I needed some spacers and didn’t feel like going to the hardware store to buy moooor supplies, so I used a mushroom icon and removed the details, then cut a bunch of them out of 1/4” Purebond plywood scraps.
Before adding in the spacers and cutting the tile down…
I did learn that if you are going to use wooden spacers, you should remove them once you are done with the mortar and not leave them for 24 hrs. It isn’t as if the mortar is goin to shift, and about 10 of them had to be minutely wiggled out because they had absorbed water and swollen tight.
Tada! Perfectly good enough for a new built-in pantry floor! Also, even though I love hexes, I am so glad that I got to try laying them out in a small space, because getting them truly lined up was a minor pain, and doing it on a larger project would have been a unwelcome hassle
I bet you could have lasered120-degree y-shaped spacers to help you with the hex alignment. Put a small pilot hole right at the vertex and you could use a hook or even a screw/nail to pull them out.
You’d slot them in at the corners and everything would have been perfectly aligned.
@evansd2 ah ha – but you are assuming that every tile itself is actually a perfect hex, in which case, that solution totally would have worked. I thought about it for a bit, thought about how using the squishy white spacers never worked out well doing that (turns out you are supposed to leave those in the mortar? Who knew?!), and decided for weird mushrooms instead.
@deirdrebeth hoping to make it more fancy with some custom fused glass tiles with laser engraved kitchen designs on them as the spacer between the original kitchen tile and the new work as a next step, although maybe after adding some shelves!
@evansd2 There is one edge that is slightly different than the others, so they are fine if you don’t accidentally rotate them and lay them all the same, but I didn’t realize that until I started cutting the small pieces. There is a reason that professional tile layers say not to buy at the big box stores
Thank you @cynd11 , @kelley1 , and @ca_worth ! Your compliments reminded me that I still have to make some glass tiles to go between them. Better do it this week before I lose all motivation for tiling for the next year
in my first house I put down about 650 sq feet of Ceramic floor tile. My dad used to work for Florida Tile, and I got it for 1 a square foot. it looked like marble. they discontinued the style. the employees all loved it and bought it all up.
my last house I put down 1100 sq feet of LVP. that was a project. 13 transitions, including 9 doorways and stairs.. 45 degree angle walls. i had to make a special tool to snap the pieces together. put the last piece of 1/4 round down the day before we put the house on the market.
current house put down 3200 pounds of pavers. around the hot tub/gate areas.
cannot move. I cannot handle the weight of what the next project would be. LOL
