Laid Out

So guess what? We have all new tile floors!!!! I must say, it was stressful. Aside from all of the prep and demo we had to do, this whole process has just really made me realize how much I hate having people in my house. As in, strange worker men, not as in friends coming to visit (which I hope you will all do). I felt very uneasy and I can't tell you how glad I am that they're done!

Now onto the laying process. The tiles we ordered were square 20"x20", but I really wanted them to be rectangular because I thought such large square ones would look very plain.  

So, our tilers used this cool scoring tool to cut each tile down the middle, and then they hit the tile on both sides to break it in two.

This process of snapping them in half made me pretty nervous. I was worried that they were going to break with jagged edges and that they weren't going to be careful enough to cut them right in the middle, but they came out perfect!

I took a couple inside to make sure I still wanted to lay them in a brick pattern, and I definitely did.

They put down a layer of thin set, then put the tiles on top, using spacers to make sure they were evenly placed. 

I had to go to work at this point which just about killed me because I wanted to watch every second. When I got home they were all done... and I must say that I was a little panicked when I saw how it looked. The tile looked great, but each tile looked very... defined. As in, the dark lines between each tile really set each tile apart as its own, which made the floor look choppy and disjointed. Now, I knew that the reason it looked this way was because it wasn't grouted, and that the lines between each tile would be much lighter, but it was hard to visualize and I got worried. Take a look and see if you can see what I mean.

See how each tile is very distinctly separated from the tile next to it? Well, that freaked me out.

Our tiler was really no help when it was time to choose a grout color which also freaked me out. He told me to choose one, I asked if he had any suggestions, and his response was that I was the one that has to live with it. Well yes, I'm the one that has to live with it, but you're the professional that works with grout all day so perhaps you have some insight??? Nope. So I pulled out all of the colors that were remotely close to the tile colors. Notice I left the bright red one in the upper right hand corner tucked in, as well as the teal one. #yesiconsideredit #icametomysensesquickly

The tricky part about choosing the grout for these tiles is that they're really varied in the range of browns. They get fairly dark in some places, and are very light and creamy in others, which means that tons of different grout colors would work. I knew I didn't want anything dark, because that would just mimic how it was already looking, which was horrifying. I didn't want anything too light, because that meant it would get dirty and disgusting the way the old grout got. I narrowed it down to these four. The one left was a little yellow and the one on the right was a little grey, so it was really between the two in the middle.

And the winner is.................... "Haystack," even though it looks nothing like a haystack. 

Sadly I was at work while they grouted everything except the entry way, so I was only able to snap this one phone picture. They pretty much just mix up the grout powder with water and use a rubbery trowel to smash it into the lines between the tiles. Then they wipe the excess up with a big sponge and let it dry.

The finished product!

See how much better it looks with the grout?! Heart attack prevented. Whew. It looks like one continuous, cohesive floor now rather than tons of independent tiles. Here's a side-by-side:

The laundry room/pantry.

The kitchen.

The half bath (it's not this yellow in real life).

The entry way.

And here's a before and after of the kitchen...

I couldn't be happier to have neutral floors! No more pink... ever. Now the floor sort of blends in to the beige cabinets and beige walls, but remember that the cabinets will be painted white and the walls will be golden yellow, so it won't look like one big beige party.

I'm really happy we went with the brick pattern because I think it not only adds subtle visual interest, it also elongates the space the same way stripes on a wall do. It looks less chopped up and more fluid since the horizontal lines don't match up, just the vertical ones. I'm in love :)

Now it's time for our handyman to do his work, and he has some pretty important things on his list. Most of them are functional, but they'll improve how the space looks, too. The finish line is in sight, yall!

Chipping Away

I have fairly major developments to share! Tile work has begun... and actually almost finished. But let's back up for a minute. Before the tilers came we had to prep the house. My goals were to centralize all of our stuff to keep it from getting damaged or dusty. My OCD may have gotten a little carried away, but I would rather be safe than sorry. We moved our fridge, furniture, and odds and ends into the living room since no tile work would be done there, then covered it with plastic and sheets. 

You'll see in the coming pictures that we taped off all of the outlets and anything else we thought might get filled with tile dust. Our tiler warned us that there would be tons and tons of it, so I figured it was easier to take preventative measures rather than to have to clean dust out of tiny nooks and crannies after the fact. Moving all of the appliances and furniture off the tiles also made me realize how disgusting the floors are! Not only is the tile pink and ugly, it's filthy. See how on the right side of the picture the grout is more or less white and on the left is brown?! Sick. So, here's where we started (sorry some of them are blurry... I switched my camera to manual focus and then forgot... again). 

The laundry room/pantry.

The kitchen.

The dining room.

The half bath.

The entryway. (Again, see how the grout on the edge of the stairs is way cleaner than the grout on the floor?) 

I also tried to protect the dishwasher by covering it with a towel and writing the tilers a little reminder note to be careful near it. I had nightmares of tile corners and jackhammers smacking into its perfectly undamaged self!

And so... the demo began. They used a jackhammer with a small attachment to get the tiles up. It was really pretty quick work, but you cannot imagine the noise. You could hear it all the way at the entrance of the complex while inside your car.

Dear neighbors (most of which I haven't met): I am so so sorry. I hope you were all at work and have no idea of the horror that went on.

Not only was it louder than you can imagine, it was strangely high pitched while simultaneously deeply shaking your whole body. I can't describe it well, but it was awful.

I left to run an errand after about 5 minutes of listening to the jackhammering and my ears rang for at least 15 more. I stopped by my dad's and got ear plugs, ear muffs (not the kind for chilly weather), and safety glasses because tiny shards of tile were flying. My reaction? Horror. 

They just ignored my terrified face and kept chipping, which was for the best.

Under the tile in the kitchen, laundry room, and half bath is concrete, which meant they could safely jackhammer without hurting the subsurface. Our entryway is raised however, so the ground isn't directly under it. There's a product called Hardibacker supporting the tile, which is sort of like drywall made of concrete.  To avoid damaging it, they took the entryway tiles out by hand.

I couldn't have been happier when it was all out. Pink be gone!

The dust wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but it was still seriously dusty. And "dust" is misleading... it's not like dust that collects on your shelves. It's powdered concrete... and it's kind of frightening to breathe it in.

The next step was to remove the thinset that holds the tile to the floor, which was the dustiest step of all.  I suggested that we hang plastic to keep it as contained as possible and it worked really well. We also covered the AC vents on the ceiling to keep the dust out of the ducts. 

See all of the lines? That's the thinset on top of the concrete. It's just the mortar that acts as a glue between the concrete and the tiles.

They used a much wider attachment on the jackhammer to scrape it up.

See how it's nice and smooth where they've removed the thinset?

The floors looked so sleek when they were done!

I'll be back with a post on the finished product soon! It looks goooood. 

On an unrelated note, what do you think of John acting as a piece of art under what he calls our "museum lights"? Statuesque, no?