Tiling the kids' bathroom

With our fast approaching December 6th move-in date, everyone is under a lot of stress these days.  

Dry-walling took way longer than any of us anticipated and led to a bit of a blow up this past week-end.
Not pretty.  

Today, it was finally finished.  And although they took weeks longer than they originally figured, they did do a beautiful job.  I truly hope we can put it all behind us now and carry on with the rest of the project.  

We have to get the hardwood floors installed and the wood can't come into the house with all the moisture from the dry-wall mud in the air.  Eight days from now we can bring it in and five days after that we can begin installation.  The dry-wall delays have seriously held everything up.

We have started tiling the kids' bathroom on the second floor, though.

Finishing costs can seriously skyrocket if you're not careful, and tiles are one item that can cost a small fortune.  Since we have 5 bathrooms plus the entry,  I have been doing my best to find decent discount tiles.  

For this bathroom, for instance, we needed 180 square feet of wall tile.  We bought this tile at $2.75 a sq.ft. (a total of $495).  The tile I initially fell in love with was $16.95 a sq.ft.  That would have been $3,051!! Just for the tiles!  Big difference!

I honestly believe that you can do wonderful things in design without breaking the bank, and that's what I'm trying to accomplish here.

Unfortunately though, this tile didn't work out as wonderfully as I had hoped.  It wasn't just discounted tile, it turned out to be cheaply made tile.  

  

Our tiler had a heck of a time trying to line up the grout lines because one sheet wouldn't match up to the next and some tiles were just plain wonky-- notice that tile second from the top and second from the left?  Wide on one end and narrow on the other.  

Fortunately, we'll be using white grout so I don't think it's going to be a huge deal in the end.

But I won't be buying from that place again!

I did, on the other hand, score a couple of great deals from Stone Tile's clearance section in the back.  I have always loved their tiles but have been a bit scared off by the fact that they don't show any prices on anything (except in the clearance section it turns out).  And how many tile shops do you know of that offer you a cappuccino as you shop?

These gorgeous blue porcelain tiles were only $1.10 a sq.ft.!  I'm going to use these in the third floor half bathroom.

And these Italian porcelain tiles were only $2.24 a sq. ft.  They're going on the floor of the kids' second floor bathroom (the one with the cheap white wall tile).

I guess I'm getting a bit better at this.  I'm so glad we started with the kids' bathroom and not our en-suite.

I'll have to work out a plan for that room next --yikes!