Piles of tiles
Too much time + too much choice = decision paralysis
I’ve been inadvertently collecting tiles. Inadvertently is of course a lie because it’s not like they just accidentally found their way into my house/garage. But all of a sudden* (*also a lie. It’s taken years) I have little piles of tiles all over the house, never quite enough for a complete project, but far too nice to get rid of (said the hoarder in training).
It started innocently with the kitchen renovation which we completed just before Christmas and saw me experimenting for a couple of months with various configurations of colours for checkerboard tiling before settling on an uncharacteristically muted white and camel pairing. Then I began collecting tile samples for the bathroom, knowing that sometime this year we’d finally be able to re-do our ancient and crumbling one which was rapidly disrobing itself of its decades old bright yellow tiles, throwing themselves to the floor, usually when I was showering.
I bought tile samples to test; I collected boxes of free tiles I spotted on FB Marketplace; I bought colourful zellige tiles for a DIY shoot and had boxes leftover; I rescued some of the old yellow tiles from our current bathroom, hoping we could reuse them; I had a small stack of delicately patterned vintage ones, lugged from house to house for years and mainly used as coasters as they waited for their more permanent and prestigious position on a wall.
Like many things relating to interiors I can get obsessive. I can over-research and overthink and end up with too many options and zero capacity for decision making. I’m not like this for client shoots, in fact I am extremely efficient in my decisiveness. When I’m designing a shoot there is little hesitation, probably because a) It’s not for my home b) It’s not permanent c) I know it won’t be the last shoot I design and d) I’m always under such a tight deadline that there is no time for second guessing.
But for my own home? Give me a room and I can design it ten different ways and feel like each one is my style and that, my friends, is the problem. I wasn’t always like this. I used to know exactly what I liked. It was pretty specific. I blame Pinterest. And Instagram. Or let’s just blame the internet as a whole shall we? Having access to so much goodness and so many styles has led me to a place where I often feel paralysed by choice and therefore indecision. I always hope for that a-ha moment when it clicks and I say “That’s exactly what I want!” but the truth is it doesn’t often come. I like a lot of different styles and committing to just one is difficult.
I also want my house to feel unique. I never want to make the obvious choice. I’ve been this way since I was a teen, customising everything from my jeans to my Doc Martens to my bedroom walls. Wanting to create something unique can be time consuming and exhausting. I’ll analyse something in such depth - in this case, tile colours and configurations - that by the time I’ve experimented with a few ideas, I’m already over it, bored. Can’t imagine living with it permanently. And longevity feels important, especially when redesigning costly rooms like kitchens and bathrooms. You don’t want to have to redecorate any time soon when you’ve forked out a chunk of cash, never mind the fact that it’s wasteful to rip out what hasn’t been in place for very long.
I’d like to say that I have some wisdom for you, but if you’ve read my books you’ll probably know that I’m not one for prescriptive decorating advice or definitive answers because interiors and how we design them and live in them are so personal. Even with my experience I still can’t tell you the right way to decorate.
But I will say that sometimes having too much time to mull over a decision can be the issue. Because our renovation is being chipped away at over the course of a year or two, it has allowed me an excessive amount of time to second guess my decisions. Leave me too long with an assortment of tiles and I can design a catalogue of ways to use them.
But when push comes to shove - i.e. my builder says “you need to have tiles, taps, shower ordered by Thursday or there will be delays” - magically I am able to make a decision. That months long debate over silver, brass, or black taps? Decided. Vintage or modern style shower head? No time to think. Just click PAY NOW and be happy with it. Tile design? Ok that one is still a pain in the bum.
Letting go of perfection is a part of the solution as well. I’ll never feel like I got it right because there are so many ‘rights’. Also helpful is reminding myself that no matter what I do now, it’s unlikely I will still love a room I’ve designed in years to come. Of course we all want to create homes that are the most accurate representation of our style, but doesn’t our style always evolve? Of course it does. And that’s the beauty of home. The moral of the story? There isn’t one. Just don’t collect tiles you’re probably not going to use ;)
I can be an over thinker as well! With the permanent stuff. Not so much the easily changed decor.
With one of my past renovations, I let my sister choose the flooring and it was a good decision!!