Then came the "herringbone catastrophe." Leo had decided to tilt the tiles for a focal point behind the stove. Every tile at the edge needed a complex 45-degree cut. By the time he reached the final corner of the kitchen, he reached into the box and felt nothing but cardboard. He was three tiles short.
Leo chuckled. "I’m a precise cutter, Martha. I don’t plan on breaking anything." He bought the fourteen and left.
The clerk, an older woman named Martha who had seen a thousand "Leos" in her time, peered over her glasses. "You’re going to want at least 10% more than that, sugar. Call it sixteen square feet." how much tile to buy for backsplash
He rushed back to the store, but Martha’s shop was closed for the weekend. When he finally returned on Monday, he discovered a devastating truth: the shop had started a new "batch" or dye lot. The emerald green in the new boxes was a hair lighter than the ones on his wall.
He headed to the tile shop and picked out a beautiful, deep-emerald subway tile. He asked the clerk for exactly fourteen square feet. Then came the "herringbone catastrophe
Leo sat on his kitchen floor, staring at the small, bare patch of drywall that would now forever be a slightly different shade of green—a permanent monument to the .
By Saturday afternoon, the kitchen smelled of mastic and ambition. The first few rows went perfectly. But then he hit the electrical outlets. On his first attempt to trim a tile to fit around a socket, the ceramic snapped like a cracker. One gone. On his second try, his wet saw slipped, nibbling too far into the corner. Two gone. He was three tiles short
"Height times width," he muttered, scribbling on a napkin. "Fourteen square feet. Easy."