When we moved in to our house, the fireplace had some cracked tile on the hearth. It has been on my list to redo the tile, so after Christmas we tackled the project! I'll start with the before and after picture in case you don't want to read all the way through the post.
This is the before, the fireplace had white tile with white grout. It wasn't terrible...but cracked and broken tiles needed to go!
We got 3 different samples to narrow down our options and try to figure out what we wanted to use. We also posted the options to Facebook to survey our friends. Option 3 had the most votes...and was our favorite as well.
Step 1...break up the old tile. Trigg got his safety glasses on and we got to work. Hammers and crowbars!
I also picked up some of this edging material that creates a boarder where the tile meets the fireplace. I couldn't find black at the big blue and orange stores, but I did find it at
Hank's Specialties in Urbandale.
With temperatures below freezing outside and temps around 27 in my garage, I wasn't too excited to use a wet saw in the garage...so I set up a plastic enclosed cutting station in the basement!
Trigg grabbed his ear protection and helped me get started with cutting!
Mix up some thin-set and away we go!
Weekend 1 in the books...and about 1/2 way finished laying the tile.
Cutting 300 plus little stones gets very messy...be sure to wear old clothes, an old hat and eye protection
...and if you have it, a full face shield would come in handy too...but safety glasses work well!
After the thin-set dried, mixed up grout. We went with "Delorean Gray" from Home Depot.
...and the finished product.
We sealed the edges where the tile meet the wood trim with white, paint-able caulking and then touched up the white paint.
I am very pleased with the way the project turned out, I really like the dark herringbone tiles with the light grey grout.
