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Posts Tagged ‘tiles’

Do One Thing: Junk conversion

Posted in Do One Thing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 15, 2011| 1 Comment »

The “Do One Thing” series chronicles my yearlong effort to tackle one project every day to organize my life and home.

Day 45: Rescued a florist’s vase from the garage. Normally, this sort of thing would end up in the thrift store box, but I like its minimalism. I cleaned it up and filled it with colored glass pebbles that I bought for a tiling project. (We were going to intersperse the pebbles in a pattern among the tiles, but it turns out that both my husband and I HATE tiling and there was no way we were going to work any more complications into the project than we had to.)

Anyway, I’m sort of not digging the whole colored pebbles in a vase thing, so it may end up at the thrift store anyway, but at least the garage is a little neater.

Previously:

Day 44: Dropped two magazines from our subscription list. Both are guilty of misguided attempts to blend their print and online operations, attempting to increase subscription prices while publishing all stories on the Internet for free. This is not a survivable online strategy. Besides, my husband cashed in a bunch of airline miles a couple of weeks ago for still more magazine subscriptions, so we’re still in the dead tree business.

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The Tiles that Bind

Posted in Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2009| 5 Comments »

I’ve toured a couple dozen brand new bathrooms over the past couple of weeks. The Huntsville/Madison County Builders Association’s Parade of Homes gives renovating rubberneckers carte blanche to take a look at the latest and greatest in home design and decor, without that awkward “We’re not really looking to buy a house” moment that invariably occurs during the average Sunday open house.

I currently have a deconstructed master bathroom awaiting further action, so I need inspiration. If only beige inspired me, I’d be in business.

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The color: Every Bathroom in Town Beige. Nice tiles, and excellent installation, but so incredibly beige.

There seems to be an “offend no one” movement in the home decor business, with beige being the No. 1 non-offending element. I’ve never purchased a brand new house, so I’ve never had the opportunity to turn up my nose at walls that are just the wrong hue of olive, or kitchen cabinets that are too shiny. With any house over, say, 10 years old, you’re pretty sure you’re going to be redecorating anyway.

Which brings me to the tile dilemma.

I like color. Lots and lots of color. Tile is reasonably permanent – it’s not like paint, which can and should be changed on a whim. So I stand the chance of picking out something that will offend the delicate sensibilities of some beige-loving potential buyer down the road.

But in the end, how much of my decor should be dictated by some imaginary future buyer, especially when I have no idea how long I’ll be living in this house? Do I have to live with beige because it’ll make it easy to sell the house in three years? Five? Ten?

I’m looking at glass tiles now. They shimmer in the light, and the color spectrum is endless. I found two bathrooms on the tour that featured some fantastic examples of glass tile use.

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Still working the beige tiles, but a glass-tile design in the middle really gives it some flair.

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These blue circular tiles are more vibrant than they appear in this photograph.

There are plumbing and window-installation problems to be solved before I have to worry about the final tile decision, so I have plenty of time to stew over it. It’s going to be one heck of a shower when it’s all done, whatever the final color scheme turns out to be.

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As Pictured Below: Our House

Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 12, 2009| 1 Comment »

plumbingIt’s just not proper homeownership without holes in the floor and exposed plumbing.

Like zombies, renovation projects take on a life of their own.

Window leak + crappy bathtub = tear out the tub to fix leak. We were going to replace it anyway.

Ah, but the floor tiles should go down first to line up properly with the base of the new supershower. And if we’re picking out tile for the floor AND the shower, shouldn’t we be thinking about what the new countertop is going to be made of? And if we’re getting new countertops, we’ll have to have the cabinets refinished.

What? We’re not sure we have cabinet refinishing in the budget anymore?

HGTV, you magnificent bastard. We’re going to have a proper chat one day.

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