Tile, Part Two

First, here's a photo of the finished (grouted) living room tile. I love it so much! The living room feels like a normal room in a normal house now instead of like the corner of someone's garage with a few pieces of furniture thrown in (we've been living with bare cement floor since moving in last August - that nasty carpet had to go ASAP!) Now if only we could get those old windows replaced (the ones you can see on the left edge of the photo below)... it's always something, isn't it?


And finally, after hours and hours of hours of grueling work (mostly Matt's), this beautiful hearth has become a reality! We still need to get the stove pipe routed up through the ceiling but you can get the general idea -


That icky wall heater on the left will go away eventually; we haven't decided yet if we should keep it until we get a forced air system installed (which could be a few years down the road still) 0r rip it out to make the room prettier and live with wood heat only for the time being. I'm leaning towards ripping it out (it's just SO darn ugly!) but we'll see.

Progress

We have been working hard on so many projects here at the house these past few months (Matt more so than me), but nothing glamorous - french drains, tree removal, and the like - hence the lack of posts. Finally some exciting projects are coming together though, and while not 100% complete, I thought it would still be fun to share.

Matt has been toiling away with tile in the living room. We had originally planned to do wood floors in most of the living area of the house, but after researching sustainable wood options, we realized that we could save a lot of money by going with tile instead - partly because the per-square-foot cost was a lot less, but also because we can do the installation ourselves, which obviously saves a lot. Plus, tile should be a little more durable and scratch-resistant, which is important when you live with big dogs and active kids. And finally, we have been finding ourselves drawn more and more towards some Spanish influences in our decor, so the terra cotta tile fit right in.



Those little slivers of colorful Mexican tile you can see in the photos above are part of an amazing (if I do say so myself) wood stove hearth we've been working on (again, Matt more than me), but that deserves it's own post - soon.

I could write a book about our quest to find the perfect field tile for this project (it's not just for the living room and hearth; eventually it will also be installed in the kitchen, dining room, entryway, and hall), but the pared-down version of the story is this - it is damned hard to find a tile that looks like a saltillo (natural/terra cotta look), but has the durability of porcelain, isn't made in China by child slaves, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. We spent months researching tile and scouring local stores and the internet for something that would meet our requirements, and finally, after much angst and frustration, found these tiles. They are called Super Saltillos and are made by Marazzi Tile. They are made in Texas and only cost around $2/square foot (plus shipping). Whew.

In case you need a reminder of what this room looked like less than a year ago, behold the hideousness -

UUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHH.
(Much improved already, no?)

There's still a lot more in store for the living room - new windows, trim/baseboard, skylights, and improved lighting - but for now we're going to take a break from spending money on the house and direct all available resources to Matt's new shop, which is finally underway!

Finally a Finished Bathroom!

Okay, so we still need to do some touch-up painting and baseboard, but it's so close to done, I thought I'd share now. First, brace yourself for the 'before' picture. I'm warning you, it's not easy to look at...

((( shudder )))

But after months of hard work, and plenty of frustration along the way, we finally have a bathroom we love.

Eco-groovy cabinets (FSC certified birch with non-offgassing, non-urea-formaldehyde finishes) with Paperstone countertop (made from recycled paper!), Marmoleum flooring, super-efficient toilet, no-VOC paints... a green homeowner's paradise! :-)

The mirror frame is decorated with rocks that Matt, Carlos, and I collected from Agate Beach. I think it's my favorite part of the whole room.

Storage baskets made from recycled paper.

Shower surround also constructed from Paperstone.

Another shot of the mirror.

I'm kind of in awe of how much storage we were able to cram into this tiny space - tons of cabinets in the bathroom itself, plus we were even able to use an under-utilized corner of the bathroom to add a linen closet in the hallway just outside the bathroom door (though I forgot to photograph that).

Our Bedroom

The perfectionist in me wants to wait to post these until we get our furniture and other pretty things moved in, but the pragmatist in me says 'get over it!' :-) so without further ado, here's the first completed room in our new house!




It's hard to get a decent photo of the whole room since it's very tiny. But everything is new - texture, paint, flooring, trim, and window! And I love the way the colors all turned out - three walls are a nice neutral beige, there's one orangey accent wall, and that gorgeous deep red on the floor.

For the walls, we used eco-friendly no-VOC paint from Yolo Colorhouse. I love this company because they don't have hundreds and hundreds of colors - instead, the designer and artist owners hand-select a few dozen awesome colors that they are sure will look good in your house, and they provide lots of guidance and suggestions about what colors will complement other colors. It definitely made me feel more confident in my color choices.

We are not fans of wall-to-wall carpet - it's just not practical with pets and kids - so for the flooring, we went with Marmoleum, a brand of linoleum that is made from renewable, all natural ingredients - no funky plastics or off-gassy glues - yay!

This room will be ours until after the final phase of our remodel is complete, which could be a few years down the road, depending on finances. Eventually we'll have a bigger room and this one will either be a guest bedroom or a second child's bedroom.

Oh yeah, Otis wants to make sure you know he helped with the painting in this room!

Busy, Busy!

Matt and I have been working hard out at the new house and we're making a lot of progress, but I like to post my projects once they are totally finished and everything seems to be in an in-between state right now (hence the scarcity of posts lately). But rest assured, exciting things are coming soon - the yard is almost chicken-worthy, and by mid- to late-July, our bathroom and one bedroom should be done, and I'll post photos then, I promise.

In the meantime, here's a peek at a design board I've been working on for our bedroom.


The beige and orangey colors in the background are the wall colors and the burgundy-red at the bottom is the floor. We want to use a very colorful bedspread that we got in Guatemala in April, but it doesn't totally go with the wall and floor colors perfectly well, so I was playing around with a quilt and some pillows to try to tie it all together. It's colorful, I know, and that's something that's kind of been hard for me to roll with in the past, but after this recent amazing trip we took to Guatemala, I decided that one of my goals with our new house was going to be to embrace color the way the Guatemalan people do. Everything there was so beautiful! And I want to be reminded of the amazing places and people there when I look around my new home.