As you might already know I’m currently in the midst of giving my teenage son’s small bathroom a little makeover. I know a lot of home design bloggers wait until a makeover project is completely done before they share any pictures of the changes they’ve made, but I like bringing you all along for the ride. There is so much to be gained from seeing the process of how things progress from where you started to the bright, shiny, happy after photos. I hope you enjoy seeing the unstyled, still kind of messy-and-dirty progress photos as much as I like sharing them with you! The reality is room makeovers don’t happen overnight, they’re often riddled with snafus and design plans don’t always pan out they way we hoped they would.
But sometimes things do go according to plan! And the result is even better than what you imagined. Case in point…….
The Herringbone Floor Tile Plan
As you may recall when I shared the full makeover plan for this bathroom, I mentioned that I was planning to have the builder basic tile replaced. Since I was hiring out for this job it was important to me to keep the cost of materials low, so I planned to have these 12 x 24 inch charcoal porcelain tiles cut down to 6 x 12’s and laid in a herringbone pattern.
At $2.30 a square foot for a bathroom that measures roughly 18 sq. ft. even with needing additional materials to create a herringbone pattern, the cost of the tile plus grout was under $65. Small bathroom’s definitely have their bonuses! 😉
I’m so pleased with the way this floor turned out! And I really think it makes this small bathroom look larger.
Why I Hired Out
My tile guy charged me $650, which I think is fair for where I live. I’ve worked with him before (he laid our laundry room tile as well), and he does a great job. Sure I could have saved that money by doing this myself but
- I’ve never done a floor before and learning on the job would mean
- that this project would take me so much longer than the 8 hours in on day it took my tile guy.
The phase of life I’m in right now requires me to be really intentional about the way I spend my time. A project like this that I’ve never tackled before on my own would have probably taken me a week…..maybe longer? Freeing up my time to work on other things ( that I actually know how to do ;)) was worth the money I paid to have this floor done. And even having paid for the labor, for about $715 I got a brand new much more custom looking tile floor. So I feel like it’s a win!
Before and After: New Floor Tile
I can not believe what a dramatic difference this one change made in here!
I’m so feeling inspired to move on to the next phase……..wall tile! That’s a project I’ll be doing myself. Hoping for smooth sailing. Wish me luck!
* This makeover project is being sponsored by Lowe’s Home Improvement.
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Well, it is not something very special and I have to say I find this insane. Paying so much for such a small surface is not justified by the result. It is better, yes and you have beautiful taste but 715 dollars for a kid’s bathroom? This is like throwing money away. For a kid to walk on it about 30min max per day? Surely your son would learn more and take a better example if you offered this money to a charity of his choice. As for a tile guy who charged 650 for a day’s work, it means he earns about 14,300 per month…Is this logical?