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This is the third of a three part project to replace the carpeted areas of the church. The first part entailed doing the side and main altars. The second phase replaced the floor level carpet. This final phase replaced the carpeted steps and the landings around the two altars.
Another spectacular success. This project differed from the previous two in a couple of important ways. It was larger than the first project and more intricate than the second. Because of the tremendous number of cuts, this stage took as long as the second stage although in that one over 4,000 square feet of tile was laid.
Carpet was removed and the carpet glue removed on Friday the 15th of April 2005. At that time the tile lines were popped onto the concrete floor. This is very time consuming as there are 4 levels that have to be marked and they had to correspond to the ground floor grout lines. This work was completed at 11:30 that evening.
Saturday marked the start of laying tile. An area the approximate width of the altar from the ground floor to the altar level was laid. This lead to an interesting Saturday evening Mass and wedding as there were orange cones and blue tape keeping people from walking on that newly laid tile. A small crew worked this day giving us a head start. This also allowed us to determine if there were unanticipated difficulty ahead. There was not.
Sunday after the 5:30 Mass, a larger crew came out to help. Many worked till about 1:00 am even though we decided to shut down at midnight! Lessons learned from the previous tile project. Don't work too late. But we were fresh and making headway.
Monday was just more of the same. Laying tile. Lots of cutting and fitting.
Tuesday began the same way, laying more tile and cleaning grout lines. But in the evening we had a great crew show up and almost all of the laid tile was grouted. Really fantastic.
Wednesday was more of the same, laying tile and also beginning the arduous task of working the curved edges. Ever notice that tile is straight and our steps are curved? Lots of work is necessary to make the tile fit properly. First the top tile has to be cut to conform to the riser. Since a straight blade is used, the curve is not perfect. So a 36 grit sandpaper is used on the cut edge to apply a bevel and to remove a good deal of material to smooth the curve. This is followed by an 80 grit paper to close up the tile pores and further shape the curve. Finally 120 grit paper is used so polish the edge. Now if you don't think this is a whipping, try it some time. We are still getting dust out of tools!
Thursday the last of the tile is laid and grouted. The sanding work begun Wednesday is completed on all the tile previous laid and the tile laid Wednesday is cut and worked. Control joints are chalked. Clean-up of the whole church began. The project is essentially complete.
Again the individual that was instrumental in making this happen was Tom Farrell. The hours and hours of planning really paid off as you can see in the final product. Other valuable members of the core team are Robert Sauceda, Eric Rochester, David Williams, David Hemmi, Frank Puskarich, Michael Rochester, Chuck Cale and John Farrell.
Click here for a picture tour of this phase.
Click here to see the first phase of this project