here's some pics of the kitchen tile job in progress (dial up warning)

part of the deal on this house was that the sellers had to complete the tile in the kitchen. she had already bought all the wall tile and border. so I had to figure out what to use to pull together a neutral wall tile, a border of tan, rust and sage and country blue counter tile.

:banghead: I took all three in to the store and laid out every freaking grout sample she had trying to get these to work. I finally decided "Nutmeg" would work. my DH Mr. Ketchup insisted we take out the charcoal grout last night so it could be re-grouted today with the rest of the wall time and I'm so glad he did!


here's the before, note the mess that is the window sill and the charcoal grout















the grout will dry about 3 shades lighter that it's looks right now, to a light cocoa. we'll paint the walls a greyish blue to finish it off ADD I got a new faucet for the sink

made the job go 5 times faster. he'd run a couple lines through the grout and I'd pop the rest out with a screwdriver (but a thin chisel or a grout removal hand tool woulda been better-- I ruined two screwdrivers)

What's nice about the blue tiles is that in your desert climate, you have a sort of water element in the kitchen. The blue reminds me of tropical waters and the back splash is the color of sands.

At first I didn't realize that the top caps were tiles. Fancy! You've got a touch of the Mediterranean in your new digs.

since the kitchen is part of the "great room" I have to find something that will flow into the living room too

that's gonna be a while though, we have the master bath to paint first and it's gonna take a while, esp if I accept the job offer I got yesterday

I knew you were looking but I didn't see about it any further. Do tell when you decide!

it's at the local "Home Improvement Store" and I need the discount with the amount of $$$$ I've been spending there

:rofl:

You guys do good work. Thanks for the dremel attachment tip.

ready this AM

(To the tune of Just a Gigilo ... so that song gets stuck in your head!)

That looks very good. I'm glad it all turned out so well. I really like those upper border tiles.

better on top. since they have NO blue in them and just a touch of gray they didn't make the transition from the blue well

what was that woman thinking??? it was quite a challenge to pull together what were three totally different tile styles, tones and colors

I never would have imagined all those tiles could go together, but it looks quite spiffy-- congratulations! Worth all the work, for sure.

I wish we were handy, I would love to tile 'twixt counter and cabinet in our place, but we are the opposite of handy and I suspect a DIY attempt would end up resembling something from an old "I Love Lucy" episode, and end up costing 2x as much to fix the mess. We are already overspent on our home improvement budget since I got everything I wanted (and then some) with the porch off the bedroom, so other small projects will have to wait in the queue behind the Biggie (new sunroom/patio combo.)

It does look sort of Tuscan/Mediterranean, maybe that will help make choices easier as you go along.

Congrats on the new job! If our local Home Despot gets any worse maybe I'll start driving to Carlsbad for materials... at least until the new Lowes opens up. (However, as the Darling Husband points out, 'And who are THEY gonna hire?' So it's unlikely to be much of an improvement...)

encouragingly,
Bright

I'll probably try it out for a couple months and see.....

it really does have a Tuscan kinda feel now. i just need to figure out what color paint to go with

a very pale yellow toned down with raw umber. That will brighten the whole area and play nicely both with slate blue and with the brown tiles. It will give the kitchen a much more cheerful feel than that dead white wallpaper does. (I've mixed my own cans of paint for years, never trusted those computer jobs. You'll probably bring in paint samples like a normal person)

However, if you want to extend the same color into the living room, choose a pale taupe. It will play much more nicely with your furniture.

on the south wall and do just do a blue/gray on the 2" section under the cabinets and around the window on the north wall

we'll do the blue first then if we hate it, we can repaint when we come back into the living room to do the update after the master bath and guest room are done

Going with brown grout around the slate blue tiles was a wonderful choice. I was going to quibble about the darkness of the grout, then I got to the bottom of the post and read that it will lighten. It's nice that great minds really do think alike.

Wow! What a difference!

i'll take another pic Monday AM before they regrout

...especially here in the southwest. Here's the painting that forms the brown & blue inspiration for our living-area decor; we got the denim upholstery on the sofa to complement it and when I finally get around to window coverings I'll pick up some other tone from the pic:



See? Lovely color combo. I knew there was a reason why I liked NMDD2's kitchen pics so much!

aesthetically,
Bright

He's actually a gemstone cutter and it's a painting of a piece of picture jasper he cut and polished. The colors are very relaxing. Our downstairs is 'open plan' meaning one big room for everything except storage, utility/laundry room, and powder room. All the walls are painted a soft creamy white which makes it very light, but I think we might experiment with doing some blue walls along the staircase this winter.

anticipatorially,
Bright

and an accent wall is fast to do and makes such a big difference!

I love those tiles on the top. Very spiffy. The colors look great. :)

I used a taupe colored grout when I did my kitchen counter and backsplash. Here's a pic of my project:



I used my Dremel and a tile cutting bit to cut the tiles for the receptacle openings. It worked like a charm.

was the challenge LOL