Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Tile Scheme

So I picked out the tile for the bathroom. It was Fabrique - blanc linen by Daltile. They are large tiles 12 X 24 and I found three local places that could order them for me. The best price of the three charged $5.60 a square foot with an $80 shipping charge. That came to about $375. I found the tile online for $3.99/sq ft, but the website charged a $199 freight charge to deliver it. Which came to about $390.52. Let me just say, neither of these numbers were in the budget.

So I came up with a scheme to score some tile. On the Daltile website, you can order a full-size sample of whatever tile you want for $7.95. Same price for any tile they have. Since my tiles are essentially 2 square feet each, I only need 20. Budget in 20% breakage, and I really needed 24. 24 tiles at 7.95 each comes to $190.80. This number rocked. So I started ordering sample tiles. They only let you order one at a time, so I had to order 3 or 4 a day several hours a part to keep them from catching on. At one point they called me to make sure I wanted to order 4 of the same sample, but I just said yes. And they said cool. Today I received the last of my tiles; each came in it's own giant box, which I have piled up in my garage. All in all, the plan went awesome. I saved $200 on tile and didn't even have to leave the house to do it. :)

Here's a swatch of my beautiful new tile:

Bathroom update.

Wow. There's so much to tell, I'm not sure where to start. Last weekend we tore out the last speck of pink from the bathroom! YAY! No more pink tub, no more pink tile, no more pink sinks or walls or countertops! :) Now it's just concrete. No much prettier, but not pink. In addition to the demolition, we've installed the new bathtub and built a wall to divide the new bedroom from the kitchen. I'm so excited to be past the demo stage and on to the creative stage. Almost everything for the new bathroom has been purchased and we should come in under our budget of $4,500. We spent our Sunday afternoon this week rebuilding the copper piping for the tub and shower. Chris is on board for anything that involves a blowtorch, and this involved a lot of it. The next step is to level the bathroom floor with leveling cement, install the shower backing, install the vanity, drywall, and then lay some tile. We're out of town this weekend for a wedding, so progress will have to pick up next week. I've posted some pics for everyone and I seriously hope you enjoy them!

P.S. if anyone wants to burn some cals or learn some mad skills feel free to drop by anytime! :) Thanks for reading!