Ch-ch-ch-Transitions - Turn and Face the Strain

Don't care what I do in my free time?  I'm going to tell you anyway:  watch countless videos on how to lay tile, of course!  Don't you, Weirdo?  In fact, I watched so many, I started considering myself a theoretical expert on the topic.  And that's dumb.  Don't do that.  It will make you seriously underestimate the time and effort involved in something.

So when we finished our hardwood floors, we didn't have quite enough planks to do the little hallway to the garage.  And optimists that we are (don't laugh), we said, "Well, tile would be better in the hallway anyway, since we (I) are always traipsing saw dust and other undesirable particles through the garage door."  So we wooded up to the hallway and until now, it's been a MacGyvered conglomerate of plywood covered by a carpet rug and linoleum...also covered by a carpet rug.  Carpet rug ftw.

-Insert non existent picture here.  Trust me, it was ghetto.-

But then after a GOOD deal of decision making (sorry, everyone who suffered at Lowe's), jerry rigging a contraption that would allow the borrowed tile saw (thanks, Lin) to cut tiles larger than was intended (thanks for staying positive and being smart, Joe), and what turns out to the be the, no kidding, ABSOLUTE BEST #1 activity in the world (i.e., grouting), I give you the tiled hallway!

And while it may not look incredibly spectacular, rest assured the effort involved was.  For instance, take this little hog here:

It turns out what I thought was dry wall was, in fact, metal when going to reattach this vent.  I don't want to talk about it.

And then, once the tile was finally laid, there were still transitions to do.  Picked this hardwood beauty up, got a stain to match as closely as possible, and it turns out it didn't fit into the gap I'd left as well as I thought it would.  More jerry rigging ensued, maybe a few wood chips in the eyeballs, more help from Patient Joe, a bent nail poker, scrumptious wood putty for the holes, and BAM.  Donezo.

And I think it looks pretty stinking good.  Ain't nobody tripping on that.

Lastly was the transition to the carpet in the closet.  This was terrifying.  I feel like handling tack strip  is almost certainly going to be the way I leave this world.  Or at least how I poke an eyeball out.  In the end, after some nerve-wracking decisions and the absence of a crucial carpet kicker, the deed was done.  And don't be fooled by that carpet rug on top of the actual carpet, that transition be seeeeeeeamless.  MmmmmmOK, when I was hammering down the tack strip beneath the carpet, I chipped the tile.  But once I filled it with sanded caulk, c'mon you hardly notice it.  Right?  Right??  It makes me want to take a dirt nap every time I see it :(

Anywho, in the end, I'm pretty pleased.  The grout helped cover up my not-so-straight tile lines (I noticed that Chris wrote on the label so it now says, "I am Groot.") and popping those baseboards back on covered my not-so-great edges, so you know...it's done.  And now only three bathrooms to go and we'll be a linoleum-free family.  I wonder if there's a coin or something for the one year mark...