Tile, Part One

Our builder told us we didn't have to choose tile yet. We told our builder we were seriously convinced it was possible all progress on the house would stop because we hadn't yet made our selection. So two weeks ago we met with Yesim at Transitions in Tile.

She calmly listened to us talk about all the things we liked (dark colors, and subway tile, and penny rounds), and all the things we didn't (big grout lines, overly large square tiles, anything brown or beige). She looked at our budget and didn't start cackling. Our conversation then went something like this:


Me: We're just in the exploratory stage. There's no way we're actually prepared to choose anything.
Yesim: Oh, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to choose everything today.
Chris and I exchange knowing glances. Poor Yesim.
Me: Yeah, well, I wouldn't count on it. We really don't know what we want.
Yesim: I think you do, so let's get started.

So we started with the girls' bathrooms. She showed us subway tile, and while I lobbied for a color like seaglass or spa blue, Chris convinced me to select white. We chose a square (but not oversized!) marble floor tile that is gorgeous, which Yesim suggested laying in on an angle. She asked if we wanted our subway stacked, offset or solidiered. Since we're going classic, we chose offset. Lastly, we chose a small square one-inch tile for the shower floor called Summer Rain, and it's a gorgeous blue-gray color. The color of our grout is Moonlight. So you put it all together and it looks a little something like this:

We did this in about 30 minutes. I was shocked. Well done Yesim, but we still have the laundry room and the master bath to go.

That, my friends, is where things started to get trickier. And someone got out his calculator in order to be a killjoy keep us at least somewhat in sight of our budget. That's tile, part two. I'll give you a hint: no penny round; only one dark color, and not where we expected it; and four different kinds of tile in our master bath. It looks good on paper, so here's hoping.