QUALIFIED LABOR ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Mosaic mural adorns pool house kitchen backsplash The mural for this backsplash was a 6´ x 8´ Hawaiian beach scene with breaching hump- back whales, sea turtles and tree frogs, again created by Ruth Frances Greenberg. Plus the homeowner had befriended stray cats while in Hawaii, so the mural included them as well. The process of assembling all the parts and pieces was the same as with the pool, but Hawthorne Tile was now familiar with this system. Schreffler said, “Ruth laid them out with me so I knew where every- thing was to go. She gave me some creative license – with relief flowers and some other pieces. Before the first install in the pool, she never experienced CTI installers before, so the experience for her was very welcoming.” Again, the mural needed to be installed in one fell swoop, using ARDEX X77 as thinset. “We started this one at 7 a.m. and were done by 11 a.m.,” Schreffler said. This was after the crew spent a day prepping the wall surface to be sure it was flat. “We had the same crew,” he said, “So they knew exactly what they were doing and acted as a fantas- tic team. They took the bull by the ^ Like the pool project, the mosaics for the backsplash were assembled and numbered. ^ Installing the mosaic mural are (L to R) Bo Carney, Vladmir Blashchishchin and Yakov Blashchishchin. 52 TileLetter | September 2018