Here we go.........

Time to stop talking and start tiling. I started out by deciding exactly where I want the accent strip of tiles to go, which is directly along the line defined by the placement of the wall sconces that will sit on each side of the mirror above the sink. you can see the place where one of those sconces will go right in the center of this picture. I used a level to draw a line directly on the wall, and then nailed a thin board just under that line. I laid the single row of black accent tiles so that they sat right on that board, and then started in with the 12" x 12" sheets of marble strips. I thought these would be impossible to cut, but found out that I could snap them easily with tile nippers. So I put up a row of 12" x 12" sections, and then filled in the ends out to the wall, some with whole strips and some that I cut to fit. Here is a view of the edge of a row. This one obviously is not at the end of the wall, but you can see that if it was, i would need to fill in those jaggedy edges. As I approached the edge of the wall, I stopped when there was about 6" more to go. Then I picked out pieces that were various sizes so that it "matched" the randomness of the sizes within each sheet of strips. Sometimes I had to cut a piece to get a good fit, but most of the time I could sort through the pieces I had romoved from whole sheets just so I would have a bunch of single pieces to use for the edges. After putting a couple of sheets on the wall, I hammered in a little nail under the top corner strips of each sheet. That kept the sheet from slipping down the wall before the mortar was set. They stuck up pretty well all by themselves, but I didn't want to come back later and see that they had slid down even a little. All in all, I was surprised at how easy these were to put up. But there is a randomness to them, and a little droop here and there, so this is not something I would recommend for someone who is freacked out with slight imperfections. You can see that in the picture just to the right - - The strips are not absolutely perpendicular to each other, and the joints where they meet are a little more "regular" than the random pattern within each sheet. You can see that clearly in this picture of the wall after all the tile was up. You can see where the sheets meet right now, partly just because you can see the wall more clearly. But after the grout is up, I think those joints will be nearly impossible to see. In order to make them less obvious, I staggered the sheets to avoid having a ceiling-to-floor line of evenness . It is kind of hard to explain in words, but I think those lines are easy enough to see right now.

So all the wall tiles are up and the mortar is setting. The next step is to remove all the little nails, wipe this down and then seal the tile to get ready for grout. While that is setting, I will paint the other walls. If I didn't mention it before, I painted the ceiling before putting up the wall tiles. Now I am wishing I had already painting the walls, but too late for that now.