Dining Room

You might have noticed that I haven't yet posted photos of our finished tiling... That's because we might have run out of tiles. Oops!

We've ordered the extra couple of boxes that we need and Sean's parents are coming down on the weekend to help us get things finished off. In the meantime we have furniture in strange places and piles of tiling things in the corners. But hey, it's still an improvement on concrete floors!

The tiling in our dining room is completely done, along with the grouting and silicone (caulking).

Obviously we need to hang art on the walls and get some bigger furniture, but it's still a big improvement.

In honour of having the room tiled I made another piece of DIY art. This one was inspired by Sherry (again!) and is just done with paint-chips and a frame I already had at home. I love the colours and I like how it brightens up the space.

 

Hopefully by Monday morning I will have some photos of the rest of the tiling :)

The Long Overdue Tile Update

.....and it's a vlog! Woot, my first one.



I hope you enjoyed my first video post :)

Tiling - Day One

We started our tiling today!! Oh my goodness, the difference it is already making to the house is amazing.

Day One - today - was the easy day. A mate of ours (Dale) is a professional tiler and he came over to get us started on the right foot.

He started out by measuring out the space and deciding where the the best cuts would be. Sounds kind of easy... but after I watched Dale do it, I am so glad it wasn't left up to me. There was soooo much maths involved!

Dale worked his magic with the chalk-string-thingy and before we knew it we had a plan.

 

Next up Dale gave me a couple of quick lessons on mixing up the glue (it's like gluggy cake batter), cutting tiles and the fine art of smearing glue onto concrete. Turns out tiling is more involved than I realised, and a lot more fun that I anticipated too :)

We (and by we I mean Dale) started laying out the tiles along the long line of the house that runs from the front door right through to the back of the house. I am so relieved that he did that strip of tiles for us, it's dead straight and absolutely perfect.

 

Dale wanted to stick around until Sean's Dad arrived so that he could give him a quick run down on the tools as well. So while were waiting he managed to lay a heap more tiles. I did my part by making coffees, doing a bakery run and keeping Max from jumping on the freshly laid tiles.

By the time Sean's Dad arrived Dale had managed to lay about quarter of the tiles. Nice.

 

Tomorrow I'm off to work so Kym (Sean's Dad) is going to hit up the shops for the rest of our supplies and get stuck back into the tiling. Then on Thursday I'll be getting my hands dirty again and tiling up a storm!

They're Here!!

Earlier in the week I mentioned that I had cleaned out a space in the garage for a delivery I was expecting...

The delivery has arrived! It's probably not overly exciting for anyone except Sean and I... it's our floor tiles!!

I am beyond exciting. We have been living in this house - with concrete floors - for three years now. We are finally going to have tiles :)

(Our wet areas are already tiled and our bedrooms and front room have carpet, but we have 82 square metres of living area that we need to tile.)

The cutest thing happened when the tiles were delivered... Max was convinced that the delievery guy was his Uncle Mark. I was holding him on my hip and he kept saying 'Mark, Mark', I told him that it wasn't his Uncle Mark, but I don't think he believed me.

I put him down in the garage so that I could take some photos and he walked halfway up to the delivery guy and started saying 'Mark' to him. The guy took off his sunnies and started talking to Max, Max got really confused then. His little voice started to shake and he kept asking me for Mark. So sweet. As the guy drove his forklift out of the driveway Max started shaking all over (I think the noise of the forklift scared him) and said 'bu-bye Mark' over and over again. Awwwwww.

...................................

In a couple of weeks Sean's Dad and Brother (Mark) are going to be coming down to help us lay the tiles. It's going to be our biggest DIY to date and I can't wait!

The One Where I Get Kicked Out of A Tile Shop

Oh my goodness.

Today I had the privilege of having my house plans torn up by an angry (angry = understatement) salesperson at Andersens in Morayfield (a floor coverings store). I also kind of got my crazy on.... but hey a girls got to defend her house-plans. Right?

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Sean and I decided that after almost three years of living on concrete floors, it was time to get ourselves some tiles.

First Store Visit
We drove out to Andersens at Morayfield and checked out the tile selection. We fell in love with one particular tile almost straight away. Salesperson x (who also happens to be the store manager) was super helpful, gave Max a lolly-pop and basically did everything right. I remember looking at Sean and thinking, 'yay, we're finally getting tiles!'. We handed over our house-plans to her so that she could take a copy. Salesperson x let us know that she would get back to us on Monday with a quote. I almost got grumpy at that point, the shop was empty and it was an hour and a half until closing and I would have loved a quote on the spot. But she was so nice and I often have high expectations so I let it slide. She also lent us the one and only version of the tile we liked so that we could take it home and double check that it looked perfect in our home.

Phone Call One
The following Wednesday (two days after she was supposed to give us the quote), I got a phone-call from salesperson x. She said (and I quote):

'Hi. It's salesperson x from Andersons. Why haven't you returned my tile?'

I said: 'We've been waiting for you to get back to us with that quote, and we'll be bringing the tile back in on the weekend like we discussed'.

She said: Oh, so you actually like the tile. Ok, I'll do up a quote and call you back.'

Seriously? I was starting to doubt whether or not she wanted our business.

Phone Call Two

Salesperson x called me back two hours later and gave me a really competitive quote.

Store Visit Three
Sean and I were really busy on the following weekend and didn't have time to get tiles organised. So I ducked into the store and returned the tile. Everyone was busy, so I just left it on the counter.

Phone Call Three
Yesterday (five days after I dropped the tile into the store), I got a phone call from salesperson x. She wanted to know if she had gotten around to calling me and giving me a quote... Umm what?! Against my better judgement I confirmed that yes, she had given me a quote and that we would be in on the weekend to buy the tiles.

Store Visit Three (the one where things get interesting...)
Today Sean, Max and I (along with Sean's parents) went into the store with the intention to buy the tiles. We showed Sean's parents the tile we wanted, but they weren't convinced. We had a look at all the other tiles and ended up choosing a different one. It was still the same price and we decided we would still go ahead and buy the tiles today.

Aggie (my mother-in-law) said that she wanted to see if we could get a better price on the tiles so we all headed up to the counter for a chat. The minute Aggie (who is as nice as pie, and has the sweetest french accent) started talking, salesperson x got her back up. She became argumentative and stubborn. After talking about possibly getting a lower price if we paid cash I asked her if the it would be the same price for the new tile. She explained that because the pack sizes were different, the price would differ slightly (fair enough). So we asked her to work out a new price for us. She made it very clear that we were inconveniencing her and went off to do it. (Keep in mind she had already worked out how many square meters we needed, the delivery cost and what percentage of extra tiles we wanted, so it was just a simple equation.)

Sean (who is amazing at diffusing awkward situations) picked up on the tension and cracked a couple of jokes with her and got her to relax a bit. I figured things would go better after that.

After a couple of minutes of adding things up. She said really abruptly (the way some people do when their feeling defensive): 'Well, this is going to cost you a lot more than the other tile. $450 more to be exact.'

I asked her why and she said (keeping up her aggressive/defensive attitude) 'like I said, it's a different package size'. I questioned this. How can two tiles that cost the same per square metre cost $450 more for the same amount of tiles. I understood that there was going to be a slight difference, but $450?!.

After going back and forward a few times. Salesperson x finally agreed that it was a bit of a big difference. She said: 'I must have done your first quote wrong' and went off to recalculate it.

She came back over (looking happy and triumphant) and said, 'yep I did your first quote wrong. It is going to be much more expensive.'

By this point I was tired of her attitude and had already decided that we were going to find a different Andersens. But as a matter of interest I asked her if she would honour the original price for us. That must have been the tipping point for her. She snapped and yelled 'NO! That would be a complete waste of my time'.

Scary!

I told her that we appreciated her time, but a $450 mistake on a quote was too much for us and that we wouldn't be buying the tile. At this point I should've just walked out with the rest of my family.

I stayed in the store though because I wanted to take a photo of the tile so that I could remember which one I wanted. Saleperson x said that she didn't mind if I took a photo, but wouldn't take her hand off the sticker. I wanted the sticker in the photo, because that was where all the information about the tile was written.

The phone rang and salesperson x answered it. Whilst she was taking, I moved the tile out from under her hand and tried to take a photo. She absolutely freaked out, hung up (!) on the customer on the phone, snatched the tile out from under my hand and said that I couldn't take anymore photos. I explained that I wanted the info label and she said I couldn't take a photo, but that she would write down the info on a card. At this point I twigged to the fact that she didn't want me having a record of the price. Which I was totally ok with, because I just wanted the info anyway.

When she handed me the card with the details on it, I said thanks and reached down to pick up the copy of my house plans and leave. She freaked out (again!), snatched the plans out of my hand and yelled 'YOU CAN"T TAKE THOSE'. I realised that she was worried about the original (incorrect) quote that was stapled to the front of them.

I tried to tell her that I didn't care about the quote and that I just wanted the plans. She totally wasn't getting it though and was super worked-up by this point she said (still yelling) 'THEY'RE MY PROPERTY NOW AND YOU CAN'T HAVE THEM BACK'. I got really frustrated at this point and demanded that she give me my house plans back. Instead she tore them into tiny pieces.

I totally should have just accepted the fact that she was completely nuts and walked out at this point.... But I didn't. I started saying to her 'why are you so scared? What are you trying to hide? Are you worried because you stuffed up' etc. As I followed her across the store to where she was putting the tiles back. She kind of brought the angry, sick of being pushed around by salespeople person inside of me.

As she put the tiles back on the shelf I said to her 'I can come back in Monday and take a photo of the tiles, or you can just let me take a photo now'.

She yelled (yep still yelling): 'Fine take the photo.'

So I did and then she freaked out again... She yelled 'get out of my store and don't come back'.


So I left... Only I stopped at the door and yelled back at her: 'I won't ever be coming back here. You are bonkers'. Definitely not my finest moment. But hey, she had just spent the last few minutes yelling at me, surely I deserved a little yelling of my own.

Anyway, I got out into the carpark, saw Sean and his family waiting for me and instantly burst into tears. The whole tearing up of my plans really unsettled me.

The story does have a happy ending though. We went to Andersens at Rothwell where we spoke to J, who was super, super nice and really helped us out.

I guess all's well that ends well :)