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Our Mix-N-Match Bathroom Floor

November 28, 2012 By Frugal Babe

My last post, about the sheet I turned into a curtain, included a picture that had a small strip of our new bathroom floor, and I promised more details soon.  Here are a couple of pictures of the floor right after we finished it:

IMG_6702

Please excuse the unfinished everything.  The vanity was another Craigslist find, and needs a bit of sprucing up.  And the bathtub protector isn’t the most photogenic thing ever.  But I love the floor!

And here it is again, looking the other direction:

IMG_6700

I absolutely love how the mix-n-match tile turned out!  And we did it for about $50 in supplies, plus a tile saw that we’re now reselling.

We knew we wanted tile in our bathroom, and I knew that the local used building supply store sold tile.  So a few months ago, I loaded up the boys and we went to browse around the tile selection.  They had a huge supply of tiles, but not a lot of any one type.  So we spent a while picking out an assortment of tiles.  Our four-year-old helped me look for tiles that had coordinating colors and were roughly the same size, and we loaded up the back of our car.  We spent a total of $45 for all the tile, and we knew we had more than enough to do our bathroom (I wanted to be able to pick and choose when it came time to lay down the tile, so I gave us a lot of wiggle room).  Some of the tile still had their original price tags on the back, and I saw some that were six dollars a square foot, and lots that were three dollars a square foot.  So we felt pretty good about our $45 total.

A few weeks ago, I went to Home Depot and got mortar (about $15), tile spacers ($2), grout ($13), and a tile saw ($90).  We already had some other tools, like trowels and a grout float.  I tried to get a used tile saw on Craigslist, but nobody responded to my inquiries for the two posted listings, so I went ahead and got the one at Home Depot.  I have someone who is supposed to come over tomorrow to buy it from us for $50.  So our total cost for the tile saw will end up being $40.  That is quite a bit less than the 24 hour rental rate for a tile saw at Home Depot (granted, it’s a big fancy one that they rent out, but the small one worked just fine for this project, and we ended up spending two afternoons on this floor, so it was definitely better to buy the saw and resell it, rather than rent.  Many thanks to my sister, who came and spent the first afternoon working on the floor with me!).

Once we finished the floor, I listed the saw, excess tile and leftover grout on Craigslist.  Someone came and bought the grout and tile this evening, for $25.  So our total cost for materials ended up being fifty bucks ($75 that we spent, less the $25 that we got when we sold the excess materials), and the tile saw adds another forty.

We’re thrilled with how this project turned out.  If you’re planning to tile a small space and are open to the possibility of a mix-n-match design, check Craigslist and/or used building supply stores before you buy brand new tile.  You’ll end up with a completely unique floor, and will probably save a good amount of money in the process.

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