You certainly remember that I have my kitchen in full
disarray and waiting for important upgrades?
Well, part of the work is on the way, and yet more
importantly decisions have to be made and it is so hard.
Now, you may wonder why – tiling is such a massive
service, sold at every corner! Why wouldn’t it be possible to go to the nearest
biggest thing? I’ll tell you why – it is illusory. Many things you are made to
believe, but in the end there are corners you cannot cut (with the Belgian
market in mind):
-
Few
companies keep stock – the delivery time may be important
-
Small
clients are not liked – for an area above the kitchen sink and hot plates, such
as mine, you’ll find few candidates. And the ones you find will not jump with
jot, but overcharge you to compensate for the small works’ volume
-
The
handymen – quite a hitch again – often price a small piece of work for the
equivalent of a big one… in my case it is about 2,5 m2 but I am likely to pay
the price of a small bathroom. On top of that they are trying to influence me
to go for a cheap and quick solution, and still collect the same amount of
money. As said before, it is a shame nobody teaches us tiling or carpentry at
school!
I hope to get people involved in this one, so let me make
a quick tour of material, location and options.
Materials
While there are numerous materials for tiling, few are
freely sold in the shops. They often go down to basic tiles such as 15x15 or
20x20, in the white colour and that’s it. On the other hand, the tendency is
for larger tiles, ideally with no joints – because it is the joints which are
so hard to clean!
So, one way to bring interest is to include some
mosaics like the ones here-under. Handymen dislikes it (a very lengthy process
of installation), mistakes can be very obvious – that is another one of their
pet hates.
Mosaics have cheap substitutes – now follows a tile
which is 25 by 50 and already gives the illusion of mosaics:
With the last tile there is a number of choices – the main
colour may be aligned with any tile on the palette. Question is light – like the
walls and furniture in the kitchen, or dark – for some contrast and different
feel altogether!
Location
The kitchen is sadly dark – so choices are between the
lightest tile out there (white, anyone?). Maybe I should say lightest but
white? I wonder, and this is the question to connoisseurs, whether the gloss
from a tile could compensate for a darker colour?
Last but not least, the tiling ideally should match
the notorious dark kitchen, but also the work surface, which shall remain the
same!
I give you more over a few photographs of where we
started, and the present condition of the kitchen:
Options
Big tiles can be arranged vertically or horizontally,
with mosaics or mosaics imitation on top:
For the horizontal option, one scheme not explored is
when the rows do not repeat themselves – the join for an upper row appears in
the middle of the tile of the lower row.
Obviously – the question about the tile colour still
has to be answered…
Another question which may be explored with those
schemes in mind is where we cut – lower end, upper end, corner?
To me, particularly interesting is a scheme where I
use every last tile from the set – however it is a mystery if the patchy effect
will be as good as expected. Handymen expects to break about 10% of the tiles.
Lastly – version where the mosaics (or mosaic
imitation) goes in the middle:
I still have the tiles to buy, and it is embarrassing that
the choices are that limited. Advice of all sorts is welcome!
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