Tiling is Fun!

I'm pretty sure that the thought of tiling our bathroom has been keeping Contractor up at night. I didn't think my tile layout was all that extravagant, but I will admit it has changed and evolved some over the last few months to a somewhat simpler design.

We got 12x12" tiles, with 6x6" border/accent tiles, the accent tiles being both plain and four different patterns. I like things to be random and unexpected, so I wanted our tile layout to reflect that. I drew inspiration from my favorite spa up in the Big City, which has 24x24" tiles accented with some smaller mosaic tiles at an angle. However the spa tiles are not random at all.

First we laid out most of the tiles on the floor for a dry run, to get an idea of what we would have to do. I left some of the 12x12" tiles out so we could walk through the room and look at things.


We measured for the tile cutting, and then set up the 4-12" tile configuration with a 6" tile center. I figured it would be simple, once we got the correct measurement to lop off the edge of the 12x12's. Contractor was pretty worried about having to measure each and every tile, but we didn't have to. Sorry if I don't know the correct terminology, but it looks like this:



Contractor started cutting. I think he made the exact same cut on more than 30 tiles. I've forgotten how many tiles we hauled out to the tile saw. I carried the cut tiles back in and put them back into the layout.


Once all the tiles were cut, it was time to get down to business. Contractor mixed up the cement, which he calls "mud" and we started with the border. I basically handed him the tiles and then helped align them with the spacers.


This is what it looked like a couple hours in:


By 5:00pm, we had done all we could for the day. Contractor had a 24" x 12" space to sit in, and he said, "I guess this is what they mean by 'painting yourself into a corner.'" We cleaned up and he went home.

Back at it tomorrow!