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.

Room For More Cookbooks

My cookbooks are on my new bookshelf and I can't believe it but I actually have room for more.

Before, I didn't have adequate storage to keep my collection all in one place. It's so nice to have them together, organized and at hand. Yeah! Things are coming together.

My baking and chocolate cookbooks are the ones I use the most so I put them on the lower shelves so they're easy to reach.

Cool White

The kitchen wall paint has been purchased and "Cool White" it is - there just was no denying that with its blue undertones it was the one that best compliments my mosaic wall tiles.


I am anxious to finish the painting this weekend. I even think a trip to Ikea for the cabinets is in the very near future.

Which White?

Since purchasing my blue mosaic wall tiles, I've known that I want the walls of my new kitchen to be white so that the bold color of the tiles stands front and center.

Now the only question is which white? There are so many whites to choose from and what's even more confusing is how they change in different light.

While pondering my white paint chart inside I decided to take it outside into natural light. Whoa! Suddenly all the colors changed. Inside I preferred "soft white" but outside it looked too peachy and I leaned more toward the slight grey-toned "light fog."
  
I've got a few more hours to think before I need to head to the paint store and make a final choice.