which was put to good use. “It was an important step, because without setting materials and tile, we couldn’t do anything,” he added. “But once I knew those two companies were on board, it was just a matter of getting all the details figured out.” Beyond the donations of labor and materials, Kyle knew that a “slush fund” account was need- ed for incidentals like plumbing and vanities. To address this, Kyle established a silent auction and Tile Geek members donated items to be auctioned off. Contractors Direct and Norton donated saws, and J&R Tile donated an iQ dust- less saw; Shannon Huffstickler from Schluter was instrumental in donating three shower kits, and MLT’s Mick Volponi donated sev- eral MLT kits also. All items were sold to the highest bidder, which allowed the group to have some cash to work with. “To top it off, Justin Ernst of Minnetonka Minn., contacted Kate-Lo Tile and at his request, they shipped a pallet of buckets to the jobsite for us to use,” Kyle said. In addition, iQ itself donated an iQTS244 dustless saw to the effort that was used on site and then raf- fled off at the project – Ulas Maris held the winning number! Working together to meet challenges Kyle had some concerns bring- ing so many “Type A” person- alities to work together. But it all worked out, he said. Setters buddied up to work on different areas of the project and when they finished, jumped right in to other areas where work was still under way. “We all just blended together as I hoped,” Kyle said. In fact, Jim Garbe said, “For me, the best part of it was the amazing way that the planning and exe- cution fluidly evolved constantly as the situations were assessed and re-assessed when demo com- menced and often revealed things that were worse than we expected them to be. Instead of one large job, it was 10 small ones going on all at once with a limited time frame and constantly fluctuating labor force,” Garbe added. “The ability of everyone to problem- solve and switch gears to be what the current task required was sim- TECHNICAL FEATURE/HELPING HANDS ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Jon Appleby and Dan Kramer demon- strate what you have to do when there’s a deadline and you have to work in a bath- room that’s cut off from an exit. 104 TileLetter | January 2018