Customer Tile Style Profile: Tom & Abi’s Total Home Renovation

Our Customer Tile Style Profile feature takes a closer look at some of the amazing renovation and redesign projects our customers undertake using products from the Tile Mountain range. This month’s edition sees us catching up with Tom & Abi of York who has undertaken a near-complete revamp of the semi-derelict house the family purchased in 2016. We had a chat to find out how they used our Surface Cool Grey, Doblo Matt Grey, Doblo Rock Grey, and Metro White tiles in this mammoth redevelopment project…

What were the circumstances behind the project?

We bought a more-or-less derelict house that had been owned by the same family for 80 years, since it was built. This was a big, house-wide renovation project to do everything from rewiring to creating an open plan space (and even building a small garden office). It’s our first house and it’s our family home – it’s the house where our daughter (now 4) will grow up.

Was your choice of decor & colour scheme influenced by the tiles you chose, or did you pick the tiles to fit in with a style you’d chosen for the rest of the room?

We planned the decor in advance – the tiles were a big part of that. We picked the tiles that fitted with our designs. All the tiles are neutral colours which gives us more flexibility for colours elsewhere in the room. We went with a mid grey grout for everything. It blends in with the mid-grey floor tiles (in the open plan space) and it’s a nice contrast to the white metro wall tiles.

What made you decide that the tiles you chose were the right tiles for your project?

In the open plan space we ideally wanted a polished concrete floor, but couldn’t afford it. However, we really likes the look of concrete, so we ended up choosing tiles that were quite close to it. It also goes well with the pallet timber wall, which we partly designed the space around. We ordered samples from Tile Mountain and others to make sure everything looked right. We tried lots and lots of options!
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How long did the project take to complete and did you do the tiling yourself or hire a professional tiler?

It was a massive project involving an architect, planning permission, waiting for a building to start, a 4-person team working full time for 4 months (plus sub-contractors), then decorating, building furniture and moving. We bought the house in August 2016 and moved in on 1 May 2018. So it took about 18 months.

What part of the project was most difficult and why?

Keeping on top of  what seemed like 1,000 different issues at once, while also having a full time job, spending most evenings, weekends and annual leave working on the house, and worrying about money and neighbours.

Do you have any further decorating projects lined up?

NO!

What advice would you give to people considering undertaking a similar project?

Believe the cliche that it costs twice as much and takes twice as long. But stick at it – it’ll be worth it.

What would you say to people who are thinking about buying tiles from Tile Mountain?

Every single tile in our house is from Tile Mountain. There’s about 100sqm of tiles, costing about £2,000. They’re in 6 rooms. We were confident it would all be fine because the process and speed of ordering samples had been great, and the quality of the samples was high. It was maybe 9 months between ordering samples to buying the final tiles. So I’d say buy samples, take your time, and get the design for the whole room sorted before committing. We genuinely couldn’t be happier with our tiles. With so many things that can go wrong in a massive project, it’s always great when such an important part of it exceeds expectations.

If you’d like to see your project featured in our monthly Customer Tile Style Profile, simply leave a review of the products you bought and share photos of your completed tiling project on our Facebook wall. If we use your photos on our website we’ll send you a crisp £20 Amazon voucher for your troubles and even make you internet famous for a bit in this very feature.