Kitchen: a night on the tiles...

All systems are go in the kitchen. The blue and orange tiles have been removed. They came off very cleanly with a sharp knock of a hammer on the end of a scraper, which was prised behind each tile. We've painted over the orange walls in white to make it easier to see which areas need working on the most.

Sanding. Ugh. Mr Modern Country is in charge of the sanding. This is the only room in the house whose walls haven't been skimmed so there is a definite, shall we say, rustic feel to the room.

The search for the right tile was long and arduous but the mission is now complete! Did you know there must be a gazillion cream tiles out there? And that's a gazillion different shades of cream. I settled on one particular tile a few times and even went as far as lugging home a tile board from a shop in town, but I knew it wasn't 'The One' so kept on searching and, boy, am I glad I did.

I wanted a thick, chunky, dirty cream (i.e. not too pure a colour) 10cm by 10cm tile. I didn't mind whether or not they were handmade but I didn't want them to look regular and machine-made, with identically uneven edges. Don't you hate that?


I found an online tile shop that ship samples and ordered pretty much every one of their cream tiles! But the pain and anguish was worth it. I knew as soon it that it was The One: Caleidos in Cream. Divine! The perfect Modern Country Style tile!

We ordered 200 from Tiles of Stow, whose customer service was excellent. It's exactly what we wanted.....well, exactly what I wanted. Gorgeous Mr Modern Country thinks one cream tile looks much like the next.



The tiling has begun! We're only retiling around the sink and cooking area, rather than all the way along the tops of worktop, as it used to be. What about the bits that used to be covered by tiles? Well, now...... that's a surprise!