Mosaic Madness, the Sequel

It is with great relief that I bring you the documented completion of one of the many projects on my winter agenda!

The guest bath, as you may recall, was subjected to a whirlwind of decorating after the NYT called wanting to give me two of my five minutes of fame. With what amounted to a two day notice, I was able to bring the functional-but-not-much-else guest bath into the realm of almost finished with some paint and accessories, but the tub surround, well.... that was more than I could manage in 48 hours.
So ever since we moved in, and while the rest of the room was professionally photographed and published for posterity, here's what that tub surround has looked like:

Ready and waiting for my next great idea. And ever since we moved in, I've been letting it simmer on the back burner of my brain, but I was never able to nail myself down to anything specific or interesting or cool enough. Because my original foray into mosaic madness with our master bath set the bar pretty darn high.

I went out on a limb and put this project on my "MUST FINISH" list for this winter, and with the prospect of some fancy house guests coming for a visit and really just being sick of looking at a partly finished room, I was finally able to make a move. Or several moves, since I ended up sourcing several different products from different places.


That's seven or eight types of tile ranging from 1"x3" glass to 3/8" glazed ceramic and it arrived in various states of readiness for setting. A quick little project this was not, but I guess that's just my kind of insanity.

Because anything for art, right?

To give you an idea of the timeline, here's my day one progress. I think it amounted to about four square feet, and that's not counting the MANY HOURS I had to spend meticulously arranging about eighty gajillion 3/8" loose tiles into foot long strips of single tiles held together with skinny tape. It was WHACK, and do I need to tell you how much fun it is to spend the day working at floor level?
Ouch.


Day two, minus many more unseen hours of wee tile arranging:


Fast forward several days in which many pain relievers were consumed, back rubs begged, and more wee tiles lined up and taped. Grout was applied and meticulously detailed. Arms and fingers ached, curses were hurled, but finally we have the finished product:


That bit on the far side of the vanity goes all the way across to the other side of the room. My plan is to run those rows to about midway up the wall next to the vanity and mirror and as soon as I get another free minute, I'm going to get that part up.
Such delicious randomness, isn't it?
It's been finished for a few weeks, but I still can't help myself from going in there to admire it a couple of times a day.