Thursday, March 17, 2011

Boom. Done. Tile.

I had planned to space out the kitchen updates to not bore delightfully overwhelm you with every. single. decision. but it's all going so fast that if I don't explain to you about the tile right now you'll never get to rejoice in such minor details.  Minor details that will no doubt thrill you like they thrill me.  Minor details that may or may not have kept me up at night but whatever!  


Aaannnnnyyyyway - TILE.  This was easy.  It wasn't like choosing the countertops where I was floating in sea of cold stone I couldn't afford because I really only had one option for the floor.  Many of my neighbors probably have vinyl tile but if I'm already gutting this beast of the underworld I might as well do it right.  Fortunately I knew what I wanted.  Black tile.  
via Desire to Inspire
I know black might seem like a dumb choice for a floor - particularly for a kitchen floor - but I don't care.  I WANT it.  Many of the kitchen inspiration pics I've already posted have it (here, here and here) and obviously if you find it on the internet it MUST be a good idea and totally awesome.  So I'll have to sweep (with my sock feet) a bit more or get Charlemagne laser hair removal for Christmas.  It's manageable because it's just so sexy.  The floor that is, not Charlemagne.  

But I ain't all lazy sock feet housecleaning and hairless pussy jokes - I have smarts!  I think a dark floor will make the surface area of a small and awkward space like mine recede and bring your eye up to where the hot cabinet action is.  The floor will be - surprisingly! - grounding and earthy.  "Earthy" because you'll be able to see every piece of dirt and debris you've just tracked in from outside but it doesn't even matter because your eye will totally be looking elsewhere!  I'm a genius!  At night the cabinets will appear to float and I'm for DAMN sure my neighbors don't have that.

So the floor of amazing blackness (Omigawd is that racist?  Can I say that?) was finished today!!
Boom.  Done.  I almost peed myself.  It's pretty filthy here but I'm sure as hell not mopping right now.  I saw it before the grout and it was so inky and beautiful that YOU will pee yourself when you see the final reveal of amazing blackness (I'm just going with it now...).



From the dining room looking in...
You'll have to deal with the lighting because I only had about 5 minutes for pictures before I went to eat Mexican food - uh... because I don't have a kitchen - and I think we all know which one of those things is most important.  That queso doesn't eat itself, y'all.



Here I'm standing at the "sink" looking at the former gates of hell in the most idiotic use of doors and walls ever constructed by man.  This is what you get when you have a pentagon in your house.  At one point there was a swinging door on the left and a real door on the right for all those special times when you wanted to feel like a prisoner in your own kitchen.


Full on design boner.  I cannot tell you the joy it brings me to have these surfaces be perfectly flush with each other either.   Well, I can but then this might be the first blog post ever to receive an NC-17 rating and I obviously want you to be able to read this to your children as bedtime stories.  The contractor didn't sub this out and my project manager did all of it.  I came home the first day after he'd already set about 25% of the tile to find that he didn't use spacers and my entire body immediately broke out into a sweat.  He assured me he didn't need them (probably once he saw my face drain of color) and he was right.  He did a good job.  I know because I measured after he left...

So enough gushing over the floor hotness, the other tile in the room is getting jealous.  I debated over what to do with the backsplash since it wasn't a necessity so to speak - I'm on a budget ya know - and I could just get one of those little *gulp* 4 inch fake backsplash thingies and it'll be....  NO!  Do not fall victim to your cheap ways yet again!  Don't forget the bargain-priced garden hose incident of 2007!  So once I decided to take the leap I knew I wanted very neutral and rectilinear to coordinate with the floor but not quite so rigid as a static grid...

Don't forget the endorsement checks AKDO.  kthnxbye.
Boom.  Done.  First tile store, first 15 minutes.  In addition to finding my dream tile so fast I discovered a latent love for tile that I wasn't aware of until I was within it's cool grasp.  Since I've never visited a tile store other than the dingy aisle at Home Depot I was unaware of its affect on me.  The tumbled beige backsplash found at the big orange box makes me foam at the mouth but I think I found an isolated room at the tile store and rolled around on a whole wall of Walker Zanger tiles.  I don't think the employees saw but even if they had NPR was on the radio so they seemed like tolerant ladies.

Of course, I found my tile so fast that I began to second guess myself.  I hemmed and hawed around after that because I was unsure about the sample color they sent so I ordered other samples, shopped around, made unsure frowny faces, was seriously tempted by a sample called 'Unicorn White' and had Nick The Designer (that's his first, middle and last name btw) slap me around a little bit before finally just going with my gut on my first choice.  

Just like I said.  Boom.  Done.  Tile.  Damn, this is easy.

[Update:  It has come to my attention - probably because I was drunk on queso after my Mexican feast when I wrote this - that I forgot to actually tell you exactly what kind of floor tile.  I'm a horrible blogger!  It's porcelain - somehow I assumed you guys knew what it was because you're all so awesome.  And in my effort to be pretty transparent about this process the floor was about $4 a square foot and the backsplash was about $12.  Neither were fall-off-the-truck kind of black market pricing that would make you stab a grandma who got in your way of a bargain but reasonable.]  

33 comments:

  1. Arne - I know right?! I need to learn to trust mine more. Nick is always really good and helping me stop second-guessing myself!

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  2. I should inspire my clients to write so about their remodels. Thanks for the update, may your honeymoon phase endure to the end.

    Good Luck
    Dave

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  3. Um, WOW. CRAZYPANTSINLOVE with both tile selections.

    P.S. I worked in a high-end tile showroom for two years (we carried WZ). I loved seeing the looks on clients faces the first time they walked in.

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  4. Paul - Thank you! I had so much fun and glad it meets your approval!

    DavidC - I always love hearing about other people's remodels! I hope this honeymoon last until the end too - we have less than two weeks to go!

    Raina - Um, wow. Thanks so much for your seal of approval. ; ) And what HAVEN'T you done in the design business??!! When I started second-guessing my backsplash choice WZ had an option almost identical but it was waaay more expensive. AKDO was perfect for me!

    Thanks y'all!

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  5. Looking fan-damn-tastic, woman! Guts won't lie - as long as you can hear them through the noise of 2nd guessitude.

    Sweet.

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  6. Becky - those guts need to learn to use their outside voice and stop being so wimpy! Glad you like. ; )

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  7. Love the black floors - I had no idea... You kept it from me, just so you could surprise me with it like this, didn't you?

    These updates are great - I am a total voyeur when it comes to Creative Process.

    It's kind of like watching a realllllly drawn out HGTV show, except with lots of Adult Humor, Language, and Situations, and instead of 2.5 minutes of commercials, the segments are separated by days of my actual life.

    Which is definitely more bearable than commercial breaks...

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  8. Slade - honestly, I forget who I tell what to so it wasn't intentional. I mean, yes it was totally intentional because I like the big reveal!! This is like HGTV in real time. Happy you dig it. ; )

    Jaime - my thoughts exactly.

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  9. Yes, that's damn sexy tile. So glad to hear you are a fellow tile lover. You should have been at Coverings! You could have walked around in a hood with your face blurred out like Banksy.

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  10. Amanda - maybe I WAS at Coverings and you just didn't know???!! I wasn't. But if I was I would have stalked everybody first - obviously. Possibly painted some renegade art somewhere too just for the hell of it!

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  11. I think it's awesome that you chose a running bond with RECTILINEAR tile, in lieu of SQUARE.

    The whole look is effin sweet! It appears that the hellgate truly has fallen. This siege is all but over.

    Anyway...

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  12. Thanks Izzy! I just blew your mind with the RECTILINEARITY of that huh?! Bladow. Even though I don't live in a true MCM ranch it's still low with lots of horizontals so I'm sticking with the rectangle theme.

    I'm making that hellgate my bitch.

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  13. It's funny, those are pretty much exactly the same tiles I put in my own kitchen. Anything you drop will die in a thousand pieces, and don't ever get a white dog like I did..

    But it's WORTH it! :)

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  14. Kristian - Cool! So good to hear that someone else did the same thing! Of course, I already have a white cat so... ; )

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  15. G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S! I have black tile in my bathroom of all places and thought it is a pain in the @ss to keep clean...it's worth it!

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  16. Ginger - Welcome to the Sauce! I'm so happy to hear of so many other people who are living with black floors who love it too! But I should just go ahead and invest serious bank into Swiffer...

    Do you have pics of your bathroom?! Love to see!

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  17. My latent love of tiles know no bounds, as you probably already know. I love your choices, especially the floor which makes my heart go boom, boom. Looking good!

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  18. nkp - so happy you approve since you ARE somewhat of a tile queen. ; ) Always nice to see you over here!

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  19. Kim - the floor is cold and hard so it's probably not actually conducive to the sex. Unless it's the sparkle vampire sex.

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  20. Good thing you went for wood counters, then. Watch out for splinters!

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  21. holy ish i love your tile.

    ps raina sent me. xoxo

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  22. court. - thanks so much! Glad you found your way over to the Sauce! I allow all people who say nice things about my decor choices. ; )

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  23. We're refinishing our hardwoods in a black stain, and I was thinking a black tile for when we get to the kitchen. This has sealed the deal.

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  24. David - Nice of you to stop by! Those floors sound super sexy. Go for it! I've just been looking at my floors for a week and love it more every day!

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  25. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. Love the proportions, love the angle, love the pattern. Perfection!

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  26. Michelle - ahhh... sweet sweet validation. Thank you for stopping by. ; )

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