Hi everyone! We are 3 weeks into the Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge and our new bathroom is well underway. As a reminder this was where we left off last week:
Since then we’ve put up cement board on the walls where the new tile will be going. Now before we could get to installing the gorgeous Potpourri Medley Hexagon tile we had to prep the cement slab for it. Which meant removing the remaining thinset from the old tile. If you remember we looked into getting the tool which would have made this task a whole lot easier, but we opted not to purchase it solely for this project.
As a result this is what removal looked like:
We are not afraid of hard work but this was no joke! This ended up setting us back an entire day. Because at the end of it, my wrists were on fire.
We were able to chisel and scrape all of the chunks off the cement leaving a smooth and level surface for the new tile. We made sure to vacuum up all the dust and debris, several times just to make sure!
Now the moment I had been waiting 3 weeks for. This tile brings me SO. MUCH. JOY.
The various black, white, and gray patterns all in hexagons were meant just for me I tell you.
This particular Jeffrey Court tile is ceramic and has a matte finish to it which is going to compliment the glossy white tiles it’ll be living with. This is mainly a guest bathroom and has little traffic. It’s going to look and feel like a luxurious boutique hotel bathroom.
Before we mixed the thinset we spent plenty of time planning the lay out of the tiles. I didn’t want any surprise sliver pieces on the ends or an unbalanced look. Planning a layout is one of the most important parts when tiling!
Once the lay out was finalized, we cut and dry fitted the tiles complete with the 1/8” spacers so that the fit would be exact.
A quick note about cutting tools. We own a wet tile saw, which we love, and wanted to give a tile scorer a shot as well to see how it compares. A tile cutter can be relatively inexpensive so we made the purchase. Either one of these tools is great to have, rent, or borrow for tiling projects.
Back to my beautiful tile babies.
We opened all of the boxes and sorted the tile according to pattern so that we could not only mix the different batches in with one another but to be able to easily grab the next pattern while working.
The thinset was mixed and ready to go, no time to waste now!
We took turns spreading the thinset and laying the tile so that we could monitor the patterns going down. I was afraid one of us would miss a mistake in the not so random pattern so both sets of eyes and hands were very necessary. Towards the end of the evening my eyes were a little cross eyed!
The home stretch!
With the last tile in, we put up the baby gate at the door in order to keep the dogs and kid out, and gave the room 24 hours to set. We have grout planned for next week (once I decide on the color) and that’s going to be icing on this beauty.
Just look at it, this room is going to be everything!
