Today's fear of tiling moment.

Yeah - I know you guys are missing me. You can admit it.

My floor has been kicking my ass and serving me up some bitch hand. It also wants to prove to me that I'm not a teenager anymore. I know! It was a shock to me too.

So, today in an effort to recover, I went looking for better prices on granite. In which I ran across some crazy ass tile. You know (at least I think you do) how much I love unusual tile. To mock. And, commiserate with the poor contractor who has to install it.

Sadly my tile nerve is so dead right now. I couldn't even get excited about this stuff. But I took pictures anyway.



I hope this stuff comes on a sheets. Otherwise I can only imagine tiny Cambodian children spending hours enslaved in McMansions installing this stuff.

The rest of this stuff is just generic mood ring-y semi precious stone type tile. Or not. Maybe I dont know what semi precious stones are. And I'm too tired to look it up. Yeah - I know google is just sitting right there. I'm not going to do it.





Except for this head cheese tile.

An old crush revisited.

Since it was still raining today - we decided to visit the tile store. I must confess, I have a real fetish for tile. I have no idea why.

What I love even most are the tiles I think no one in their right minds would actually use. Below are a few examples for your pleasure.



Oh yes! That color burning your eyes is salmon.





These. I actually like. Although, finding a design that didn't look overdone would be complicated.

Yeah.. if you thought I was in my right mind, you've been reading the wrong blog. Duh.



I never understand the endless choices of tiles that look like wood grain. But they are somewhat fascinating.



And tile that make your project look like an old leather desk. Somebody must use them. Right?

Here is one from a recent tile store visit.



Other entries on my tile fetish here, here, here, and here.

A crush on glass.

I never thought I would say it - but - I'm going to put up glass tile again.

I don't know what it is.. but I just can't keep away from it. So when I ran across these - I had to buy them.



You see - glass tile is easily the most complicated product on the face of the earth. And if you have never installed this stuff before there are all sorts of things you don't find out until you are in the project. This is why it took my husband and I - 10 months to do this shower. Thats right. 10 months. It was the most painful project ever.



As a matter of a fact - from planning to completion - was almost a year and a half. My first post about it.

The main issues? Light refraction as you can see in this photo.



Also a problem - depth of color. Unlike normal tile, glass tile has depth quality that you have to take into account. This makes grout color really complicated. It sort of makes the color bleed into the glass tile.

We thought we would just go with white - like we saw at the home improvement stores, but it looked horrible. Like paste. Eventually we wound up mixing our own color, but it took 17 tries to get the color match correct.

Hopefully this time it will go better. At least those bubble tiles never got stuck in my head and made me want to put them up.

Other tile posts here.

You've got to see these tiles!

While in the process of modeling our laundry room, and looking for design idea's, I ran across these tiles from Stone and Pewter Accents. Main site, and tile link. I certainly give them points for wow factor.



This isn't "my thing", but I have to admit, these tiles from Designer Glass Mosiacs are fascinating too.

Time for a new project.

Well....the amnesia from our last tile project seems to have finally set in. I'm starting to fantasize about glass tiles. As if the last project wasn't easily the hardest job we have ever done. I will post an update when I get my native machine up, and files restored. So, while out trying to find design ideas we ran across these.




Now, I would never put these in my house. But I am oddly fascinated by them. They look like bubbles. I can't imagine how hideously hard the grout work would be, and how many times I would freak out trying to make it look right. Not to mention the shaving of years in my husband's lifespan when they inevitably need to be cut.

They do make me wonder what application you could use them for without making the whole thing look like a piece of crap. Which I absolutely can't. Not to mention how hard they would be to clean.

You Want To Do What? Part 1.

Last night I developed a tick. You know... one of those subconscious facial things people do when they are stressed. Right after my husband said "ya know.... what do you think about doing this.......". While I am long past being stressed about the bathroom remodel (we are in the home stretch after all) that same sentence has been said in our house over this one project zillions of times for the past six months. You think I am joking. Just wait. This hasn't been an easy project.

It all started out with these tiles.


We knew from the very beginning that we had some issues. For one thing, the tiles were a vastly different thickness.



But I loved the glow tiles. There wasn't any dispute between us. He liked them too, but dismissed the idea as crazy. All of a sudden I felt like Cartman on South Park. "But maaaaa, I want a traperkeeper 2000'. We spent the next two hours in the store. Although we both have a very short tolerance for shopping, we both know better to leave the store with something unless we have an plan. How were we going to incorporate these tiles that wont look to overdone, and still be on the funky side.

I was leaning towards a metal accent:



He was leaning towards having an accent that ties into the floor tile:




Or do we just want to put some subtle lines: