#14 - Under the woodstove

One of the big selling points of this house when I was looking to buy a home was the glorious woodstove in the living room.  The previous owners had it professionally installed, but they planned to finish the tiling underneath themselves.  Like many other projects, it still wasn't completed when ownership transferred to me.  I added it to my house projects list; however, things like updating the electrical wiring took priority over cosmetics.  The good part was that the fireproof pad for tile was already in, so I could have a fire without the tile being in.

My starting point ...

I had planned on using ceramic tile and making some sort of mosaic out of odds and ends.  However, when I went to Color Tile earlier this week, the ceramic tile they had in stock was almost all beige.  Beige is not my thing ... after years of white and off-white in apartments, I want to use colors in my home.  I wandered through the corners though and found some great stone pieces to work with.  There were even a few triangle pieces already cut that would help in the odd corners of my mat.  The price was right too at $2 per 12" square since I was shopping through their remainders.

Deciding how to lay out the tiles

I didn't have a specific pattern as I worked, but just worked things in.  One of the pieces I bought was much larger than the rest.  I had originally planned to center it under the stove, so it wouldn't be so hard to reach under and lay in smaller pieces, but I liked it so much that I kept sliding it around to see it.  One of the styles that had smaller pieces was hard to take apart, so I ended up using many of the same size squares.

All finished

I'm very happy with the result.  It really dresses up an area of the living room that was blah.  And now I think I'm going to go curl up with a book by the fire ... :)

Already in use