By Danielle Peterson

Melanie McIntire’s tiling project started as a plan to get rid of the carpet in her bathroom but turned into an amazing tribute to a favorite artist. “To create the mosaic design, I sketched fewer than 10 ideas in my sketchbook. I was kind of inspired by the swirls in Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night,’” Melanie says.

Before Melanie could begin her tiling project, she first had to clear the bathroom floor of three layers of carpet and deteriorated carpet padding. With the help of her grandfather, Melanie started by cutting and screwing in cement backer board. This backing for ceramic tiles is comparable to drywall and is created with cured cement so it won’t be damaged by exposure to water. 

The next day Melanie enlisted the help of a close friend to start tiling. For phase two of the project, they had to break the tiles into smaller pieces outside the home Melanie shares with her husband. “We were so afraid of waking up the neighbors since it was about 11 p.m. We giggled and flinched at every smash for about an hour,” she says. 

With the design already sketched on the backer board, Melanie mixed the cement and started laying the tiles. The friends started in opposite corners and worked well into the night. “Working until 5 a.m., we nearly finished laying down all the tile pieces, but we called it quits since we were starting to see double,” Melanie says. They finished laying the pieces the next day, waited for the cement to dry, and then grouted the floor. “We finished up around 9 that night so the project basically took less than 24 hours total,” she says.    

See more photos of Melanie’s project!

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