TILE (Now, that's Italian!)

So, our kitchen hardwood floor was a mess.  Tiny scratches from moving chairs across, shoes and our precious Savannah.   We also had warped and darkened floor around the fridge and dishwasher from intermittent water spills/leaks.   We considered having them refinished, even brought in company to give us an overview of their process and an estimate.  In the end, Ron didn't want to invest the money to have the wood floor look the same in another 15 years.  So the search for tile began.

Problems:
1)  It needed to coordinate with the granite we already purchased
2)  It needed to coordinate with the tile in the mudroom which blends into the kitchen via a doorway
3)  It needed to coordinate with the wood floor that is adjacent (and staying) in the living room, dining room and hallways.

We searched everywhere and found a few possible candidates but one tile really stood out.  We got a quote and the price was reasonable enough that we were all set to go with it - when we got the call.

"You know that porcelain tile that you really like, well put it out of your mind..."   WHAT!  Turns out the distributor that convinced the showroom to display their tile, didn't stock it, as guaranteed, and it would take a minimum of 3 months to arrive from Italy.   Argh!

We searched some more, but could not find as good a fit as that tile.

So, I did what any good web user does - googled for it.   I  found the manufacturers website in Italy and contacted them to find all USA distributors.  There were 5 that had it in stock.  3 on the East Cost, 1 in the Midwest (where we are) and 1 in Florida.  2 in the east coast do not ship out of state.  The third, New Jersey, was about 1200.00 more.  The Midwest store was about a 1000.00 more than our original quote, but we were seriously thinking f going with it.  I went ahead and tried Florida, just in case, and they were LESS than my original local quote, including delivery!

We ordered the tile and waited anxiously for the 10 days it took for processing and delivery.  I was so afraid it would come damaged.  

The delivery man wanted us to sign right away, as soon as it was off the truck but we insisted on looking at each case because once you accept it's yours - damaged or not.  He wasn't very happy, wanted to get "trucking" so to speak.   We inspected each case and they were all in perfect shape.

After a lot of hard work we (Husband and I) installed and grouted our porcelain kitchen floor.   Here are some pictures.

Before with sheet rock down

After Tile is down but before Grout



Next step we tackled was cabinet installation!