Design Emergency: (Desperately) Craving Mosaics

I’m crazy about mosaic tile these days, especially when creating sophisticated detail and texture in a bathroom.

I love how polished stone mosaics -- like marble or limestone (especially those with a tone-on-tone look) -- provide depth and texture, as well as their ability to reflect light that's sure to catch your eye.

I’m using them on floors, banding on walls, shampoo niches, backsplashes...

I love going overboard with it. The more the better.

Check out this project I’m working on.

Below is a pic of a half-wall built behind a new free-standing tub. It's covered in polished crema marfil mosaics, along with some polished light emperador insets. Altogether, it provides a perfect amount of variation.

I wanted a tone-on-tone refraction of light for the floor inset and the wall behind the tub.

And this (below) was perfect...

...Because we’re doing this large scaled wallpaper (above). And the patterns just relate so well to each other.

Now everything feels soft and quiet and glints everything pretty at you. :-)

But we had a problem...

You see, this is a speedy, get-it-done-before-Thanksgiving kind of job. And, weeks ago, when I first checked to see if the tile was in stock, it was.

Then Sandy showed up - as in, Hurricane Sandy.

Our tile was stranded in New Jersey!

Immediately, we desperately began searching all around the Houston area for a similar alternative.

And that, over there to the right, is what we found...

CRINGE!

I did NOT want those dark dots on the floor and wall!

Then came an idea...

I’m such a mean designer!

Look left at what I had the poor tile installer do :-(

And that's not even a quarter of what he had to go through :-/ )

But all the hard work was worth it. Because now, after replacing the dark dots within the 90 SQ. FT of mosaic with light emperador, we now have this...