Slate and Tile

Detail of the tile pattern in the shower

Our kitchen floor slate pattern. We were surprised, but not unhappy, at the color variety that falls under the "purple" designation. The little white things are spacers.

My main mission today was laying the hardi-backer, which is the cement board underlayment placed on the floor before the slate floor goes down. Luckily, Jake was here working on the downstairs shower and so was able to guide me as I mixed the mortar and tried my hand at a process I'd never done before. It went just fine and worked out nicely.

Meanwhile Jake was installing the tiling in the shower and did nice work. We changed our tile design after it became apparent that my original concept required tile sizes that were not available. Last night Nancy and I calculated the quantity of tile we had to work with and came up with a new horizontal-band concept that used the available tile well. Jake went to it and at the end of the day had two of the three walls complete. We're quite happy with the result.

Tomorrow Nancy and I are all set to install the slate in the kitchen. I laid out a box worth of the pattern and was both surprised and pleased at the color variation in the "purple" slate that we purchased. In reality there is a mix of gray and purple slates with some very interesting green spots among the purple. Nance commented that we had struggled over what color to go with and in the end kind of wound up with a little of both our choices.

We're both excited to put down this floor tomorrow.