foyer update: new floor

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Whenever I get a chance to sneak away for the weekend, I know that part of the price I’ll pay upon returning is a messy house. My husband is amazing in so many ways, but when it comes to cleaning up, I’m a team of one around here. So imagine my surprise when I returned home from a girls weekend in Virginia to find this…
Mexican Tile Floor Demo
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.
Twine Set Up
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.
Foyer Tile w/ Chalk
Then came the messy part: cutting, mortaring, cursing. Not pretty. I took pictures and that’s about it.
Mortar Mess
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!
Finished 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.

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