— old country house blog —

BATHROOM MAKEOVER – HEXAGON TILE

February 2, 2013
Read about the DEMO HERE and the PREP HERE

The SUB FLOOR is DOWN
Now What?
1. CLEAN YOUR SUB FLOOR

even the smallest crumb will make it uneven
2. USE THE SAME COLOR adhesive or thin set
as your grout will be…especially with Hex tile… the adhesive cannot help but come through the cracks. I started with white and that immediately was a problem, I switched to gray which is my grout color…
which brings me to my next thing…
3. If you are NEW to Tiling..and learning as you go
START in a place in the room which is the least visible
…especially if you
like me, …you will invariably learn a few
“tricks” in your first few pieces, so keep your “Guinea Pig” pieces, out of the focal point.
4. Make sure all edges are glued down…I made sure to carefully inspect each piece to make sure they were all sticking…..
TOOLS
these are MY TILE  tools….

Clockwise from the bottom – Floor and Wall adhesive, nippers, tile saw, tile brush, 2″ putty knife, notched trowel and 4″ putty knife….
and HERE below are my favorite tools….

 These are the tools I DID use!!!
My Williams Sonoma Spatula, the notched trowel, the smooth trowel
and my 2″ putty knife..
The spatula had the stiffness to wipe grout without scratching and scoop ability to lay the grout down!
who knew!
TILE
THIS HEXAGON TILE 
that I got from HomeDepot.com…
is more “Antique” looking
than the photo (right) led me to believe,
but no matter, I actually think it works perfectly in my OLD OLD house…in fact, my friend Jess thought it had been here all along!

 The pattern is as shown (above) white with the black flower in the center…
 I staggered the 12″ x 12″ sheets
to vary  the OVERALL pattern a bit.
I n my prep I also trimmed 2 complete rows of tiles from the inside row of each exterior tile. Make sense?
So basically there are three rows of tile sheets across-
and the first and the last row had the right and the left side trimmed respectively to fit and keep a pattern…
This PHASE, designing the pattern was the most fun…AND most tedious.  Have you ever played TETRIS?
Moving pieces, and then other pieces, the get the right fit…GAME OVER…THIS room is only 32″ x 70″..I shudder to think of doing a larger room.
HANDS DOWN the most helpful Blog Post in this regard was HERE…ON A GUEST POST THE
KIM AND RYAN used  2 ft by 1 ft SHEETS of ALL white HEX tile And then removed the flower pieces and reinserted black flowers…this might be easier in a large space and I may consider it in the kids bathroom where I plan(ned) to use the same tile.
You do all of this figuring out and designing patterns with dry tiles, like a rough draft…over and over agin until you get it right, and everything fits…and THEN  and ONLY then
do you get out your adhesive.
INSTALLATION
This part went fine, pretty straight forward. Lay the adhesive down, not too thick and run your notched trowel through it to put ridges in. Lay each piece carefully and wipe the excess thin set off the surface of the tiles with a damp but not dripping wet sponge, takes multiple wipes. I kept a big bucket of warm water next to me…the knee pads would have been nice around now.
Make sure your floors are LEVEL!
Lay a flat piece of ply wood down to level the surface.
Piece by piece…all was going swell…
It was 8pm, I had 3 square sheets left…
and I ran out of gray thin set!!!! arrrrggghhhhhhh!!!
…So my Wonderful husband went out in
the flash flood rain to Lowes for me…he’s a good man…and plus he is getting a pretty spiffy bathroom with very cheap labor costs…
In addition to the thin set…He also took two single rows of tile which the great guy at Lowes
cut right down the center for me making half pieces…for patching small spots….

I found this tip out on another blog.
Great tip,  with Hexagon tile…there is minimal tile cutting usually unless you have a straight edge like a tub or a wall where the tile will show.
one last tip. Before you leave your tile to dry, make usre there are no BLOBS of thin set in nooks and crannys, this stuff is basically cement and when it dries, it will be VERY difficult to remove…
and will potentially interfere with putting in other things…like base board and utilities…



SEALING THE TILE
After the Thinset was allowed to dry for 6 hours I sealed the tile, by soaking it with this:

home depot

and then again when it was all sunk in…until no more seemed to seep in. This keeps the tile from staining with the grout. I really did not believe this one, but then there was an area that did stain where I did not soak it as much…lesson learned…hard way.

GROUTING THE TILE

There is one downside to Hex tile I found out when grout which I might as well tell you now. The grout cannot help but cover the tile, the cracks are so small, and so you have to wipe down ALL the tile, over and over so it wont stain the tile,
(GO GET YOUR SPATULA NOW)
BUT not too much or you wipe the durn grout right out too! It is a delicate operation.

With SMALL Scale tile make sure the adhesive and the Grout are the same color!
Some of the white adhesive seeped though and I had to wait for it to dry, 
and cut it out with my matt knife and then re-grout with the “Smoke Gray” Grout from Lowes. 

FINISHING TOUCHES
Baseboard and Shoe mold…


I chose Benajmin Moore
Mountain Peak White for the Trim and the Bead Board…
this is the same color as my Kitchen. This color works beautifully with the white of sinks and subway tile…


I know when I am in over my head, and so I called my friend Jess
to come over and help me cut and install the baseboard and shoe mold.
I got the 4″ baseboard and the normal shoe mold.
The base boards thoughout the house are 8″, but that seemed like to much
for a room of this diminutive size…
Le Petit Toilet

Wow! What a difference maker!

Ready for a sneak peek???

Thats all for now…
MONDAY…God Willing there will be
a COMPLETE REVEAL!!!, provided we can get the plumbing
done… I have a call into the plumber to help me…I want things to run smoothly!!!
no pun intended…

I am almost finished and
I am still the HOME PAGE of Housebeautiful.com/!!!

 

3 thoughts on “BATHROOM MAKEOVER – HEXAGON TILE”

  3. The first time that I saw your plan for the tiles, the first thought that came to mind was the amount of grouting you’d have to do afterwards. It’s really a good thing that you sealed the tiles beforehand, or it would’ve ruined some of the tiles, and probably the look that you were going for. That being said, the finished product looks great! I hope that the tiles are still in pretty good condition up to now. Cheers!

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