beautiful slate.

We are restoring the hardwood floors in every room in the house - with the exception of the upstairs bathroom, also called the Master Bath or the "Parents' Bathroom".  There was excessive water damage in this old bathroom, but we carefully salvaged the good wood and used it to repair a portion of the wood floors in the kitchen.  (It was a meaningful recycling job!)

As you can imagine, selecting the flooring for the one room that would not have the original wood was a big decision.  I looked at lots of flooring options.  First decision made was that I wanted a natural stone because the house deserves it.  When I saw the DalTile soft slate color called Autumn Mist, it was love at first sight. 
(After I saw a similar slate color on the flooring in the servants' quarters in the PBS series Downton Abbey, the deal was sealed!)

The only 'problem" with Autumn Mist is that the color palette of this natural stone is quite varied.  Solution: We are using the softer colors in the Master Bath and putting the more intense colors on the floor in Mike's Office Room in the basement. 

It was an exciting day when the tile arrived and we carefully divided the colors between soft, silvery, bluish grey slate - and not soft, silvery slate. We laid out all the slate tiles on the kitchen floor. It made for a fun date night. (One of my favorite things about this particular slate is that you don't honestly know how to describe the color - except wonderful.)

This week Mark laid the slate tiles in the upstairs bath, and today he grouted the floor and the shower pan tiles.  May I just say - I had no idea how many layers and seal coats and elaborate "things" go into a shower pan! There is a lot a groundwork before any of those tiles were laid.