As i finally get close to having the “construction” work completed on the house i realized that there are TONS of other things i had always hoped to post about someday, thus the Side Notes. I am going to make a *real* effort to get one of these out a week to help pass along all of these great facts and businesses that i have found along the home improvement journey. Let’s start with Tile!
When designing the entire house the goal was to re-instill the home’s original feel from 1921 when it was first built. I researched 1920’s kitchen and bathrooms for weeks, there are so many beautiful designs out there from original catalogs to renovated and restored originals. One item i quickly feel in love with was the 1” un-glazed hexagon tiles that were used on the bathroom floors, especially when paired in a daisy shape (see link for example of style). Of course this all started out with thinking i needed a black and while bathroom; which would have been very period, but also very bright with contrast. Surprisingly these tiles are not common. I searched online, visited tile shops, and spoke with Tile installers all with minimal (white only and ridiculously expensive) luck until i found an awesome tile installation company – Bay Works Tile. Even before we signed a contact he passed along a couple of tile companies that sold what he thought i was looking for and i found them!!!
While pouring through the website for DalTile i stumbled across their Color body Porcelain line of Keystone Shapes containing a small hexagon shape and completely un-glazed, beautiful! I decided to go with a soft navy blue, also pretty period in the same group as the sea foam green and rose pink, but something i’ll actually enjoy for awhile. I decided to keep the base a barely off white to help reduce the cleaning frequencies required of a while floor. Here are the tiles i went with my feets thrown in for a bit of scale.
- Floor (Border and Daisy Pattern Along Outer Edge):
- 1-5/16” Hexagons – Biscuit (D317)
- 1-5/16” Hexagons – Navy (D189)
- Shower Pan Ridge and Shower Walls (Bick “Offset”:
- 3/4” Edge Rounds – Biscuit (D317)
- 3” Squares – Biscuit (D317)
- Shower Floor (Daisy Pattern Along Outer Edge):
- 1-5/16” Hexagons – Biscuit (D317)
- 1-5/16” Hexagons – Navy (D189)
It’s fascinating how they prep the tiles for the installers using glues and paper tapes. All of the tiles came on some type of pre-spaced setup which drastically reduces the time to set all of these little tiny tiles. The hexagon and 3” square tiles tiles were “glued” (as shown below) along one direction of the spacing. The corner rounds that run along the edge of the shower pan are on super nifty paper strips. It’s amazing what technology is doing for all of the non-techie industries. Unfortunately they will have to set some of the tiles manually to achieve the daisy pattern, but nothing as crazy as the entire 10’ x 10’ floor.
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