Today I was feeling healthy, strong, and motivated enough to sort the tile mines so I can start working on a tile pattern for the doma. I found all the tiles that are 13mm thick, moved them into fresh piles, and counted them.

Here’s my inventory:

• 30 cm squares: 10 tiles, 5 each of medium beige and bright grey
• 20 cm squares: 145 tiles in four colors. 90 of them are medium grey
• 15 cm squares: 234 tiles in six colors. 140 are a greyish white.
• 10 cm squares: 170 tiles in 3 colors. More or less evenly divided among the colors.

This should cover somewhere between 9.8 and 12.8 square meters, depending on how many tiles are chipped or broken. It’s not enough to fully tile the doma, which is 12.96 square meters. Argh!

It’s been a process to get to the point where I am now: a few tiles short of a floor! But every hurdle is an opportunity for getting creative.

I located but did not count some “problematic tiles” that are a lovely matte grey but slippery when wet. I have dozens and dozens of them – more than any other of the tiles. (I figure someone else discovered their slipperiness after ordering and abandoned them to the eco-station where Fujii-san rescued the tiles two years ago.) I don’t think they are ideal floor tiles, but maybe I can work them into the floor so that they are not in the high traffic spaces.

If I prioritise safety over budget, I can order a couple dozen 30 cm squares and use them as anchor points in the design. Bigger tile means less installation, so that’s a bright spot. I think these Lixil ones are what I have mostly:

Before anything else, though, I will sketch out some possible patterns. I think that similarly to the bathroom walls at Hangar eight, the doma floor design will work best if I break it into blocks and distribute the tile colors and sizes among the blocks. That will achieve visual consistency in the patterns without anything having to match too exactly. It’s going to be challenging. What fun!