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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

Affordable patterned floor tile round-up. Plus Week 2 One Room Challenge bathroom progress

We kicked off demo and tile last weekend and the bathroom is already looking transformed! I'm working on an tutorial for how to lay medium-sized square tile but in the meantime, wow, I am so impressed by how the patterned tile we chose looks. It was crazy affordable and it's nothing ground-breakingly original, but it really makes a great statement and I am now all excited about patterned tile!

There are also a lot of temporary tile techniques out there these days. I have friends who've painted and stenciled their existing tile, or applied peel-and-stick. I'm sure these are good options sometimes, and it's a huge pain to tear out old tile, but in our houses we've always been replacing vinyl or linoleum, and real tile is the way to go. Tiling is probably #2 on my list of essential hardcore DIY skills (after installing light fixtures). It is NOT that hard! I am all about real tile instead of peel-and-stick if you can manage, and with some of these affordable options, it's a budget-friendly way to elevate a reno and get a high quality look!


New here?


If you're new to this blog from the ORC site, welcome!! I'm Suzannah, a longtime DIYer and design lover currently making over our 1937 Tudor revival style home, our second fixer-upper. I have a 2-year-old and newborn, but my husband and I have done almost all of the work on our homes ourselves! I've blogged about all of it so you can check out my tutorials page and room reveals to see. You can also follow along with me and my projects on Instagram! I also co-host the Your Home Story podcast!

See all my posts about this ORC here! And see:

First weekend progress


We made a bunch of progress last weekend: demo, lay tile board, lay tile. You have to wait about 24 hours in between mortaring the tile board and tiling, and between tiling and grouting, so we had some breaks, but other than that Jason worked hard both days!

Took these pics before we finished the edges. We tried a new method this time where we did all the whole tiles first. I'll share more about that/pros and cons, plus a full tutorial on laying medium sized square tile, next week!


Best beautiful, affordable patterned tile


This room will probably have white walls and trim (still deciding), and has a white pedestal sink instead of fun vanity due to size, and doesn't have a lot of other opportunities for color or interest. I want it to be pretty calm and universally appealing since we plan on selling this house sometime in the next few years. But all-white, all-solid colored elements was looking so boring on my mood boards. Rather than add color or pattern on the walls, I loved the look of adding it to the floor!

I looked around a lot for unique, fun tiles and was surprised at how many you can find easily accessible, with free shipping or in-store pickup, for less than $10/SF (some less than $3 or $5/SF!). Even once you add in the cost of the tile board, tile board screws, mortar, and grout, it is NOT super expensive to tile an entire 50 SF or 100 SF bathroom, and the right tile can make a huge impact!!

Thanks for following along! Subscribe to my blog by entering your email in the black box on the right ("GET NEW POSTS BY EMAIL") and see all the posts about this ORC project hereYou can also check out the ORC blog for the rest of the 6-week challenges! There are 20 featured designers plus tons of other guests like me!

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