Our Home Part - 5

I lied. The first thing I actually did when the contractors were out was tile the laundry room floor. In fact, they might have still been there. We had moved our old washer and dryer into the basement while the building was happening and the dryer broke about halfway through the build.  We had always planned on getting new washer and dryers, but we wanted them to be delivered to the new laundry room on the second floor.  Dragging new machines up from the basement just didn’t seem like a good idea.  So we decided to wait.  Hanging all the laundry felt like I was back in Berlin before I’d discovered ventless dryers.

So as soon as I was able to get in there, I did the laundry room floor.  I have a thing for encaustic cement tiles in laundry rooms.  I do it a lot and I think it just works.  I think it’s the personality the encaustic cement has.  It’s tricky and high maintenance, but also robust.  Kind of like doing laundry.   Encaustic cement tiles need to be sealed multiple times when installed and then again every year.  And they still may be porous enough to show every stain.  But what is wonderful about them is that the pigment is mixed into the top 1/8” layer of the tile, so a chip would show the same colour inside.  And that matte colour can almost be seen though the tile…  A lot like the Farrow & Ball paint I was talking about.

My intension was to do a grey/brown and black 4-grouped checkerboard.  But there is only one place in Toronto that sells real encaustic cement tiles and they were still dealing with covid shortages.  So I settled on another colour combo, oh wait, they don’t have that either, and another.  Okay, finally I got something in stock.  I picked up the zebra stripe pattern and brought them home.  I laid them out in a bunch of different patterns and decided the classic zip-zag/herringbone worked best.

I also decided to forgo the standard practice of installing a uncoupling membrane underneath the tile because the encaustic cement tiles are so thick that adding that extra material would bring the flooring in the laundry room at least 1/2” higher than the wood in the hall.  One of the best things about a new build is being able to achieve a continuous level floor between rooms.  So instead I “painted” Redgard over the entire floor and siliconed the edges at the walls.

I also installed them butted up to one another, leaving minimal space for grout because that’s how they were traditionally installed and it works so well with the pattern.  Like so many hand-made tiles, such as terra-cotta and Zellige, the imperfections are what makes the tile beautiful.  Not everyone wants to see imperfections in their newly renovated home, but I think your home should be a reflection of you.  Without personality and imperfections life can get a little boring.

Next up the wood flooring.

To be continued…