Making good on impulsive mistakes

The decision to borrow money to replace our roof wasn't exactly impulsive -- more akin to compulsive considering the condition it's in. However, Dave started thinking at the end of last week that maybe it would be more than a little impulsive to accept the first recent bid we received simply because it was from the only roofer who returned our calls. And so it was decided that he would call anyone and everyone he hadn't already attempted to contact and try to get at least one more bid before we sign any contracts. (So far one out of five more has returned our call - he has tentatively arranged to give us an estimate this Thursday...)

The consequential delay, however, weighed heavily on our mood -- as it always does these days. That probably has a lot to do with the big impulse buy over the weekend. Anxious to sink our teeth into another project, we began to discuss flooring options for the upstairs bathroom in earnest. After about ten minutes of such earnest discussion, we both agreed that we had each independently fallen in love with multi-color indian slate tiles. Blinded by dreams of 'wow factor' in the little bathroom and judgment clouded by more than 48 hours without a single home improvement project in progress -- we suddenly couldn't see any reason not to go out and purchase the tile and get started. We loaded up the tribe and went out to pick up a few boxes right away.

It's thick.. it's heavy.. it's slate!

Within minutes of getting it home and sketching out various layouts for a mixture of 6" and 12" tile ... I started to remember why we hadn't done this already. First, we would need to fortify our plywood subfloor to support the heavy tile - meaning either replace our 3/4" plywood subfloor with 1" exterior grade plywood or install backerboard over it. Then there would be the business of laying the tiles in a slightly thicker mortar bed due to its varied thickness... Oh and then there was the varied thickness itself: varying from thick to very thick. Suddenly I remembered that I had no desire to have a bathroom floor that was almost two inches higher than the hallway floor. Oh yeah - that was why we had previously decided against real natural stone upstairs. Oops.

Last night we were still left with a bunch of pretty slate tile and no home improvement projects to speak of -- other than emergency mulching of the flowerbeds to prepare for an unseasonal chance of freezing temperatures over night. Sludging through the cold and sticky mud along the trail that our beloved dog has blazed from our patio to our backyard gate gave me an idea....

Idea + shovel + a couple hours in unseasonably cold wind = ?

Can you tell I have a thing for curves?

That's right! It equals yet another unfinished home improvement project!!

But seriously - we've decided to use the 6" slate tile we have already purchased (We already returned the 12" tiles in exchange for some pine straw emergency mulch.) plus however many
more boxes it will take to make Judge's muddy garden path permanent -- and certainly more attractive.



HGTV: Building a garden path