Didn't know Toby Keith had a restaurant. Still listen to the "unleashed" CD I got me when I was in Nashville almost 10 years ago....
I have no idea how that sign got in a construction dumpster, but it must be part of a chain of different restraunts with the same corporate head. I found it going after a few perfect sized green sheetrock scraps. If worst comes to worst it's always a sheet of grade A plywood.
Here's the tile project pics I finally got posted. Got the whole post wiped out twice in the process of posting, so this one went into an e-mail first.
The house had ceramic tile in the foyer that was a yellowish gold unobtanium that was half inch thick. It could have created a real eyesore to just start laying something completely different , and there was no door to shut between the two areas, so it was either tear the old tile out (not!) or find or make a close match. I started with something similar in a 13x13 that I found and when it seemed not quite right I looked into re-glazing and firing a new batch. I did several sample chips and then came up with a formula for a whole kiln full of pieces cut to the brick size. I floated the floor to compensate the difference in tile thickness.
Here is the foyer pattern with an immitation unobtanium tile I came up with.
I bought glaze a a couple places including
www.thehouseofclay.com which is where I took all the samples and glazed tiles to be fired. (photos of this process are on my sick laptop)
I used the tiles to form a perimeter around the new pattern in the first hallway,
this is looking back towards the foyer in the first hallway.
I found a few greyish tiles to throw into the front bathroom pattern.
The builders/ blueprinters had goofed up and mixed plumbing walls with 2x4 studs which made for some kooky trim work.
This was in a corner that had received 35 years of splash from the sink and missed shots and dribbles and sprinkles from the toilet so I cut out the rot and filled it out flush to the plumbing wall with durarock, and reinstalled the paneling without the funny little trim pieces. I plan on cutting a small piece of granite for this space, the tile is for temporary placeholder.
Demo'd trim piece
The goal being no zig-zag mark of zorro cuts on the ceramic baseboards, I furred it all out. I used a rock backer product behind these baseboard tiles which made for thick grout lines. I cleaned up and bleached the piece of paneling and reused all but the bottom 6".
After swapping around the found items, the front
half bath head took on a seafarin' theme.
The second hallway had a different pattern, scraps of the unglazed tile leftovers from cutting the reproduction unobtanium tiles made the mini brick patterns, and matched close enough to the re-glazed stuff that it looked okay together. Lots of cuts and messing around with placing the things individually and finding ways to tape them together into fours, not quite as easy as the store bought pre-made stuff like it.
The back bathroom had a green streak or two in the countertops, which I wa$n't going to replace. I found some green to throw onto the mix at home dePOT.
Had a discussion about how to size the pattern as it applies to the pythagorean theorum with a friend who loaned me his tile saw. He said he liked to just keep things simple, but I figure with a little extra saw work you get something significantly better looking.
