Vintage Life: Time to Tile!

In the continuing story of our 1920s vintage bungalow renovation project, now that the walls were up and painted, we needed floors! Greg and I have completed several tiling projects together so we knew we could tackle this project too. Besides, Greg really likes to use his fancy tile saw. We started with the largest area first – the kitchen, sun room and utility room – which would all have a pretty Mexican tile that complements the warm Creamsicle color on the walls.

This is the kitchen and sun room before the tiles are down. First we lay out all of the tiles and I mark where the cuts need to be made, while Greg cuts the tiles.

Greg then puts down the mastic in sections....

...and spreads it evenly. Yep, we've got to be extra careful to keep all our cats and dogs out of the room at this point!

Finally, I lay the re-lay tiles on the mastic, press down firmly and get them aligned with spacers. It isn’t difficult work but it does take time to get it right. We spend so much of our time in front of the computer on a daily basis that it is actually fun to work on a project with your hands that requires your total concentration. It took three full days to put down all the tiles in the kitchen, sunroom, and utility room, which we did over a long holiday weekend. The next step is to fill all the spaces between the tiles with grout, which makes a great big mess. I actually think cleaning up the grout at the end is the worst part of tiling!

But it's all worth it in the end. Above is the finished sunroom floor. And below is the "before" photo of the utility room…

And now here's the "after"…

Quite a difference, huh? After the tile was finished in the kitchen, sunroom and utility room, we hung two vintage chandeliers...

One has a brass finish and the other is a Flemish chandelier with a copper finish – to give an interesting mixed metals effect. I recently wrote a blog post about the trend for mixed metals in home decor so it seem we are all the rage! Next up is tiling in the master bathroom, guest baths and the front porch. I'll tell you about that next month. If you love vintage penny tiles then stay tuned...