Bathroom progress - tiles

Ok, so we haven't done anything much yet....except, miracle of miracles, decided on the tiles! It took an afternoon in Bunnings (fail) and then about 30 minutes at an actual tile store (yay!).

We started on Saturday, heading to Bunnings armed with our new PowerPass cards so we could get trade discount prices. We umm-ed and ahh-ed, agreed and disagreed and then wrote down what we liked to find out what the trade price would be. There are two ways to look at this really, one, be satisfied to know that Bunnings mustn't be ripping regular people off too much with their markups or two, be disappointed that the discount was only like 50c per tile ($3-$4 a square metre). We went with a mixture of the two and walked away from the $57 per sqm tiles. The trip wasn't a complete failure though. The bloke in the tile department gave us the complete run down on everything from waterproofing to grout and sealing, including quantities and why to choose one brand over another. Score!

So, we return home wondering what to do next. Do we make the trek up to Sydney to a discount tile place A has found out about or do we try a tile store in Canberra next weekend? Then we realise that while we have a public holiday Monday, poor old NSW doesn't so a trip out to the tile store in Queanbeyan sounds far better than a drive to Sydney next weekend!

This is the miraculous part! It took no more than 30 minutes, from walking in the door to walking out with a quote and two sample pieces of tile, for us to make a decision. And there was no great compromise on either part! We did take a little while to decide on one feature tile over another but it was just a matter of holding each one up at different places against the main tile for us both to come to the same conclusion. As I said, a miracle. I think we're getting better at this stuff! Maybe because we both have a better idea of what we like and the look we want to head towards now than when we first started. And the price was well within the ball park - the main tile was marked at $38 per sqm and the feature at $56 per sqm. The quoted prices - $26 and $48 respectively - with the next delivery of the main tile coming in next Friday. Big thumbs up to Rivoland Tiles and the helpful sales assistant!

This is the picture we were trying to emulate in our tile choices.

Source: majertiles.com.au via Christie on Pinterest

And this is what we ended up bringing home...

Now we're just waiting on a window quote and then we're hoping to start on the toilet the weekend after next...

The big question is still will it all be done in the next 80 days?