Tile Lapse

I'm not done tiling yet, but I'm getting there.

So my wall tiling isn't finished yet but it's coming along and looking good no thanks to a big snafu on my part.

I began tiling late Saturday afternoon when I was already pretty tired and I worked until 10 p.m. when I had a good 1/5 of the wall covered. The work was a struggle because I wasn't feeling up to par but I kept telling myself to keep trudging on.

Sunday morning I got right back to work and screamed in frustration when I noticed a big mistake. Midway through the bottom row, I had placed a tile in the wrong direction. The one flipped tile wasn't hugely noticeable but I would have to repeat the mistake in every row to keep the other tiles matching.

The big mistake: If you look straight down from the right side of the outlet you'll see my misplaced tile.

It needed to be fixed and ugh...I was so mad at myself for working when I wasn't alert. The mistake was a sad setback and my poor family had to watch my meltdown.

Fortunately, my husband offered the words I needed to hear— "Just do what you need to do to fix it and we'll help."

I tediously removed ten square feet of tile from the wall and my daughter Eleanor pitched in to help clean them up.

My daughter Eleanor helped clean the removed tiles. When it's time to cut tiles to fit around my windows, I'll use these.

Looking back, I am so lucky I caught the mistake when I did. It could have been much worse.  I also know that I should only work when I'm alert and always take time to step back and periodically get an overview of my work.

Leaning over a counter, placing tiles in a mosaic pattern literally inches from your face, really skews your perception.