Tile, Countertops, and Interior Materials
Tile selections are never as easy as you think. For me the indecision was real... and knowing that I had to pick something that I would love for a long time AND is readily available was a challenge. Here's a preview of some of the things I selected.
Kitchen:
I know that the palate here pretty neutral, but since we have not selected our furniture or overall interior design scheme for the great room I didn't want to lock into anything too crazy that would be hard to match later. Ultimately I decided to keep the build-in elements neutral and then my furniture and artwork can provide the pops of color we need to keep this from looking bland. If I need more color later, I can always repaint the island cabinets... I'm thinking some shade of emerald green would look fabulous, but didn't want to go that bold off the bat.
The backsplash tile is a white glass tile that is 4"x12", and we are using the 2-tone arabesque mosaic tile above the cooktop for a fun accent.
Fireplace Surround:
For the Fireplace surround I wanted to play off the arabesque cooktop mosaic glass tile, but at the fireplace, this tile is actually marble. The hearth below the fireplace will also be marble that matches this tile, but in 24" square tiles for minimal grout. I wanted natural stone here so I can have my tile setter chamfer the edges so there will not be an abrupt change in elevation from the thickness of the floor to the thickness of the hearth.
Bathroom 1:
In this bathroom I loved the idea of dark blue cabinets, so I used that as my base idea. Then selected matte black plumbing fixtures and accessories. I fell in love with this grey floor tile that has blue veins to go with the cabinet color. Then I found a counter that looked like marble, but had darker veins to go with the dark cabinets and fixtures. The shower wall tile sample above really doesn't do that tile justice - the real tile will be 24" square tiles and it looks like marble. But instead of actually being marble (which is never a good idea for a shower) it's porcelain tile. Then when I saw the mosaic tile that brings all my colors together (not to mention plays well with my hexagonal tile floor) I knew it was meant to be! This tile is actually stained glass, so that's pretty cool!
Bathroom 2:
Funny enough this bathroom was the hardest room to select things for. It didn't help that someone kept vetoing my initial selections... omitting names to protect the guilty... But I actually love what we ended up with much better than anything that I was looking at initially so I'm happy that this painful process resulted in something we both like! In this bathroom the shower wall tile is mostly the white textured porcelain tile, with one vertical strip of the blue glass accent tile that goes through the niche.
The countertops are all quartz. Shout out to Kelsy Bergeson of Daltile for helping me select everything! From the 1/2 slabs of quartz for the bathrooms so I didn't have to pay for huge slabs I didn't need, to the multiple rounds of tile for bath 2, numerous samples shipped to my rental, and for overall getting me just about all my tile and counter materials for about 50% off!! Gotta use that Architect's Discount where I can right!!?!! Thanks Kelsy for all your help!
Speaking of discounts... I gotta give another shout out to Nicole Holloway of Mohawk flooring for getting me such an insanely good deal on our LVT flooring I probably need to name my first born child Nicole... Not to mention the multiple rounds of samples that she shipped to me, and the fact that she got me the commercial grade flooring that comes with a pad already applied to the back. Thank you is not enough to express my sincere gratitude!!
For those of you that didn't know this already, LVT is Luxury Vinyl Tile. A product that looks like real wood, but provides many more practical benefits such as; being waterproof, zero maintenance, easy to install, and practically indestructible! This flooring clicks together with joints at all 4 sides so there will never be any lifting of individual pieces or even any need for glue below the tiles. All that and it's only 1/4" thick!
Did I mention it was really hard to decide on all of these tiles... That Daltile showroom has so many beautiful options I don't know how anyone can decide! Check these out:
and
and
and
and
and still more
See anything you like for your house???
Honestly these are just a few of the walls and walls and racks and shelves and drawers... of tile samples they have at Daltile. I didn't even get any pictures of their massive counter slab warehouse in back! Everything was beautiful so it was so hard to pick. The comment from Brett that I got was, "I'm just here to make sure you don't pick anything pink, or gold, or hard to clean." HA, as if he cleans tile! Now I can't wait to see this stuff installed in my house!!!












