How come car guys think they can build/do anything?

[Jimmy]

The girlfriend and I were furniture shopping for our new apartment this weekend and found this really nice $450 Ashley coffee table at the Ashley scratch-n-dent/floor display warehouse for $50. Some tiles on the top were broken so, of course, I go "oh, I can fix that easily for like $10" (keep in mind I have never tiled before).



I buy the table and on the way home stop at Home Depot to get a couple of pieces of tile. While there, I decided I wanted to get all new tile in a lighter color to match our living room sofa and chair better and ended up like $70 on 6 sq ft of tile, grout, mortar, some mdf and some backer board. I also decided to get fancy with the tile and lay it diagonal.



The supervisor approved....



This is the end result, I still need to lay the grout and bevel the outside edges of tile but it turned out ok I think.




Anybody else have the problem where they can't keep any project simple and have to have to go the hard route for everything, I mean, my $60 table turned into a $120 table. Is this a car guy problem or an engineer problem? Can I get pills to fix it?

[BigJerm]

first off. gotta give ya props for a good tile job esp for your first time.

Second, yes, I believe I can fix and should modify most anything

[Jimmy]

^ Yeah, I think my TV is the only thing I own that I haven't touched, but it's to expensive to crack open...for now. Hell, I even have a digital photo frame made out of an old laptop, haha.

[Chris Hyde]

Looks good.  I got an itch one day to 6" tile all my kitchen counters, back splash along with 12" African Slate in my master bath in my other house.  Needless to say, the itch turned into 7 days.  Three days later, I decided to tear off the handrails on my front porch, encase it and wrap it with stack stone and African slate.  LOL!  Good thing my current house is all setup or I'd be at it again. LOL.



The Old House front porch conversion.

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[Jimmy]

Those steps look nice Chris, I wish I could get a house right now instead of a dang apartment.

[DILYSI Dave]

1.  Yes, every project.
2.  That porch looks nice Chris.  I've got a wild hair to cover the bottom floor of my house with stack stone like that.  Any tips as to sources, time, budget, etc?

[Chris Hyde]

The results are all in the prep!  At any rate, we bought all of our stone at Earth Products in Marietta.  Now if I could get 5 acres of grass to grow nice and green at my new place, I would feel accomplished.

[Matt]

I did tile from the age 15 to 20. I still take side jobs, if I have the time. Backsplashes are butter. I fight the urge everytime I step into the kitchen and bathroom at the apartment. I hate to see such as that with no tile. But it aint mine so I aint fixin it.

[Ben H.]

That looks real good Jimmy. And you still saved a bunch of money. And yes, I am constanlty thinking on how to improve stuff.

[ballzy]

Because!

that is all.