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The weather has turned foggy and misty. The tile guys are cutting out on the porches as much as possible. They are working on the big main bedroom now and Adrian walks across the cardboard boxes that Dave has taped into place over our unsealed tile. It is not a great arrangement. Adrian is trying to be careful, but still we get drips and spots on our porous tile. We need to get it sealed ASAP.

It is really exciting to see these cement tile floors go in. We have waited a long time to see this. On the right is the floor of a small office space. It is really the right size for an ironing board and not much else ! But the room has a window and a Sun Dome tubular skylight, so it is a very cheerful spot. It is the perfect place for gift wrapping and such. The field tile is called Pescado "Caribbean" and the border tile is Shell Scroll "Azul". Around the outside edges is cut pieces of solid color tile in Light Turquoise. It was suppose to be a deep green around the edges between the border tile and the wall. I showed the boss, Roy the green tile to use and when I got back upstairs they were 1/3 done with the cut pieces of Light Turquoise Solid color tile. It looked ok, so that was that !

Each place a tile floor meets another room's tile, you have to decide how to handle the part directly under the door, the threshold area. In this instance, I just got them to extend the light turquoise tile to a wider width where the little office joins the upstairs hall.

Somehow I didn't order nearly enough of this cement tile called "Italian Trellis" to run down the hall and join the Surf "Agua" tile that is in the living room. Tomorrow I am going to try to get a good count of what additional tile I will need to finish all the floors. I'll have to order it and it will be a while since it is hand made.

You can see the film of cement mortar on the tiles. They have not been cleaned yet. Also, in these photos, some of the tile is still wet. All the tile is soaked before it is laid with thinset.

The tile cutting wet saw has been moved downstairs and set up in the guestroom. Even tho they put some cardboard underneath and tapes some plastic to the wall, there is still a big mess. But when it is raining outside, working on the deck just is not an option.

The main bedroom has cement tile Trapani "Midnight" with a border of Ribbon "Taupe" and a couple rows of solid black tile to the walls.

David stated the tile laying out in the center of the room to assure that the rug motif was properly centered. It was amazing to watch this floor come together.

We are now working like crazy to clean off the haze of mortar mix from laying the tile and using flat edge razors to scrape off dropped bits of mortar mix. Dave and I have spent all weekend cleaning and putting the sealer on the tile in this room.

Huge job, but this floor will be stunning.

Roy worked late into the night to get the shower floor poured and ready for tile. I just do not have enough cement tile on hand to line the shower in it. I was thinking of using glass mosaics, but never knew the size until the last minute and never got the panels of mosaic tile made to install. Instead I went out on a dark cold night to Hood's in Foley, AL to buy some tile or something to use in the shower.

It was going to be a problem to get matching bull nose tile with out having to order it and wait.

I ended up finding some travertine that is a good color match for the floor tile. The ends and edges of the polished travertine can be buffed up to have a finished edge, so that eliminated the bull nose issue.

This upstairs bathroom is getting one of the pair of green sinks that I found in the bushes after Hurricane Ivan. I have had it in the mini-storage for several years.   Some people are squawking that the green is the wrong color, but I think not and am very headstrong about it. The sink cabinet got delivered when the kitchen units did. It still lacks its doors. Billy of Architextural Millwork and Cabinetry made it for me and did a great job. He used black lacquer on the outside.

The floor of the hot water heater closet got some of the leftovers from the hall half bath floor. It really didn't matter as no one will see them. I said it was OK to fill in the gaps with pieces of tile turned the wrong way. This is leftover Ribbon Border in "Caribbean" that we used in the upstairs hall half bath. It is designed as a border tile but can also be laid as a stripe. Upstairs in the bathroom, we laid it on the diagonal.

The foyer is suppose to get the three tile designs shown at right. I cannot afford to pay to have the tile laid on the first floor right now, except where plumbing had to go...ready for inspection. The foyer is a complicated shape so the Shell Scroll "Coral" border will have about 8 corners. The center tile is "Italian Trellis" cement tile and the solid tile that will go to the wall all around is "Goldenrod". It is good to use a solid to the wall around a complicated shape if you are doing the border thing because if you have small irregularities or the wall has little niches and such, the solids can fill in and give a clean look and not make the edges of the room look distracting.

See the first page for more cement tile floor photos.