Fireplace: Tile Me Lovely

Are....you....ready....for TILE? Because I sure am!

I bought my minty green penny tile from Overstock.com for around $60 total, which included enough tile to do my fireplace with a little leftover. I picked up some pre-mixed thinset from Lowes. Rather than deal with the mess of mixing my own, I went with pre-mixed because I was only covering a small area.

I wish I could say there was a science or method to how I arranged my tile around the fireplace, but I think I honestly just got lucky. I did dry-fit all of my tile pieces prior to applying thinset, so that I could make sure my pennies would all fit evenly without having to make unnecessary cuts.

I used regular ol' scissors to cut my penny tile sheets to fit around my corners.

And then I started laying down thinset. It's been awhile since I tiled last, and it's been never since I tiled with anything like penny tile. After laying down my first sheet, I realized I needed to keep my thinset layer super thin, so that it wouldn't squish out between the tiles. Duly noted.

I continued to work my way around the fireplace...

At one point I took a break to snap some pictures of my little bird. Isn't she adorable?

And then I was done! I'm SO happy with it. I still have some tile work to do, but I'm incredibly pleased with the result thus far.

Cheers!