Here’s a story related to me by a MyFixitUpLife Friend and the tile project that he’d STILL have to do if he went about it in an old-school fashion. As I typed it out, it started reading like one of those, “golly shucks testimonials,” but, well, what do you think? I haven’t quite yest mastered the art of mind-reading.
Tile Backsplash and GSD (aka getting stuff done)
Part of my home is a rental apartment. Between tenants, it was necessary to make some upgrades. One of them was a backsplash for the kitchen stove (and a new stove for that matter). The reason for the backsplash is that I will not always know the occupant personally, nor how (badly) they cook so my thinking is that tile will be easier to maintain between tenants. I think it’s reasonable that it’ll only have to clean and maybe re-seal the tile as opposed to a painted wall, which will likely have to be de-greased/cleaned—thoroughly—then primed and painted. Plus it looks cleaner.
The problem is that while I’m good at certain projects, tiling isn’t one of them—most notably mixing and applying the thinset. I’ve never done it and the more I read about it, the more I wanted to keep it that way, so I procrastinated. The increasingly immediate problem, however, is that I had rented the unit; the tenant was coming backsplash or not.
So (I’m not making this up) when I heard Mark and Theresa talk about Bondera, that was my gateway to what I call GSD—Getting Stuff Done. I bailed on the thinset and got a roll of Bondera, ‘stat’.
I won’t lie to you, I thought it was pricey when I got it at Lowes. However, I thought about it a little more and did some quick math and some GSD soul-searching (not as difficult is it might sound.)
First, the biggest step for me in a GSD project sometimes is the first step and, in this case, I kept not taking it. So while I spend time figuring out the best way to proceed, I’m NOT GSD-ing—the opposite of what GSD is all about.
Second, since this apartment is a business, I include the value of my time in the cost of a project, sort of as if I’m paying myself (which is a helpful way to budget my time and determine what’s worth what, but that’s another story.) Third, skipping the backsplash project almost guarantees that I’ll have to clean and paint that area later on which means I’ll have to move the stove, clean/de-grease the wall and then prime and paint it. How long will that take and how much will it s###?
So once I did this back-of-the-envelope arithmetic, the thirty or so dollars the Bondera cost was way less expensive compared to the other risks and variables. Plus, I would have a lot left over for other small tiling jobs.
And one more thing: I not only got the job done, I got it done fast.
