I had a choice: click in place wood flooring or look like wood porcelain tile. Naturally I picked the tile. The hardest, longest flooring to put in and which I have the least experience in. Oh boy have I learned a lesson.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the flooring! I am just not as in love with the process of getting it done “by myself” (AKA boyfriend in lead, me in tow, scrambling around a makeshift home construction site).

Bad enough we removed carpet, we soon moved on to demoing tile. And the amount of dust is simply astonishing! From the tile and the dry mortar to the unsealed concrete, at least I have plenty of KN-95s from covid to cover me on this.

With the tile partially demo-ed we moved on to bring up all the tile, mortar, grout, tile cutters (electric and hand) and trowels, towels and buckets (never enough buckets!!). The beautiful screened porch is now home to all the tools. Quite a messy home…

Once settled we began the task of picking the tile pattern. It’s in rows of three staggered by halves/quarters. Once settled the tiles were measured and laid out. Unfortunately the walls aren’t straight and enough distance between tile lines and wall resulted in many recut tiles.

If the walls weren’t straight you can bet the floor wasn’t level. Plenty of odd dips made the mortar and tile leveling no small task.

We started in the living room and worked our way across the entry, down the hall, and into both bedrooms.

The hardest part to tile was the hallway. So many intricate cuts and recuts. Transition strips were considered and selected. Moving was difficult as well. Tile too far and you can’t get out. Lots of hopping about!

And once the tile is down and dried it’s grouting time. We made use of a car squeegee to mop the grout across the floor and after a little waiting cleaned up with sponges, scrapers, and mops.

The grout was a tad disappointing. I had wanted a grout darker, closer in color to the tile. This one has come out very light. It doesn’t look bad, just not what I expected.

After weeks of start -stop tiling we are one room and a kitchen away from finished!! At that point it’ll be time to seriously start furniture shopping and getting things out of boxes and into their proper place.

Can’t wait to share some finished spaces with you all next time!