Decorating With Natural Stone Tiles
I bought a starter home a few months ago, and ever since then have been spending my free evenings and weekends trying to renovate the place. I decided to go the DIY route, so I bought a few books and manuals, printed out some step-by-step instructions from the Internet, and have been slowly upgrading the floors in my kitchen, bathroom, and entrance foyer. After careful consideration, I decided to go with natural stone tiles for the job. I can't wait to see how everything turns out! I know there are plenty of cheaper options than natural stone tiles out there, but I wanted to add a touch of elegance and class to my home. Plus, I figured I could splurge a bit on the decorating since I saved so much money by buying the place "as is". Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I probably would have chosen to decorate with natural stone tiles anyway, since they look so much better than linoleum, wood, or other types of flooring. That's just my humble opinion, of course. So once I decided to use natural stone tiles in these rooms, I checked through some books and magazines for inspiration. I found lots of lovely patterns to choose from, and decided to try to emulate a few of the looks I discovered on those glossy pages. The next step was to purchase the natural stone tiles themselves, which took a bit more work. At first I went to the local home improvement center, but they didn't have the exact tile pattern I wanted -- and their prices were a tad too high anyway. So I started browsing online and came across several websites that stocked precisely what I wanted. They were offering pretty good deals, too -- even with shipping and handling charges thrown into the mix. After I took delivery of the natural stone tiles, I began the real work of renovating my house. I started in the kitchen, where I wanted to replace the backsplash and floor. It took me kind of a long time to get my bearings and gain some confidence in my capabilities, but once I got the hang of the process, I had no trouble putting each tile in place. I'm not quite finished in there, but hope to make significant progress next week. I'm using a few of my vacation days to make a final push in the kitchen before moving on to the master bath. From what I've done so far, I think the kitchen looks terrific! Sure, it's probably not as perfect (and certainly the work isn't getting done as fast) as it would be if I hired a professional crew, but I'm enjoying putting in the natural stone tiles on my own. I think I'll derive greater satisfaction out of the finished product knowing it came as a direct result of my own toil. Now let's just hope I actually get all of this work done in a reasonable amount of time! |