This past month I have been working in Palm Desert off of Monterey Avenue. The project was an attached home remodel. I got involved with the project through a General Contractor I know out of Fallbrook. John Heller Construction and CDC do a lot of projects together. But this time I got to work with Marsha Weaver Designs out of Temecula, CA whom I hadn’t worked with in a while. It was great to work with Marsha again and the end result came out great. The place looks fantastic and has the Tommy Bahama style she was going for.
On this project we had a Master Bathroom and three smaller floors. We installed tile in the entry, guest bathroom, laundry and the kitchen. As well as a nice glass back splash in the kitchen. All of which was purchased out the Arizona Tile in Palm Desert.
First project was the Kerdi System Master Shower which we tiled with Ankara 12×12 as well as a design in the back wall incorporating this new pebble rock that Arizona Tile is carrying. We also took advantage of the Ogee and the Rope Liner that they have available in the Ankara as well. The design in the back wall was completed by cutting down the 12” tile into 6 1/8” for the inside area. This dimension is perfect to achieve full tile everywhere top and bottom as well as side to side. This is very often a place where installers will just put up a 6” not even trying to make the inside full tile. One of things Chad Deiter Construction shoots for is the best layouts possible for the tile designs. And we achieved that on this shower.
Second projects were the guest bathroom floor and the master bathroom floor both tiled with the 18”x18” Ankara. The master floor was just a straight laid floor. But the guest floor was Ankara on a Diagonal with random dots. The dots came from a place in town that makes them called Landmark. These were the resin type and are usually much more cost effective than the real metal ones.
When those two floors were done we went on to tiling the kitchen, entry and the laundry flooring. These all were installed with Cortona Saio 18”x18”. The kitchen and the Laundry were both straight. The entry was on a diagonal but was a fairly small area anyway and needed something different.
Now that these were all completed were started to work on the backsplashes for this project with the first one being the master bathroom. This one was neat and kind of different. After talking with Marsha about the design look that she was after we decided to have the granite installers leave a gap of 2” in between the counter top and the back splash while installing only a 3” Granite Slab back splash. CDC later came in and installed the river rock mosaic in the gap to complete the look that she wanted. I have got to say this was different but turned out very neat and I am looking forward to using this technique on more projects with different materials for the inlays.
The final project of the job was the Kitchen Back Splash. The Cambria countertop had recently been installed and it was time for CDC to install the glass 3×6 and 1×1 mosaics. For this back splash I went with the Custom Mega Lite thin set which offers both non-sag capabilities and has the proper Flex additive needed for a glass tile installation. I have to say that I was impressed by the stuff it worked exactly how it was supposed to and I couldn’t have been happier with the outcome of the back splash.
After everything had cured and dried a couple days we went back grouted all the work with Laticrete Permacolor Grout. Honestly this is my go to grout and love the color constancy it dries to.
Well that’s all from Palm Desert on this one. Maybe another one will come up soon it was a nice place to work. 
In the beginning of August we did a master shower project for a couple in Temecula. Unfortunately I have only got to meet Christine since her husband is serving in the military and is stationed in Afghanistan right now. Here at CDC we pride ourselves in taking care of the people who protect our families and us. We offer military discounts to them even though this discount does not even come close to the sacrifices that those serving and their families make.
This master had already been started by another tile guy but I think that as the design got more complicated he got in a little over his head. So being that I am a tile contractor I was contacted by Christine to come out and take a look. She asked me to give some advice to what should be done with the tile. She also had a couple pictures of the “shower of her dreams “and that’s the direction that we headed in. The pictures that she had were of a tile job using 4×4 tumbled marble and various decorative liners and trim pieces. As well as a nice 5/8” mosaic that was used in the liner of the bathroom.
Once we had settled on the design and the tiles we started putting together a digital rendering of the master so she could get a feel for what I was seeing in my head. This is often helpful and like my wife always reminds me people don’t see what I see. Once that drawing was completed I emailed it to her to get her thoughts and then make changes. The drawing stayed the same and we were off to the next big thing of picking out tile. The homeowner had been to a few places already and I sent her to a few more. But by the end of that weekend the tile was decided and ordered.
The original design was to be two different tumbled marbles in a checkerboard pattern. The design was going to be straight on the bottom half and diagonal on the top half. The two halves were separated by a nice liner using the 5/8” Mosaic and Ogee on top with a Dome liner on the bottom. This bathroom was going to be something special I knew it from the start. Once the entire tile order had made the way to the job we put the install on the schedule and started the next week.
When I looked at the job the Hardi Backer Cement Board was already installed and even though I was told that there was paper behind it I still wanted to use Laticrete HydroBan. For those unfamiliar with the Hydro Ban product it’s an excellent liquid membrane waterproofing that can be applied to the outside of this type of application. I also use it on my steam showers after the cement float has dried for 3 days. The next step was rolling on the waterproofing and letting that dry so the tile could be installed. I know this was overkill but also was peace of mind on my part. I always like to provide the best possible product and unless you do the job from the very beginning there is no way to know what was done before you. This doesn’t happen often to us but this is how we deal with these situations.
For the bottom half of the install we started using the Noce and Ivory Tumbled 4×4’s in straight lay. We got about 125sqft. up the first couple days and the Homeowner was having a problem with the two tiles being so much different. We left that day letting her get a feel for it and if the tile was going to work or not. Later that day I received a call that no setter likes to get. “Chad we’re going to change everything to Ivory instead.” Let me say that I honestly don’t mind these things since my main goal is a satisfied customer. So the next day we had a meeting of the minds to figure out the best way to tear out every other tile and eventually found a way that worked very well. As you can see by the pictures it was an event to say the least. But with a positive attitude we got a positive outcome.
Once all of the Noce tiles had been tore out we started re-tiling the spots with the new Ivory tile that we had ordered. We continued on and tiled the liner and the upper sections on a diagonal. Once all the tile had been set and had been given time to dry it was time to grout.
The homeowner was going for a French Country look and said that in that style designers use a lot of white grout. So she and I went over grout color samples and decided on Custom Building Products Snow White. At first I wasn’t too sure on that color so I did a sample board to show her and so I could see it also. Come to find out that I really like the Snow White with the Ivory I think it looks great and so did she. Now that the grout had been picked we went ahead and grouted up the whole job and left it for a couple days to dry. After the two days was up we came back and used an Enhancing Sealer on the stone and the grout to really bring out the richness of the tile job. A few more finishing touches and we were done.
This was such a great job for me to do. I can’t wait to hear what Frank says about it when he gets home. Although I’m pretty sure this shower will have to be a close second to seeing his loving wife….
