Just Call Us “Team Tile”

You know how when you start tinkering around with things, it can suddenly turn into a huge project?  Well, that’s essentially what happened during our bathroom remodel.  It started with, “This tile is uggggly.”  Before we knew it, we were yanking off speckled brown tile left and right, grinning madly about our success.  It was my first true experience with demo, and I loved it!  Just remember that demo is only the first part of the process…it doesn’t end there.

 

Before we bought our house, I was positive that I wanted a bathroom decked out with clean, white subway tile in the shower, layered against a black and white hexagon tile floor, like this.  When I found out that it was possible to buy sheets of hex tile online through Home Depot, I flipped out and nearly ordered it on the spot, but thanks to some good sense, we decided to check out our local options in hopes of striking a better deal.  Once we started looking around, I realized that I am not a fan of busy patterns—I prefer to stick to the basics so that I don’t tire of it too quickly, plus I can always change the paint or décor down the road if the tile is simple enough (think of all the people who installed pea green tile back in the day…I wonder how long it took before they realized what they had actually committed to!).  Not only am I not a huge fan of busy patterns, I also am not a huge fan of black—as in, other than clothing, nothing that I own is black!  When it comes down to it, I am way more of a brown tone gal.

After searching the big boys, Home Depot and Lowe’s, we took a chance on a place called The Carpet Exchange.  Turns out that despite their very misleading name, they actually carry tons of tile (I let them know they should change the name of their store—I’m sure they’ll be forever grateful to me when their customer base increases dramatically overnight).  While The Carpet Exchange wasn’t necessarily the least expensive, they had a better selection than the other stores.  Once I finally allowed my brain to shift gears, we stumbled across some lovely earthy chocolate brown tile at an affordable price.  That also meant we could use a dark grout (Poleyblend Sable Brown), which would be easier to keep clean than white grout on a bathroom floor—yipes!  While we were at it, we ordered our subway tile through them (we chose matte over glossy), although looking back, I have a feeling we would have gotten the subway tile for a better deal through a big box store.  Live and learn, right?  At least in the world of DIY…

Soon after, Matt went to town tiling the entire bathroom on his own—check out his detailed handiwork!  Isn’t it great?!  And boy are we glad for simple inventions like tile spacers—we used hundreds of them during this project!

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And that, my friends, is a wrap for Team Tile!