Gonna paint my own dang tile

As usual, John and I were dead stuck when it came to picking out floor tile. I don’t know if you remember from our last remodel, but choosing tile is always extremely difficult for us. During our 2017 remodel of the Placitas house, I have blog posts entitled, “The Tile Saga“, “Tile ga-ga” and even “Fuck Tile“.

In 2013 in California we ended up accidentally installing floor tile that John never did like. Trying to be cooperative and compromising, he thought he would be ok with it, but in the end, he wasn’t. It was a subtle, light gray tile that I thought was quite nice, but it always felt cold to him.

In Placitas we were going crazy until we finally gave up on tile altogether and installed mesquite upstairs and brick downstairs.

It turned out beautifully, but unfortunately, we can’t just transfer that experience directly to Tucson. For one thing, brick floors are not appreciated in Tucson the way they are in New Mexico, and it would hurt our resale value. As for mesquite – yeah, we can’t afford that anymore. Wood is impossibly expensive right now.

The feel we’re going for in Tucson is a casual, rustic, comfortable, southwest feel. Not over-the-top Spanish Santa Fe style, not the ornate Tuscan, and not modern California either. Not the distressed farmhouse style that’s popular right now, not wagon-wheel western, and not 1950’s retro. And certainly nothing too fancy.

It’s just a simple house in the desert with burnt adobe brick and wood beam ceilings. We want to quietly complement what we have. But how?

Right now what’s in style are cool colors, like blacks, whites, grays, and blues. But John wants the cozy feel of a warmer color palette. That eliminates about 75% of everything in all the home decor stores.

John also doesn’t want to go with the porcelain floor tiles that look like wood planks, which are super popular right now. It bugs him to have a porcelain surface that is mimicking wood; it doesn’t feel authentic to him.

After eliminating everything with a gray tone, and all the wood plank porcelain tiles, there isn’t much left. The beige stone-look tiles feel dated and neither of us like those.

I spent hours in all the tile stores across Tucson. I went alone, I went with friends, I went with John. I dreamed tile; I saw tile everywhere I looked.

Eventually we found one John liked. It’s the dark reddish-brown one toward the front left next to the wood-look plank.

I was afraid it would be too dark, but it turned out not to matter because it was ridiculously, prohibitively expensive. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

At first it seemed like we were getting nowhere, back to square one after each failure. But after weeks of frustration, narrowing and refining and clarifying, I finally felt like I knew what we were looking for.

I went back once again to all the tile stores, but I couldn’t find the tile that had finally taken shape in my mind. I kept trying to describe it to all the helpful employees, but with no success.

Finally on a whim one day, I got out my acrylic paints and started painting on some small canvases I had. I was like an artist possessed. I mixed colors over and over, painting the canvases in many layers, trying to get it right. Eventually I had 4 canvas tile mock-ups.

I walked into my favorite tile store and handed one of my painted canvas “tiles” to an employee, and braced myself for the inevitable blank stare, or worse, laughter. “Uh, this isn’t a tile.”

Instead, he made an affirmative grunting noise and headed to the back of the store. I waited. Is it possible?

I couldn’t believe it. We had found our tile – and half the price of our other top two contenders.

Now all we need to do is to choose a contrasting cabinet color, a coordinating countertop, and a backsplash that will tie it all together. Lol. It still seems so impossible. Good thing we have as long as it takes.

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