That could happen I suppose but neither of the walls is out of plumb. It would appear this was framed as two separate walls.
There's always something fun!
It is worth a try checking if one of the walls will move, with a little "persuasion".
>>>Its going to be a WHOLE
>>>Its going to be a WHOLE lot of fun trying to make square tile look good across an angled opening.
Bummer.
Perhaps you should suggest that the builder discuss the prospect of Really Big shoe molding with the owner. ;-)
cuss
If you center your layout lines instead of pulling equidistant from long walls, would this minimize the discrepancy from "right" enough that you wouldn't have that big a difference on this one opening?
Of course, you need to figure if that would open up a whole nother can of worms someplace else. In a kitchen you have all sorts of straight lines that might call attention to it, but then again, maybe not.
You need to keep your tile square with each other in the field, but "off" can really be lost when you spread it around the room.