38 HOURS IN THE SHOWER

You would think that by now I would be a prune. but no, that's how long it took me to tile and grout our shower! (That number does not include the 10 hours spent earlier creating the "vineyard mosaic" on the end wall). I had no idea this would be such a big project. Those of you who know me, know that long projects just don't work. I get bored, lose interest and want to move on to something else. This is not an option when tiling a shower! It just has to be finished. I had 8 decorative tiles left over from the mosaic border so they were used here. Now, the process itself is not difficult, but this shower had some challenges, some might say pitfalls. In our continuing effort to build "green" my task was to use materials on site; tile left from previous projects, "found" tile, tile given to us, and an assortment of small bags of different colored grout. In addition, it became evident as I got into the project that our shower walls are somewhat trapezoidal! Anyone who has done a similar project will immediately see the challenge here! I assembled all the tile and began the process of designing the job, using the assortment of tiles. I had 4 different colors of white/beige/cream. I had some gray tiles. I had 2 colors of glazed terra cotta tiles made in Mexico (my favorites of all), and the entire assortment was in several different sizes of 4 inch tiles ( who knew?) and 2 different thicknesses. Here you can see the front wall of the shower. Luckily I had just enough of the terra cotta dark blue tiles for the edging. The design eliminates the need for a shower door. I mean, who really wants to spend the rest of their life trying to keep a shower door clean? Not me for sure! The very last thing to do in the bathroom is to paint or plaster the ceiling. I suspect this will be the easiest part of the entire project.

As I look back on this, there were things I would have done differently. For example, it would have made more sense to combine all of the different grouts in one big bucket so that, regardless of the eventual color, it would all have matched. Next time.

Here then are photos of this wonderfully organic and "green" shower. I absolutely love it! It makes me feel like I am someplace in Italy, a place I hope to visit some day. In the meantime, the shower will have to do.