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Instead of burning off calories at the gym the past few days I spent my after work time searching carpet/flooring stores, Home Depot and Sutherlands for the perfect backsplash tile. At the first flooring business I went to I was helped by a salesman who looked like he was ten years old and sounded like his head was filled with snot which I can only assume is what he was trying to keep up in his head every time he sniffed. He was very friendly, and tried very hard to help me. While I'm sure he knew more about tile than I did, and probably felt miserable from his cold, I couldn't get past thinking he looked like he should be in grade school and the constant sniffing made me want to run for disinfectant. Strike one.

At the next flooring store I visited I was helped by a woman who responded with my request for suggestions by asking me what I liked. Duh..........if I knew what I wanted or liked I wouldn't have to look or ask for help. I'd just buy it. Strike two.

There is no hope for help at Home Depot or Sutherlands. You'd better know what you want when you walk into those stores or be able to figure it out for yourself. I was unable to do either and no tile I saw there jumped up and said "buy me, buy me." Strike three.

By Thursday I was depressed and beginning to wish I'd jut decided to do a 4" soapstone backsplash and paint the wall. As a last resort I looked up tile in the yellow pages and decided to try one more place. This business is in a rundown part of town and when I pulled up I wasn't even sure I wanted to get out of the car and walk in. It looked like a dive and only had a small sign on the outside. Until the moment I actually turned the knob and the door opened I'd wondered if it was even still in business. Who would have thought it would have the most awesome tile ever and two wonderful women who were full of helpful suggestions and eager to help. Friday I drug Dean to the store with me and we left loaded with tile samples and lots of possibilities. It renewed my faith in customer service. Below is a photo of what we've come up with so far. There are some bright baby blue glass tiles that Dean has his eye on so tomorrow we will return the samples we've decided against and grab that one for some more thought. Once the cabinets and countertops are in we'll be able to make a final decision but for now it's good to know there are choices we like and we have come up with somewhat of a plan.


So for the benefit of TileChick and GroutBabe who will be helping me with this project, here's our preliminary plan. Using 6" solid tiles we will mix in a selection of 6" glass mosaic tiles. We're thinking the frosted choice of the green (or maybe those baby blues with a blue solid tile) shown in the photo. Of course exact tiles and colors could still change but for now the mixing of solid and mosaic glass tiles is our tentative plan. The photo doesn't really show the colors well and definitely doesn't show off the soapstone but we found a piece of cherry to put above anyway. Does that sound like it's something we can do together?


Today we move furniture and take down pictures in preparation of window replacement tomorrow. Windowguys will probably be here most of the day between replacing and framing three windows upstairs and the cement wall window downstairs. Since it's a federal holiday we'll be around and I won't have to spend my vacation time meeting them. Still.....I think I'd prefer my holiday without worker bees running around the house.◦

More Choices