I should add that professional tilesetters did the installation of the large format tiles, after I set up the wedi. The mosaic is the only visible part I'm responsible for. I think they did a *great job and were very obliging to work with. They did the large tile and left me beautiful, level, clean-lined openings for my strips.

They wanted to do the install of the mosaic too, saying that that kind of work is what they really love to do, but after having done this much of the install, I can already confidently tell them they would have ended up with no hair. I'm being rather anal about tolerances...

LOVE it!

Well it's about time you got some photos up! ; )

I'm glad it's finally coming to fruition.

And careful with those photos. I changed over to Macs about a year ago, I logged on yesterday to find somewhere in the neighborhood of 42,000 photos missing from iPhoto. I have backups, but...what a pain.

What a beautiful job! Amazing work. I love the look and the style of the mosaic marching across the bathroom wall.

Wow!

Semi:

It's FABULOUS Fly! Really distinctive, and perfect, actually, with your large format tiles.

On a different note - Any news of Yuri?

Very nice, Fly!! Definitely OOAK!

Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!!

wow, love it, so differnt!

oh fly- really fantastic! oh yeah, can totally not see you giving over the install!!

spectacular. looking forward to the finale fotos.

Wow-oh-wow!!!! Love it! So cool and so different. :-)

What is your field tile BTW?

I love it too...just beautiful. Great colors and pattern...it is going to be awesome!!!

Why hello, you all -- thanks for the kind words! (and mongo, thanks for the ... words LOL--I know it doesn't meet your extremely high precedent for WIP shots..I actually have a few of the wedi before the walls were tiled, if you want to see those...if I can ever figure out how I got the pics off the camera in the first place!) I respect you all so much--I guess we've got a new subset diagnosis of TKOness--TTO: Totally Tile Obsessed :). We went to the science museum today,near Pratt & Larson, and it was SO hard not to pop in and see what was in the outlet! It seriously does change. When we went in and got all the iridescent/metallic tiles back in December, I figured they were always there, but when I went back in February, an entirely different set of seconds/overruns was in the outlet, nowhere near as interesting. It was pure kismet that we were able to find what we did, and especially odd in that I had gone there specifically to try to match a pre-made border of iridescent pencil tiles from some subset of AO. Ha haha...I held the sample of that first border we planned to buy up against the crazy quilt that is our current work, and had to laugh...one thing leads to another, I guess :)

The field tile was similarly fortuitous--we had looked a lot of places, including the higher-end stores, for large-format rectified tiles that didn't imitate stone and had the precise combination of warmth and cool and texture without being too textured...at all the best places I just couldn't find *anything*, and then we were walking through Lowes and I was casually going through the special order tile samples when I found The One! Or actually, The Two, since it also came in a darker nice warm grey that we put on the floor. I had a 10% off coupon, and got gift cards from craigslist for about 75% of their face value (love CL :) -- we verified first, met there and made sure of the value, etc.--no problems), and at that time all spec. order tile was 20% off! I think it was ordered through Emser, but I went back later to try to get the actual name of the tile, the sample was *gone*. It was there only that day for me, right? :)

Very happy making, along with the Pratt & Larson seconds and Ikea solid birch bath furniture found in As-Is (it's a freestanding washstand and cabinets, not built-in so if it falls apart, we can always get something else), and the Toto Nexus fixtures we got online at an extremely good price. All it took beyond that was my blood, sweat, tears, and every so often my sanity :)

Your replies have given me renewed determination to go back and futz with the 9.5" borders and get this thing *done*. Grouting should be fun--a local mosaicist friend who is a complete master of very intricate pique assiette (not shabby chic chintz at all) has offered to help me grout it..don't know if I dare show her my "Monk" side...

OH, and sweeby--NOTHING! :( I wrote again recently to ask if anyone had a chance to look at my pics, and I got no reply at all. The admin had been snippy in our other exchanges...I wonder if she even ever showed it to anyone. I only wrote because it was UPenn, one of my alma maters, and they *offer* to look at pics sent to give informal evaluations.

How sweet of you to remember, though :) He sits up on my desk, creeping me out every so often...

Actually, now that I took another look at it, that wall tile looks very familiar-- like the same exact tile I just installed on Stacyneil's floor. :-)

Is it really, Bill? What a coincidence, and one I'm proud to be associated with. It's an off-white, matte-ish with subtle stratiations and little glimmers, but nothing really extreme? I can't find the name of the tile on the boxes but the boxes were black and said "Charisma" (not the name of the tile) and that it was (sigh) made in China. Is that the same thing?

fly, that looks wonderful!! I can't wait to see photos of the finished room. And I looooove your ingenuity and bargain shopping. That is so US, too :) (except for our lucky, lucky bathroom funded by the insurance mold settlement, where we got to splurge uncharacteristically!)

You are going to have a super high-end room for a relatively small outlay. Love it!

Fantastic, absolutely fantastic!

Did you go on the USS Blueback when you were at OMSI? I haven't been to OMSI in years (don't have any kids) but last time I did I toured the sub and it was very interesting.

Your mosaic of Terri Irwin's cougar is sooo good and the thought of it traveling from Oregon to go on Steve's memorial wall made me cry. I don't think a celebrities death has ever hit me harder than his did. What an amazing thing to do for Terri.

Love your Mid Century Modern house too.

Beautiful, Bill (as is that limestone hotel install in another thread--I just gazed at that for several minutes). I can't tell from there, though, whether it's exactly the same--same shape, to be sure.

staceyneil, did your floor tile come from Emser or Lowe's, and did it come in a black box marked "Charisma"? Wouldn't that be funny if we gravitated toward the same tile.

...and mold, hm? That was what made us remodel the room too--never thought to bill insurance!(but DD caused it, we think, by not having the fan on long enough) Could we have gotten money for it? Rats...

buyorsell, thanks! Are you in Portland? We have been on the Blueback in the past. It is interesting...right now there's a truly information-rich exhibit on Space that's closing very soon. DD has become interested in astrophysics, of all things, recently, and been all over the net researching--we went to the exhibit and she loved it--she didn't learn much, but got what she'd been finding confirmed and organized, in a way -- but I sure learned a lot! (DH and I know pretty much nothing about the topic and I have to find resources for her to interact with) It's definitely worth going even as an adult with no kids, seriously.

And ach...you take me back to that wonderful project. I can tell you the hairs on my arms stood up regularly as I made that piece...it was just too amazing that we happened to do a cougar-advocacy table at a kids environment fair where a man who used to know Terri when she had Malina just *happened* to have a table next to us. I've never seen the man since, not done the table again at that fair...but the timing of the coincidence is still so spooky to me. And then to have the picture of the two of them sent to me via e-mail by a mosaic friend in Australia...(I found it later here myself but she had the book and alerted me to the picture of Malina--I wouldn't have known there was a pic of the precise animal herself!) Someday I want to go to the Zoo and meet Terri in person--I have no idea if she even knows about Malina, but I want to make sure she does. Heck, even our daughters are close to the same age...and thanks for the nice words about our humble abode. Not a Rummer, but then again it has a larger yard :)

Yes, I'm in Portland. :)

Maybe I shall run over the see the space exhibit. I'm very fond of space if Captain Kirk or Han Solo are flying through it ;) It has been a long time since I've been to OMSI.

Fly- I was a Fine Arts major at UPenn... how funny!

buyorsell: Well hey there, neighbor! We're actually going back there on Friday--DH is interested and there's more there still for me to learn. The human interest side is made so *real* when juxtaposed with the physical realities. And we may just stop by P&L to see what's cooking in the outlet, maybe :) I *could* do the fireplace, too, I guess....but I get ahead of myself...still have to do the stair risers :)

And pepperidge farm: well hey there, fellow UPenn grad :) I was there for doctoral work in nonformal education. Yep. Your major explains your beautiful work on your home :) What were/are your favorite media? Or were you more curatorially (is that a word?)-focused?

Penn grads...nothing but trouble. ; )

mongo, did you go to Penn? If not, just for that comment we'll give you an honorary degree :)

And you know, I actually thought of you and your aeronautic past when I was in that exhibit...you're the closest I get to knowing any real life pilots, much less astronauts, although when I was a kid my parents took me to an Open House when Neil Armstrong's home was on the market--it was packed, don't think that all the people there were possible buyers :).

And since you're here, to help a homeschooling sista out, do you have any favorite resources for astrophysics and the like? I also wish mindstorm were still around, seeing as she's an actual "rocket scientist" and all...

No, I married a Penn/Wharton girl. A little tongue-in-cheek with my previous post, I'm happily married in a most ridiculous sort of way.

I did meet Armstrong a few times several years ago. He was having a rough go of things back then.

No. Sorry, no astrophysics resources for homeschooling. We did physics, we did some astronomy. We did some orbital mechanics, predicting orbital characteristics of man-made satellites in low- and geosynchronous earth orbit. But not anything related to deep-space. My kids got to "fly" in a shuttle simulator. A couple old flying buddies were in the shuttle program.

It's gorgeous, flyleft! This might just be my new inspiration. After a period-appropriate remodel of our Portland bungalow, I'm back to remodel the bath of our 1925 Baltimore rowhouse - and I'm finding myself steering far, far away from period-appropriate...

Back to the backsplash...so gorgeous. Adore the texture and color within the lovely bands...the proportions are fantastic. You must be thrilled that it's looking this good, since I'm sure you ache in many, many places.

WHERE did my message go?!

*sigh*

Youngdeb, OH yes, you get it :) and na praha, I'm so flattered--thanks. And mongo -- ach, I'll write it out again tomorrow. RATS. I really thought I'd clicked all the way through but I guess I didn't and I'm too tired now to recompose it...see y'all tomorrow :)

Mongo- see, knew there was something about you! You fell for a Penn gal!!

Fly- I sculpted... miss it terribly, but the concept of 3D creation always stays with me! Plumbing is like my sculpture now. My job is in the sciences though, my other passion.

I have been dying to do some type of mosaic for ages and you are inspiring me...

UGH...I've been having wall-to-wall migraines for the past week...fighting one now but have a few minutes. This has really not been enjoyable. Can't figure out why, either. But anyway...I'm way late on this reply so please forgive me and forgive any brain blips that may occur in it.

mongo: what pepperidge farm said :) Penn/*Wharton*?? OY, I took the worst course I've ever had in all my overeducation, at least the worst I can remember at this point, at Wharton...it was "Group Dynamics." My lands, that was a BAD class. So out-of-date it was painful. Ask your ridiculously wonderful :) wife if she had to take it when she was at Wharton--I remember at least in the 90s (I was a 'returning' student) it was a mandatory 'classic course' for Whartonites/Whartonians (?). There were several in our pod/cell/section/whatever it was called. Nice folks to suffer through a weekend with, btw :)
na praha, thank you! How very flattering :). This weekend I plan to put my head down and plow through a lot more of it, maybe some grouting, even...breathe in, breathe out...
If you do make something like this, be prepared for getting more fastidious about groutlines than you ever have before; it's a hazard of making your own mosaics :). And if you're in Portland, you too can have the P&L resources at your command. The employees who rang us up were happy for us, finding tiles for $1 or $2/lb. that normally went for maybe at least $50, to maybe $150/sf. Textures, iridesence, metallic finishes, etc. WAY too much fun if you're TTO like me :) (and I'm blanking--is there a thread where you posted the bungalow remodel pics? Have I seen them? Seriously, my memory is like swiss cheese...but I'd love to see them if possible)

p.f.: Oh dear...3d mosaics...would you like me to post some links? You could be opening a door to the most fun you've had in a studio...3d mosaics are so phenomenal, and even if you stick with 2d, your sense of space/spatial relations on a plane will be a blast to explore. I'll stick with 2d, and link to just one person who uses reclaimed materials, including plumbing (!) in her work. Beyond cool, with theory behind it (she's a recovering academic like me :)). I can post a few other links for you to have fun with, with 3d, but this is just a (mostly) 2d start.

Here is a link that might be useful: there's lots more, if you prefer representational...

Wow, she is prolific! I am partial to this one!!

I really really like it.
I am actually going to be laid up for 4 weeks this summer.... I think I need to go out shopping for supplies!!!! I am getting inspired!

Glad you liked it--I thought you might. She's probably the most conceptual, a-g mosaicist I know. My personal favorite, which I consider a masterpiece of push-method groutlines, is below.

What I love about her stuff is that it seems so *right*, so almost "DUH, why didn't I think about that" -- I get jealous of the time she has (she has *made*, I should say), to explore her thinking about mosaics in such a deep, comprehensive way. Her background is not in art training but rather in anthro (mine is too, partially), and I can see her training in examining means of signification on a meta-level come out in her work. She takes nothing for granted. It's not meant to be 'beautiful' in any traditional sense but rather dynamic, thought-provoking, and multivalent. She's definitely crossed into museum-worthy art, IMO.

Here is a link that might be useful: just flat out brilliant. I like it better than the 69 insecurities

OH, and I meant to say I'm sorry you'll be laid up--when will it happen?...but many's the time I've read on the mosaic lists about mosaics being the only thing that has kept folks sane when they've had to be on bedrest or whatever or recuperating from surgery. Of course, some folks say they can't even get to that level of concentration for a long time after surgery, but everyone's experiences are different. I prefer to go straight into denial and ":ask for the latest party":, iykwim -- I was up doing stretches in the cardiac ICU the morning after an angiogram, nearly giving my nurse a heart attack of his own :) -- so maybe you'll find mosaics this summer and produce a passel o' work to start you rolling! Seriously though, I will be sending wishes for quick uncomplicated recovery, no matter what time you decide to pick up the nippers :)

Thanks.You understand- when the body betrays the spirit!

I didn't think I would like that one looking on close-up, but as the finished panel, it has wonderful movement and energy.

I guess I can start with a small thing... like a trivet? Want to do a table top. Want to do a mirror. Want to do just a wall piece. But, I can start with a small thing.

I knew an artist who while working on a little cabin he bought decided to put the most extraordinary mosaic on the floor of the bathroom (see, we got back to the bathroom forum purpose). It was not his primary medium, however his creativity just came through in everything he did. I had always hoped that I would get to mosaics by the time I was ready to tile a bath, kitchen... but did not.
Need to practice a bit, then perhaps when the basement bathroom plumbing needs to be redone (what did the prev homeowners do behind those walls??) I may be ready to get creative!

Probably a good idea to start with something small. Like me, I started with a Sicis waterglass kitchen backsplash LOL...fools do rush in, evidently :) but the price savings over professionally made was too enticing.

I really look forward to seeing what you do with your actual art-training background. Please consider posting your pieces on the HD forum--you know you'll get plenty of positive feedback :)

You can come do my pool!

Star with something small...like my hot tub...then move on to the pool. I'll provide coffee and donuts.

You're both hired! Now git here and git to work!

Oops, I almost forgot...you two aren't "tilers", you are mosaicisciscismists. That's like being an artist or something.

So instead of "coffee and donuts", I suppose I'll have to provide you with cappucinos, latte's, and pastries.

Harumph!

You are too funny!

Pool tiling and mosaic... that sounds like fun! Can you just picture what a cool project that could be?!

Remember a year or 2 ago there were some really awesome photos of mosaics that someone posted.... what an inspiration.

I take my caffeine and sugar in whatever form it comes!

Off to get supplies!!!

p.f., did you make that image? It's too funny! I need to print it out :)

And mongo, how about a barter? This mosaicistmatisitst will do pretty inlays for your cement ponds if you'll do one of your masterful remodels for our one remaining inhouse-outhouse. I'm seeing a custom teak vanity...

Road trip! lol

Ha--like a progressive dinner--we could have progressive home improvement :)

And I *should*, if I get enough time this weekend, have the whole 3 walls done (4th wall is tbd by DD...or probably me, if I get sick of waiting for her...). I wonder if I should break out the 'panoramic view' setting on the camera and see if I can capture something like that..

I like the progressive home reno... that works!! But I think my baking skills are still far superior to my tiling...

definitely break out the pano camera!

The pic was "given" to me be one of the guys over at JB... I photo shopped it with the trowel ;-)

flyleft, how did you decide on a design? I would probably wing a picture frame but certainlly not something as big as shower trim or backsplash. I'll be doing bathroom in July.........Wouldn't it be fun to have mosaic instead of the USUAL trim edges!