Let's see how far we've come...

One of the local shops had LCD TVs on clearance and so on impulse I picked up a 26" flatscreen for the basement room. I'm planning on mounting it over one of the windows (which is sealed and thus not used).... who knows, maybe I'll actually get to use the used X-Box 360 I bought last spring someday soon.

I grouted the last 4 tiles (which had to be cut to fit) tonight and that means the floor is finally finished. I still have place a couple more baseboard tiles but they should be done by Sunday.

Wow, what a massive job.  Things I've learned from this:

• Laying tiles in straight lines is a lot harder than it would seem.
• Spreading tile cement is a learned skill and the guys that do this professionally earn their wage.
• Cutting tiles is a ^$%# nightmare unless you buy a special power saw & blade. You can forget about using the "score and snap" cutters for anything but cuts near the center of the tile and hand saws, friction blades for a power jig saw, and diamond blades for a dremel all involve an enormous amount of work and generally don't work.  I finally broke down and bought a special hand saw with a diamond-coated blade and it cuts the tiles like a hot knife through butter.
• Laying tiles is rough on the knees, back, and shoulder. Add in wrist fatigue from grouting (i.e., it didn't help my carpal tunnel syndrome).
• The better you clean up the grout while it's still wet, the less work you have later trying to get it off the tiles.

All that said, the floor looks pretty good and I saved a bundle (probably a couple thousand Euros) by doing it myself. It's also made the room brighter.

I've been killing myself the last few days in order to finish the tiling job in the basement:  Wow, what an enormous PITA.  Yesterday I must have broken a half dozen tiles trying to cut the last one for the room's corner. 

In addition to the tiling job I'm also putting in a false wall behind my bookcases to cut down the noise that's audible when the boiler kicks in; while it's not that loud I'd still prefer not listening to it. I'm also adding some new furniture:  Thank God for IKEA which is the source for affordable, decent looking stuff.