Yep, that’s my sweet little fella playing in the residue of our former foyer floor. Boys. Must. Get. Dirty. That dust he’s sitting in was blanketing the entire first floor of our house. It wasn’t quite the mess I was expecting. Welcome home! Lovely! But was I steamed? Heck no! I couldn’t have been happier to see it go.
Once the dust settled (apparently that takes longer than a day, because the dust was settling all week), we were ready to put in some new tile. My clever husband measured out the foyer space and then used twine and tape to replicate that space on the floor of our garage.
We chose a charcoal gray porcelain tile with an organic rust effect splashing through it. The idea was to pick up the charcoal gray in our kitchen countertops and work with the golden tones in our hardwood floors.
Using the garage floor template helped us to find the best layout and determine where we (er, I mean Steve) would be making the cuts on the tile saw. Once we got the pattern right, we borrowed the kids’ sidewalk chalk to number the tiles and show how they connected to each other.
Then came the messy part: cutting, mortaring, cursing. Not pretty. I took pictures and that’s about it.
The next day was Monday, and Steve had returned to the glory of his workplace so I was left to mix and apply the grout. It wasn’t so bad. Next time I’ll wear rubber gloves to protect my delicate ladylike hands, but I don’t have much wisdom to share beyond that. And after 24 hours of dry time during which the kids pretended the tiles were river stones and tip-toed over them to get to their bedrooms, we had a NEW FOYER FLOOR!
Not the best picture, but hey, we’re not finished yet. Certainly without that orange and gold floor tile, our foyer is making progress on the road to fabulous.
