We're Sick and Twisted

After the madness and frustration the basketweave caused in the hall bath Chris and I were sure (well, pretty sure) we'd never use it again. So when I started hunting around for tile for the back bathroom floor I asked Chris what kind he was interested in. We both agreed we wanted something classic. We decided penny rounds over hex because you just see hex all over the place so we wanted something a little different.

With that in mind I began the search. Pretty quickly I discovered 2 shades of penny round that I liked and ordered samples.

A milky white

And a fun light blue

But then a sample pic of a basketweave pattern caught my eye. Of course. I showed the pic to Chris and he wasn't super excited about it, but I was in love with the beautiful shades of green in it and so I ordered up the sample as well.

A week later the samples came in and while we were making dinner I took them out of the box to check them out. I was hoping the light blue penny rounds would win me over, but both Chris and I let out a collective "oohhhh" when I pulled out the basketweave


We were in love. Sure it was baseketweave again, but it's so preeeeetttttyyyyyy. We both loved the green dots, the shimmer it had to it, and the hints of gold. So we tried to reason with ourselves: this basketweave's small dots are bigger than the first...We don't have as much square footage to cover...We don't have a curved tub to go around...

We convinced ourselves. Sure we wanted to throw the boxes of basketweave out the window when we were laying it in the main bath, but it looks great now. So basketweave it is!

Then Chris pulled out a fucking wild card. He said he wanted subway tile in the back bath as well! What?! After not too much convincing (like I said, we're sick and twisted), I agreed that subway tile would be best. We want the bathrooms to work with each other and sort of have a similar aesthetic and we both love the look of the subway tile in the main bath, so we were set ourselves up for the exhausting task of laying more subway tile.

Chris also decided his first choice would be white subway tile which I am not a fan of. I think it looks institutional and boring. So off I went, armed with the knowledge that laying another 100 or so sq. ft. of subway tile was going to suck but we would love it. I wasn't thrilled about the white, but Chris pretty much lets me win on everything when it comes to decor so I knew it was fair.

And then I found it, white, beveled edge subway tile. I was in love. Again. Chris got the white subway tile he wanted, I got something a little different and dimensional to make it less boring, and it's $2.38 sq. ft. SCORE!

And here it is in some rooms so you can get an idea of what it looks like installed

(Anchor Bay Tile)

(Nicolosi Contracting)

Chris was a little unsure what it would look like installed in a room, so I found some good pics in some This Old House magazines we had and he agreed it looked pretty damn good. Sold!

I've still got some detail tile to figure out (how much and what kind, although I'm nearing the finish line on those decisions), but there you have it: how we're sick and twisted and delusional - installing the same kind of tile that made us want to rip our hair out.

But it just looks so magical


Oh, and did I mention we're tiling the subway 5 ft. up on the walls? Just to make us extra sick and twisted :)