October 11, 2007

Tile

As we've gone through this process, we have not always been that far ahead of the work in terms of making decisions. This has caused a few problems, like light switches having to be moved because we ended up hanging doors a different way. But Omer and I take forever to get together on things, so often we don't make a decision until we are forced to. I think this works to our advantage a lot of the time though, since both of us (but mostly Omer) have a hard time visualizing what things will look like when finished. So, the further along things are, the less we have to imagine.

We decided a long time ago that the garden floor will have the same unstained Brazilian cherry as on the second and third floors, except in the kitchen and bathroom. The wood floor has been laid, so now we need to pick tile before anything else can happen.

You can see the space in the middle where the kitchen will be.

I went tile shopping with Ms. Architect. It was the first time in this whole process that I felt a little highfalutin, going to Nemo Tile with my architect. (But we finished it off with messy and cheap burritos for lunch, so that brought me back down to earth.) With the exception of a solo run to Drimmers to scout out appliances, this was my first non-Home-Depot related shopping trip for construction stuff. Everything else had been purchased by either looking at pictures online or by ordering samples. But even though that had worked out well in the past, Ms. Architect insisted that the only way to really get a feel for how something would look on the kitchen floor was to see it installed somewhere else, that looking at a four inch sample just wouldn't cut it. And she was so right.

Nemo Tile was fantastic. They had dozens of types of tile laid out on the floor in about three-by-three squares, so you can really get a sense of what they will look like.

Now, Omer and I have not had the easiest time agreeing on choices for things like tile and fixtures. Often, Ms. Architect has had to be part designer, part marriage counselor. But when we saw the black slate used in a kitchen on one of Mr. B.'s fabulous "Parlour Floor Kitchen" installments (I think it was the infamous Aga kitchen), we both loved it. So, I was really just going to see it in person and confirm that I loved it. And I did. The one we chose is actually not slate, I think it's porcelain, but I don't really care what it is made out of as long as it looks like what I want it to look like.

We'll be getting it in big 1 ft by 2 ft rectangles.

We were also scouting tile for the garden floor bathroom. These both grabbed my attention. Now I just have to get Omer to agree to one of them. Not usually an easy task, but I gave in to him on a few garden floor decisions, so he owes me.

Posted by Amy at 12:29 PM | Comments (3)