Everyday Occurrences

We are not finished with Angie's condo, so it hasn't gone on the market yet. I've been doing the lion's share of the work and the organizing, and the place is finally completely empty and it has been painted by our lovely neighbour, who is a painter and who did a great job and who charged lots of money. That's okay, because:

Several cans of premium paint: $400
Polyfilla: $25
Hourly Wage (I don't actually know this, I'm making it up): $40
Having someone else do the job: Priceless.

Now the place is all beige on beige, but it looks nice. There are laminate floors and a tile entryway, and the kitchen and bathroom are linoleum. I will finish scrubbing the place down tomorrow or Wednesday, but today I did a little jobbie that needed doing because mildew had invaded: I re-caulked the tub.

When one does this kind of work, one has to first make the decision as to latex caulk or silicone caulk. While I think that the silicone caulk has a greater degree of water resistance, it's hard to clean up after the job. The latex caulk on the other hand, easily washes off your hands and other surfaces, and looks just as nice in the end. Both caulks remain pliable after curing.

Removal of old caulk can be a difficult business. You need a scraper to get in under the edge of the caulk, and you need to pull it out of any crevices. I happened to be working from left to right, and couldn't actually get the 9-in-1 tool under the caulk, but as it turns out the tool was made for the right-handed variety of human. No matter, being ambidextrous I switched to the other side and worked from right to left around the tub to remove the caulk with the tool. It's rare that you'll be able to just dig out a little bit of caulk and then pull the whole thing out in one go; old caulk tends to want to stay put and you'll have to painstakingly remove it piece by piece. You might get part of it out and then find some of it remains, but be firm, because all of it must be removed. Old caulk is stubborn.

Once you've scraped and wiped and re-scraped and wiped yet again, everything has to dry before you slit open the tube of new caulk. I don't use a caulking gun on the tub, I prefer a tube of caulk and I chose latex because of the cleanup ease. White, if you must know, but certainly you could choose black or other colours depending on the existing tub and tile, or if you just wanted a little exotica in your bathroom. It might be necessary to get coloured caulk at specialty stores. Cut the opening in the tube (~ 1/2 cm, maybe a bit less), and run a bead of caulk along one edge to the corner, then use your caulking tool to smooth it out. I have used my finger in this case, but not today, since I wanted a very even seal that looked like someone who knew what they were doing with caulk might have done. (Aside: around a window or along baseboards, a finger works fine. Most people prefer the pointer or middle finger for this job.) You run the tool along the caulk, and then wipe off the tool when you get to the corner. No special treatment at the corners, just make it look like an even joint without fooling around with it too much. Caulk can be unforgiving.

It's actually very simple but now I need a bit of a lie-down after all that talk of caulk.