We’re done with the floor, now onto tiling the walls! We have a lot of tile in here and it’s making a big splash. Follow along for the final weeks of this bathroom build.
Laying Tile
If you missed the floor tile, we covered that in our last post.
Grab your ear protection because we’ll be using the tile saw.
I decided on this wall tile called Mint Tea 6×6 T Square from Kate-lo Tile & Stone. I love all these colors, but I knew I wanted green from the start! I was originally thinking about a vertical stacked subway tile, but when I saw the squares I was sold. Kate-lo was also fantastic to work with.
I got to cut tile with the wet saw, so that was exciting.
Laying the first course is the hardest part. It’s key to get it level so the rest of the wall is level and everything lines up.
We mortared the first course and put spacers between as we went. We let this dry overnight before tiling anymore.
We leveled it many times to make sure it was perfect. The first row is the only time you’ll have to level, because everything else that follows will be perfectly spaced.
Put spacers top, bottom and both sides. Looks like we lost a few. 😮
We didn’t have to make too many cuts, but it was a full weekend of tiling nevertheless!
It was a lot of area to cover! And with our wainscoting change, we ended up needed two more boxes of tile.
Accent Niche
Remember my idea for an accent niche?
Well I’m so excited with how it turned out!
Joe and I put together a little art project mosaic from some samples I had.
I absolutely fell in love with this mural tile, but didn’t want it competing with my wallpaper so wanted to do it somewhere small.
So this was the perfect little spot! Plus I got to use up samples. Win!
Initially, I wanted to do the whole back wall as a horizontal niche/ledge. However, it’s an exterior wall so we couldn’t cut into the 2×4’s because it’s such an important supporting wall. Plus you generally don’t want to take too much insulation out of exterior walls. So Joe put the kabosh on that.
This is all I will show you for now 😉
Wainscoting Height
One thing we didn’t take into account was where the outlets landed.
Rather unfortunate place to end the tile wainscoting…
We brought the vanity in to do a dry run of how it would look. Ideally, I think this tile height is perfect! It’s about 42″ here and clears the sink faucet.
But that leaves us with this awkwardness. We wracked our brains, and the best solution is to tile up another almost full row. We’ll add outlet extenders so the outlet plates will be flush over the tile instead of over the wall. Can’t be half on, half off. And Joe was not going to rip open the wall to move the electrical up.
Up another row we go
Grouting Wall Tile
After a weekend of tiling, we could move on to grout.
Whew, stretch break
We used the same grout color for the wall as for the floor.
It’s an off-white color (Pearl) that matches the floor and wallpaper really well.
This also took a full weekend getting into all these crannies
Same process as the floor
This is definitely my favorite part! Sealing the tile is my least favorite. I did 3 coats to the walls and floor.
Ta dah! I don’t think that cove for the tub looks bad. If you’re wondering why we didn’t use the thinner backer board all the way up, it’s because it’s not as stable and these tiles are quite heavy. After this was done, we ran a bead of matching caulk around the bottom and in the corners.
I’m loving how this looks! It’s got a 3D effect. It’s got a hand-glazed look and a lot of variation so it looks a bit rugged, but also glossy and pretty. I like that it’s more green in some spots and blue in others. I tried to keep it “random” looking.
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