Indoor Stylin'

Over the past few months James and I have been scurrying around the house.  I think the wedding led us to some hardcore nesting at the house.

January was spent looking at old videos of Casa Martinez and then cataloguing more than 150 episodes.  I was proud of the work that our team produced.  Many of the topics were still timely.  It is a kick to see yourself on camera as a woman who is 20 years younger than the one you see in the morning as you brush your teeth.

It was also in January that James and I started to look at renovating our kitchen.  I'd been doing dribs and drabs of changes, but now we were on to taking cabinet doors down and painting them.  Our kitchen became one color  - Analytical Gray - with trim, rather than three colors with trim.

One night while we were at Ikea, James asked about the work they do with countertops.  Long story short; they were too exacting for us to go ahead with them, but the seed had been planted.  Before we knew it we were zooming around looking for countertop stores, tiles, and tilers.

In the course of the search we found the following places helpful:
Tap and Tile, Duarte Tile and Stone, CV Tile and Stone, Colores de Mexico, Patricio Tile, B&W Tile, and Gon'z Decorations, Inc.

Cabinet City in San Gabriel was our choice for countertop.  The workers that came to remove our old counter and to set its replacement reminded me what it's like to work with folks with whom you don't share a common language.  James was in the lead on that effort and I think I poured him a scotch shortly thereafter.

Thanks to input from artist and friend Liz Espinoza we decided to go with 3" tile.

Do you know that that is unusual?  I learned it is.  Which is why the list of tile places is so long.

Miguel, of Colores de Mexico, highly recommended Marco the Tile Man.  After a couple of false starts he came to the house to start the work.  He shook his head when he saw that we had 3" tiles.  The mathematical work needed was going to be too great.  Then I showed him a mock-up that James had done.

That changed everything.  We were ready to zip down Tile Road.

This was the only picture I was able to get of Marco.  He gathers no moss.  

And we enjoy the benefit of that fact.