Anatomy of a Remodel: Mosaics were made, but not by me

Now that the shower has been built, everyone, especially Mr. & Mrs. R who are excited to see the next steps.

Here’s a reminder of how the shower looked before the tile went on.

There was going to be a lot of different tiles going in the shower and nearby area so it all had to be properly organised. Mr. Remodel was in charge of making sure Mr. Tile put up the design on the back wall in the correct order. As a result, Mr. R couldn’t take more gradual pictures of the process. And it was too crowded in the space with Mr. Remodel and Mr. Tile and Helper for Mrs. R to shoot pictures. So one minute there was no tile, the next…

There was quite a lot of it.

The tile (one square inch recycled glass) on the back wall are two gradients that Mr. Remodel ordered from a company on-line called Hakatai. The lower gradient represents the sand and foaming water, onto the lighter ocean water, up to the dark horizon line. The upper gradient represents the sky with higher colours at the horizon line up to the darker sky colours at the top.
Mr. Remodel created the custom gradient designs with the aid of Hakatai’s website. You type in the colours you want with the percentage amount and the computer creates the gradient and gives you a sample of the result. You then give them the size of the area and they send you the tiles in one square foot blocks well labeled so you know which order they need to be installed.
Mrs. R wasn’t sure she was going to like it. She liked the original idea, which was to have just one gradient, but was a bit dubious about the dark line going across partway but it looks really good in person.
Hakatai was having a sale when we ordered them so this area cost us about $450 which we thought was reasonable given the dramatic statement it made.

On the sides, we used simple 4” x 4” white tile from American Olean we bought at Lowes.

Here it is on the other side with gaps left for the soap shelves.

To the side we put these one square inch green glass tiles (also bought at Lowes) to go behind the pedestal sinks. The tiles were alternatively shiny and matte tiles, which give an interesting effect.

We discovered this tile at the Aliso Viejo Lowes (it wasn’t at the San Clemente Lowes where we do our usual shopping). So it is worth trying several stores, if they aren’t too far away, as they don’t always do exactly the same stuff. The AV store didn’t have quite the correct number of tiles we needed so Lowes got the extras from another store.
To the right you can see the shower curb starting to be tiled with the same Gea Beige tile (used elsewhere in the house) that will also be on the floor.

On the top of the green tile we put this border we found at Morena Tile. This was one of our splurges since each six inch long tile cost $16 and we needed about 14 pieces. The colours are very similar to some of those in the gradients, so it connects to the shower wall without competing with it.

We chose pebbles for the shower floor. We liked this look, and felt it carried on the abstract idea of showering by the ocean. It also has a practical use. Although the shower floor looks flat, it is slopped for proper water drainage and we thought this would be easier to lay down than pieces of tile.
It didn’t quite turn out that way as it had its own issues when it was laid but it looks fabulous.
We looked at a lot of these pebble ‘tiles’ (they are indeed single pebbles stuck onto tile netting for installation). We settled on small pebbles from a company online called Strata Stones. We chose unglazed pebbles because Mrs. Remodel was concerned about the glazed pebbles being too slippery.

The Gea Beige tile fits in well with the shower floor and its good grip underfoot is good for a bathroom floor. We did not want a mat coming out of the shower so the grip was important, in particular, in that area.