{ One Room Challenge | Week 5 }

Week 5...how did this get here so quickly?! 

This week was crazy but Mark did get most of the tile on the wall (insert happy dance!)

This tile. 
It is gorgeous just coming out of the box and up on the wall it is PER-FECTION!  

If you are just stopping by for the first time, so happy you are here! 


Thanks for taking a minute to checkout our ORC week 5 post. You can play catch up here for week 1, week 2, week 3, and week 4 if you are wondering how we got to this point of the challenge

This challenge is hosted by Linda from Calling It Home. The challenge is to take one room in your home and give it a face lift in only 6 weeks. These past 5 weeks have been really fun AND extremely challenging for us. I like to share about our house updates and since we've got this old home that needs a makeover of every square inch it's a great outlet for me to journal about our progress crazy life. It's been fun because I love seeing how a space changes even with just a can of paint, into a room that feels more like me, more like home, and something that I love. It's been challenging because we really don't have a lot of time. Like everyone, we are busy. If this was our day job it would be a lot easier but we both have jobs and the kids seem to always need something ha! Life happens. So we sneak in a little work here and there in our spare time! 

Because we need to work on our projects a little at a time, Mark went a little unconventional when it comes to setting the tile but honestly I think it's pretty genius what he ended up doing!

If you are unable to see the video the short and simple version of what he did is, instead of using tile adhesive that you spread a thin layer across the wall in small sections due to the fact that it dries pretty quickly, he used an adhesive called power grab. Applying it on each piece of tile and sticking each piece up individually as he went.

We also opted to not use spacers while setting the tile. Due to the arabesque shape of the tile it was difficult to use spacers...we tried, and each tile is slightly different so because of this we decided to eye ball each placement using approximately a 1/4 inch gap between each tile.

We still have a small section to complete and then we will be moving on to grouting. I'm having a hard time deciding what color grout to use. One really great benefit of using the power grab is we could paint the wall prior to putting up the tile so I could get an idea of what the tile would look like with different colors behind it. This was the genius part. To be able to get an idea of the color grout by looking at the wall color behind it is easier to make a final decision.
 I have the hardest time making decisions, choosing grout color is no exception. oy! 

I painted a little section of white, a little section of dark gray, and then the original wall color is a light gray/green...

So here are my choices after the tile was applied

Opinions on grout?

Last week I still wasn't sure what legs we were going to use for the bench Mark made but I had an idea pop into my head that was altogether different than what I was originally thinking. I tried finding something similar online but I couldn't find exactly what I had thought up in my mind, so I asked Mark if he thought he could make them. He made them and they are exactly.what.I.wanted. 

A quick sneak peak before the big reveal next week is up on Instagram!

Here we are one week to go until the big reveal and we still have to finish installing the tile, grouting the whole back splash, complete the bench, CLEAN, and accessorize. Oh I forgot to mention, the curtains I ordered from Joss and Main came the other day and they were the wrong color. boo. I had to return them and the color I had wanted was no longer available so I will be crossing my fingers to find something in time for next Thursday! 

Don't forget to check out all the other awesome ORC posts here and here for this week. Make sure to stop back next week for some eye candy when all of us show off our newly re-done rooms!

One last thing before I sign off this post...my cousin Kyle was involved in a very serious work accident last week and is currently in the hospital fighting for his life everyday.The power of prayer is being felt by all and I just ask, if you could take a second to send up a prayer for his body to heal and for his family to stay strong through it all, it would be a huge blessing. Thank you and blessings to you. 

All of the beautiful tile was provided by Mission Stone + Tile, all my comments regarding the tile are 100% my own opinions and clearly...I am in LOVE <3 font="">