This is a story about taking chances. Or maybe it’s about making a poor decision because we were impatient. I’ll let you be the judge!

It starts where many of our stories start: in the midst of a whole-house renovation. We were in a hurry to get at least one of our house’s two bathrooms done so we could move in more quickly. This bathroom marks the second time we’ve subway tiled a shower with a tub, so we were feeling pretty confident in that part going well. However, we decided to try something a little different for us with the floor tile. For two years prior to buying our home, we had lived in a historic apartment building in the Fan District of Richmond, VA. Our apartment had so many amazing historic details: original hardwood floors, high ceilings, arched doorways, and black and white floor tiles. We loved our little apartment, and we were intent upon bringing some of that historic charm into our home. Inspired by the black and white floor tile from our apartment, we decided to go with a black and white hexagon tile that’s often found in older homes and buildings in Richmond. The only other floor tiles we’ve installed were 12×12 squares, but we felt ready to take on a new challenge. Ahh but sweet, optimistic, doe-eyed children, we were… 

Ok it actually didn’t go THAT badly. But for someone who tends to be a perfectionist, such as myself, only a few small errors can feel monumental. It’s actually one of the reasons I enjoy home projects so much. It’s taught me that not everything has to be perfect. And every time something isn’t perfect, you learn a great lesson for next time. Onward and upward has become my philosophy! So, if you’re a newbie to small tile and considering installing something similar to this gorgeous hexagon, I say go for it. But read about our process first and hopefully save yourself a few headaches! 

Process and Supplies 

• Black and white hexagon tile (similar)
• Mastic
• Warm gray grout
• Level
• Tape measure
• v-notched trowel
• Float
• Sponge

The first step (which we DIDN’T do) when using a tile sheet with smaller tiles like this on a floor is to make sure the floor is super level. When you use larger tiles, like 12×12 squares, and your floor is a little unlevel, you can just make the mastic a little thicker on one side of the tile to help even it out. We got about 3 sheets in before we realized this same method does NOT work for tile sheets. Because there are spaces between all the tiles on the sheets, making the mastic too thick on the tile sheet causes it to seep up through the spaces. This creates a huge headache because you have to carefully scrape all the mastic out of the spaces to make room for grout. Luckily, our floor was not terribly unlevel, just slightly. We were able to painstakingly scrape out the excess mastic in the few areas of the floor that needed to be leveled a bit, but it was a huge mess. 0/10, would not recommend. If the floor had been totally leveled by using a floor leveling compound or thinset, we could have used just a normal amount of mastic under each tile sheet and proceeded easily. Ahhh, hindsight. 

After we got over that hurdle, we continued from the back, right corner of the room towards the tub. Here, we met our next foe. These little hexagon pieces are TINY. So cutting them is pretty difficult. It was a huge challenge to cut each little piece just right so that it would bud up perfectly to the tub. I think our biggest issue here is that we don’t have a great tile saw. The one we have does the job, but doesn’t work super well for small tile. If we ever do another tile job with pieces this tiny, I think it would be worth the investment for a tile saw that’s able to make more precise cuts. Because a new tile saw wasn’t in the budget at this moment in the renovation, our only option was to cut LOTS of pieces, fail on a lot of the cuts, and consequently waste quite a few. Another issue right near the tub is, once again, we had to use quite a bit of mastic to fill a small gap between the subfloor and tub. If you were using a large tile, you’d never even notice this gap. However, our tiny tile pieces were similarly sized to the gap. Laying the tiles in the mastic that fill the gap was challenging. It turned out alright, but it definitely doesn’t look as clean as it could if you look closely. But ultimately, some extra caulk in that area did the trick. So once again, down, but not out. 

After all the tile was installed with mastic, we let it dry for about 72 hours. You want to make sure mastic is very dry before grout is installed, or else you risk your newly laid tile shifting around or breaking lose. Once it was dry, it was time for grout. And we’ve now arrived at my biggest regret. As I said before, the mistake was made in this bathroom trying to go in a hurry. As we were picking out grout at the store, we found a rapid dry grout that boasted a drying time of only 3 hours. 3 hours! Imagine that! After all our wasted time scraping mastic out of spaces and cutting tiny tiles perfectly, we could be re-gifted our time by waiting only 3 hours for grout to dry. Thus, moving on to the toilet and vanity install. Well, this is definitely the place to say two wrongs don’t make a right. We chose a warm gray color to modernize the black and white hexagon, and used unsanded grout, which is what you should use for smaller joints. This grout was not pre-mixed, so we had to mixed it with water and got to work. We realized pretty quickly that it was very different than other grouts we’ve used. With regular grout, you simply apply the grout by dumping some on the surface of the tile and using a float to pack it down into the joints. Then you wipe away the excess with a sponge, being careful not to lift the wet grout out of the joints. For a bathroom this size, you can break this process up into about 3’ x 3’ areas, applying, packing, and wiping before moving on to the next area. 

Well this grout dried so fast you basically had to do the TINIEST area to make sure you could wipe off the excess before it dried. I would guess a bathroom that was usually 4 areas became 10. The grout was also very hard to work with, not spreading as easily as normal unsanded grout does. Halfway through, we ran out of grout and had to mix some more, then we finished up. As soon as we finished, I noticed there was quite a color variation between different sections of the grout. Nick assured me that was because it wasn’t all dry yet, so we waited a full 3 hours before inspecting it again. After 3 hours we returned. To my horror, the grout was still 2 different colors. Now this may also be an issue with normal grout, but it’s never happened to us before. My first thought was devastation. After all that hard work and our final product was THIS. I even contemplated ripping out the whole thing and starting over. It was either Nick’s rational words or my nightmare flashbacks of cutting the tiny tiles that stopped me. We decided to walk away and return the next day, and I’m glad we did. After it had dried 24 hours, the difference was certainly less noticeable. It was surely still there, but after sending numerous pictures to friends and family, I realized I was analyzing it too closely and that I would be the only one who would ever notice. 

Now, when I look at the bathroom floor, I can barely remember all the bumps we ran into, because it looks pretty great. Even knowing what a challenge it was, I don’t regret choosing this tile because I love it. We also learned that we’ll never use rapid setting grout ever again. It’s definitely too much of a challenge to try and work quickly enough, regardless of the size tiles you use. And we’ve also decided to use pre-mixed grout from now on, to ensure that is no color variation. So we ended up with a gorgeous floor and a few lessons under our belt, which I’ll call a win!