tile

We're moving along. The contractor will finish blown-in insulation today. The walls will be buttoned up next week. All the rough electrical and plumbing is finished. The heating system is running. In about 2 weeks Mike will tile the mudroom and half bath and the 2nd floor bath after that. We had to pick out tile this week - much harder than I thought - too many choices. Here are my pics so far. (will order them later today (Sat.))

Mudroom: Italian Edilcuoghi porcelain tile canyon musk. This pic shows it more brown than it is. It has a lot of tecture but not too rough on bare feet. It's suppose to be unbelivable hard and can take abuse. I really like it.
In the tile store and in the samples it has more grey. It is very slate looking. There is some undertones of green that was picked up with our granite. (The granite is typhoon bordeaux but not from my slab. The wood sample is from our nature oak floors which will be next to the tile. OK, not a great match with the wood but we like the tile). We're also thinking of having the tiles layed out in this pattern in the 6' x 12' mudroom. Second floor bathroom: Since the washer and dryer are located here next to 2 bedrooms I did not want hard tile on the floor. I picked out Armstrong vinyl groutable tile - Alterna in mesa stone light gray. It has texture and won't be slippery. I love it. It will also absorb the sound better instead of bouncing it.

We settled on home depot 8x10 white tile in a subway pattern with Briare Galapagos 1x1 blue-green tiles for the back wall and floor. (white tiles on the walls to the right and left and the ceiling in the shower) We were thinking of the HD glass tiles but like the ones above better and it was only $3 per square foot more. The below picture is with the HD glass tiles.

Here's a picture of the Galapagos tile but it doesn't do it justice.



The tile looks much better with a few of them - more depth and variation. It provides a great punch of color and surprise in this serene bathroom. Here's a view from the shower and also with the Armstrong flooring.



First floor half bath: It will have this vessel sink in it. It was hard to pick out a tile with this color sink. The medicine cabinet is natural maple and we think we will have a black granite top. Undecided on the sink cabinet but like this tile. It had much more variety in the store. The tile is by Gazzini - Montecito Echo in 4x4. We're going to run them a normal square pattern. It has some textures so it should not be too slippery plus all the grout lines with the 4x4 tiles. (we're not having the gold accents - just the normal tile)

I've never had tile let alone picked it out. It was harder than I thought - too many choices and I didn't have strong feelings. What do you think of our choices? Patterns? Any suggestions?

Here was a strong contender. I loved the middle one for the mudroom and the bottom for the half bath. The only thing I worried about is that the brochure showed too much orange in the middle sample - but that was not the issue in the store.


Here's another one I loved for the half bath but they didn't have it in the 6x6, 4x4 or 12 x 12 size in stock (only 18" x 18" or 2" x 2" for a 4' x 5' bath which I don't think would work). The store would have to order it from Italy (they're an importer of it) and it would take months. I keep telling myself that I think it was a bit too modern for the house. [the tile was reasonable but 5 of those little accents cost $40!]