Why I Oughta...

With the foundation and stand complete for our diy'd wood-fired pizza oven, I recently started turning to building the *actual* oven by cutting bricks last week.   The process of starting the actual oven begins with prepping the top of the hearth to accept the calcium silicate insulation boards.  Cal Sil boards are water-resistant, but you want to keep it as dry as possible so the mass of insulation works as ACTUAL insulation under the oven floor.   The latest innovation for dealing with water penetration that has been driven through the community over at Forno Bravo is the addition of mats of mosiac tiles - set upside down - on top of the reinforced hearth and under the insulation boards.  The idea is that by setting the mosiac tile upside (with the mesh/glue pieces facing up), you create little channels that any surface water that hits the hearth can find its way to the drain holes. I went up to a closeout flooring store on North Avenue in Northlake recently and bought some plain

Over the years, I've posted a few times on tilework done at Disney Parks.  It has been a source of inspiration and admiration both for us as we built our house and how we observe the world.  First, I covered the tilework in the Peter Pan queue in Fantasyland at Walt Disney World .  Then, I came across the tile in PizzaRizzo at Disney's Hollywood Studios .  Both served as inspiration for our vestibule tile work that we eventually incorporated into the house.  Today's post shows some tile that is the Ariel ride at Disney's California Adventure.  Turns out, this is, I think, called the San Felipe style of tile .  Think about the beating this tile is taking at Disney California Adventure.  Hundreds of thousands of people are walking across this every month.  And it looks great.  As we are beginning to think about our basement build-out, tile is something to think about and this struck some part of inspiration in me.  Now....we all know that I'm out of the c

The last update on our #NewOldFarmhouse showed off the drywall being hung and finished back a week or so ago .  Today, I'm sharing a few photos of the tile work being done in an upstairs bathroom that I think is coming together really nicely.  Nat has been the champion behind all of the design selections and she's done a really great job on all of it - including the tile. This bathroom has a retro-vibe to it and she's using 'penny tiles' that from this distance look a bit like hexagon tiles, but are all circles.  We had a hexagon tile bathroom floor in our last house, so I'm inclined to love the look, but in this one, she went in a little different direction by introducing a custom border around the room.  In the photo at the top, you can see the section that the tile guy is working on.  In that spot will be the pattern he's been building below.  If you look closely at the photo above, you can see a printout of the tile pattern right above the tile guy

All the way back in November, I shared a photo that showed off square tiles, set in a pattern that was from the queue of a ride that I thought might serve as good inspiration for the tile in our vestibule .  Just a week or so ago, I came across another tile pattern that stopped me in my tracks.  That's it above.   This is the ordering section of the new PizzaRizzo restaurant and as you can see above, is a mix of a main pattern and a few borders.  This uses both hexagons and squares.  Check out the close-up below to see how the hex's and the squares work together.   I'm out of the tile-selecting business (that's Nat's territory), but knowing she's a reader, here's hoping that this will influence her a bit in one of these directions.  She's already ruled out my first choice:  which was to put our last name in tile.  Then I wanted the house number.   Kinda like this .  Or even this with it smaller in one corner of the vestibule .   But I th

As we begin the *actual* building of our new old farmhouse (gasp!  Could *it* really be happening??  Appears that way, but I don't want to jinx us...), we now begin to move from the 'drawing phase' to more of the real, actual, 'selection phase'.  That's where Nat reigns and is in control of everything from the big decisions to the smallest detail.  We find out more this week in terms of schedule and such and will be updating our farmhouse blog in short order. But, as I know she reads the blog here, I figure I'll use this platform to try to influence her and persuade her to something I'm keen on:  this tile as seen in the queue in the Peter Pan ride at WDW. In our house at Hilltop, we have designed a vestibule of sorts right inside the front door before you enter the hallway.  If you've been in a period house from 100 years ago, you know the type.  Think about something like this .  Usually has an 'inside' door and serves as a sort of a