Guys, even as I type this, I feel like a fraud. The reason is that we have big news (Not bun-in-the-oven big, but certainly bathroom-reno big!) and I don't think I can wait to share it: We bought tile for the bathroom! Woot woot! Does that deserve a woot woot? Maybe just a woot? You know what? I don't care how woot-worthy this news is because it brings us one step closer to a completed upstairs bathroom and an end to family room showers! SERIOUSLY!!
For those of you who haven't been following along, we are tackling our home renovation one room at a time, which leaves our family room a hideous salmon-coloured dumping ground for spillover from other rooms. It also happens to house the most convenient functioning shower while we complete the upstairs bathroom reno. Don't judge us too harshly!
Back to the reason I feel like a fraud for writing this post... We totally have our tiles (We even came in beautifully under budget... even with our heated floor!) and I want to tell you which ones we chose, but we had so much fun shopping that I think I'll share our other shopping trips and let you guess what we ended up with. In case you missed it, you can catch our last tile shopping post here. Below are a couple of the inspiration photos we ended up with last time.
You guys know how much I loved the idea of a throwback to the age of the new/old house, so I was drawn to the penny tile right away. I'll tell you the one thing that was giving me reservations. Grout! Yep, grout! It sounds like a dirty word, doesn't it? Well, it sort of was from a design perspective because I was afraid white grout would look dirty really quickly, but I also worried that dark grout between the small tiles would make the floor pattern look too busy for our small space. I wasn't ready to give up... but I definitely needed to give it a little more thought.
I adore geometric patters and these hexagonal mix-and-match tiles were fabulous in person!
Clean subway tile is so hot right now but it also has the retro vibe I want for our small bathroom. I think it would look awesome surrounding the vintage clawfoot tub I scored from Craigslist (from a couple in Trinity Bellwoods who are renovating a house that was built in the same year as our house)- It was pure Craigslist fate!
I am obsessed with this black mosaic tile! It's over $25 per square foot... which is crazy for our budget but I just think it looks so luxurious! Still... I'm much more comfortable paying closer to $3-$6 per square foot for tile!
On to tile shopping day two. We began at a large tile store with a showroom that nearly overwhelmed us both!
The sheer size of the room and number of different styles was a little overwhelming... until we discovered that most of it wasn't quite our style. This made it much easier to narrow our choices.
I liked the idea of some of the textured tiles (since we're considering all white walls) but I was a little concerned that they would look dated.
Again, we were both drawn to simple subway tiles.
And while colourful tile from floor to ceiling would look cool, I'm worried that we were beginning to venture into public-pool territory with this look.
I did like the idea of toying with the proportions of the tile. I wondered if these skinny tiles might make our bathroom look a little larger.
We also looked at these marbled subway tiles, although I thought they'd look a little busy.
We kept finding ourselves back at the subway tiles as we debated between white, grey or black.
Corey loved the look of these bevelled subway tiles! I liked them in theory but I worried that they may look a little heavy in a small-ish space.
I preferred cleaner lines.
And I loved the black-on-black accents here.
There were tons of accent tiles.
But I don't think any came close to the black mosaic we had seen before.
We tried a smaller tile warehouse before calling it a day.
Nothing really caught my eye, except some of the pretty glass tiles.
The glass tiles swept me away in fantasies of monochromatic tiled bathrooms from the pages of Pinterest.... and I'm afraid I grabbed the following images from Pinterest (to illustrate my point) and could not find the original sources. Enjoy them anyway and if you recognize one, please let me know!
And why are all my fantasy tiled bathrooms blue? Who knows, but I'm pretty sure the idea comes from the same part of my brain that thinks all dogs are boys and all cats are girls.
Anyway, we brought a few sample subway tiles home to see how they would look on the walls in different patterns.
We actually hadn't planned on a third trip, but we passed a store with beautiful tile displays in the window while driving to a restaurant and we made a point of returning the next day. More on that later...
