Race car drivers know all about drafting. The idea is to get so close behind a car that the air travels over their car and then over your car without creating resistance in front of your car. I just found out this year that drafting also helps the car in front (click on the picture for a larger version and you can read the explanation).So I thought about drafting as I was experiencing the "learning curve" at work these past two weeks. At the Vine, the administrative pastor is in charge of maintenance. That means when a toilet starts leaking, I can either pay big bucks to get it fixed (not a very popular option with the finance people), find somebody in the church to help me (after hours or on the weekend) or I can figure out how to do it myself. It would appear that taking out a toilet and putting in a new one is not that hard. I didn't have anybody to "draft" on this one, and it didn't go quickly, but it's in and it's working, we didn't have to pay somebody else to do it and I didn't have to go in after hours to get help. That works for me.
And then there was the "tile issue" in the foyer of the church. A number of years ago, we had a drinking fountain put in. We had a guy in the church who built his own homes come put it in for us. He ran the water lines, installed the fountain and tiled the floor and wall behind the fountain. For the past two years we've been having problems because the cooling capacity of the fountain was not enough for the number of people we have wanting cold water on a Texas-hot Sunday morning. And then the thing must have started leaking because the wood floor tiles started warping and busted the tile. I found a man in the church who has the ability to fix the problem, but he is only available on Saturdays. Well, this Wednesday, George and I got rained out on our outdoor project (another whole story), so I thought "Eh, I bet we can take up that tile, fix the wood below it and re-tile that little area before noon (George helps me 9am to noon on Wednesdays)." SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHAT I WAS THINKING! First of all, talk about a learning curve...I have never laid tile (I have never even taken up tile). George is a much handier man than I, so I thought I would "draft" him on this one. First "issue"...George had never laid tile before, either.
I still did not feel this was a big issue. I asked George to go to the hardware store and get what we would need. I figured he would ask somebody there about tiling and could figure it out (again, he's handier than I am). He was also going to price tile "just in case" since we somehow thought we could reuse the same tile. Once he was there, I called him and told him to purchase the tile since the old tiles (the ones that were still glued down and had not come up with the warped floor) broke when I pulled them up. And then I saw all the glue/cement on the back and figured out that you don't reuse tile anyway (it's the learning curve thing). That was "issue" two.
"Issue" three came up as I was removing the floor tile next to the tiled wall. I touched (that's right...I TOUCHED it, I did not HIT it) a tile on the back wall and three tiles came crashing down. Oops. Not only is that more tile, but that means learning how to put tile on a wall. In a rare move of handy man thinking, I realized we could put panel up where the tile was and not lose anything. It's not like the water fountain was squirting water onto the wall.
So George got back and we finished tearing up the tile. Of course, as with any handy man project of any size I begin, I had to go back to the hardware store now. We needed some more trim wood and the panel to put up where the tile was. George and I headed to Lowe's and then we met Stan for lunch. I forgot to mention that Stan, also tiling-illiterate, was helping us all this time.
After lunch, Pastor Shaun helped us lay out the tile and told us we were "good" across the area we needed to tile, but we were going to have to cut some half tiles to cover the length of the area. And since we were back from the hardware store already, we also found out they make some sort of little plastic spacers to help keep the tile straight? Oh well. We used an extra half piece of tile as a spacer. Short version...Shaun, who was the only tile-literate person in the bunch, had to leave. We got 3/5 of the tile laid and then saw we had a HUGE gap at the side. We had to re-space the tiles and we could not use a piece of tile to help us space it evenly...we had to eyeball it. This, "issues" 3 and 4, no guides for laying the tile and cheap tile which was not exactly the same size!
Anyway, George took charge of cutting and laying the tile while Stan helped. I sized and cut the trim and paneling. "Issue" 5...it was 4:30 PM (not noon) when we got done. If you think it has taken a long time to read all of this...you should have been living it! Anyway, on Thursday I learned how to grout tile. All in all, I don't think it looks to bad. The grout covered up a few "issues". Maybe one day George and I will redo the trim work since it doesn't look all that great. And one day soon, we'll have a new drinking fountain to put on my new tile. Fortunately we were able to throw the old one away since the leak could not be fixed. Although I now know how to tile, I'm not in a hurry to redo that area again anytime soon.
So, I'm continuing to learn how to be a handier man...as I ponder, 'Can you craft around the learning curve?'
- Rob
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