Where do I start?? I love your colorful, cheerful, fun laundry!! I could never have envisioned those tiles laid. and painting the cabinets just made a night and day difference. Then you went above and beyond with the wall treatment--love it!! Beautiful house, beautiful boys! Must also comment on your finger. Was it diagnosed as arthritis or is that just an assumption? I ask because it sounds like my middle finger. I developed a "trigger finger" after a project that required much repetitive motion. If so, it is treatable. Thinking of you and your little one and will be watching for more pics of your projects! Liz

Check out Granada Tile's Echo collection, which also has a supercool design tool for their cement encaustic tile. They provide a zillion different designs and you can fill in colors to your heart's content. There are often pallets of old wooden factory floor blocks on our local Craigslist, is this the sort of thing you mean? We see these when they dismantle one of the old turn-of-the-century mills here in Maine. I bet they'd be amazing all cleaned up! Here is a link that might be useful: Granada Tile

I have not installed it or used it personally, but I did read an interesting blog post where someone used encaustic cemenet tile as their kitchen floor. They detailed the installation procedure and it did seem like it was a lot of work but possible to do! Maybe you will find it helpful! http://www.bowerpowerblog.com/2016/03/paint-tile-for-our-basement-kitchen/

I'm so sorry you're going through this! I've been through my share of nightmare projects, too. New houses are NOT immune from warped wood, out of plumb/out of square construction, or any of the other problems generally associated with older homes. Modern wood used for studs and joists (especially that found in big box stores) is often still "wet", or contains moister/sap that will react to different temperatures and humidities. The cut of the wood (cut to get the maximum amount of lumber out of a tree) will often lend itself to warping, cupping and twisting, putting everything down the line out of whack, including your tile. I'm afraid you won't be happy with the results of them patching together the tiles that were left. If it were my project, I would have them take it back to the studs and true everything up the right way before tiling. I'd also have them re-tile the whole thing on their dime; but that all depends on what was in the contract and how good your GC is. Good luck and let us know how it all goes!