So, this is the story of how I pieced together a unique back splash with a little something something, without spending a fortune.
It took me a while to decide on tile for my kitchen back splash. I wanted something interesting, but still light and bright and neutral enough without being totally boring. This design kind evolved. I searched the home improvement stores and none of the tile options jumped out at me. At one I saw some penny tile in white that was interesting but the plain matte white just didn't do it for me. I decided to venture out to some of the fancier tile showrooms to see what was out there and to see if I might be lucky enough to happen upon a clearance room with something amazing that didn't cost a fortune.
I discovered a local tile company called Pratt & Larson here in Portland, OR. I walked into their showroom and it kind of blew my mind. It felt more like an art gallery than a tile store. They hand make and hand paint their tile and they are truly works of art. So, imagine my shear joy when I spotted a sign with an arrow and the words "clearance". I was conflicted, I couldn't wait to go see what wonders the clearance room back in the warehouse held for me, yet I didn't want to leave the serenity of their beautiful showroom.
Low and behold I did find some wonderful treasures in the clearance room, but not enough of any one design to cover my entire back splash. Even if I had found enough of the same tile, even at the clearance price, it would have been more than I wanted to spend. So when I found a tile that seemed like it was made with my exact kitchen in mind I bought all of them. There weren't a lot of them, but there were just enough for a feature inset right above my kitchen sink. It was clear at this point that these tiles were in the drivers seat and they would be dictating the rest of the design for my back splash. The tiles in the clearance area were not priced per tile or even per square foot, they were a flat price per pound. By my usual standards it was still spendy at the clearance price but what I paid was a fraction of their usual retail price.
I went back to Home Depot to give their tile selection another look. As I held my fancy tile up to various tiles in shades of white like the fancy tile background the transition seemed awkward. I decided that the fancy tile needed some kind of frame around it. I found a square glass tile in a gray/blue/green color that provided a nice compliment to my fancy tile. So, now that we had our fancy feature, and a frame for it, we needed something very neutral that was worthy of the fancy tile yet wouldn't compete too much with it for attention. My mind kept going back to the round penny tile, but I didn't like the starkness of the matte white. The store clerk told me they had additional color choices online. Bingo, found it! They had the same round penny tile available in a mixed finish mosaic of matte, gloss, and iridescent glazes. This mixture of finishes gave the plain penny tile pizzazzle while warming it up. It was as though the penny tile was echoing the round center of the flower design on the fancy tile. This tile was worthy! Our design was complete.
No comments:
Post a Comment