diamond patterrn for our black and white hexagon tile pantry floor

Pantry Hexagon Tile Flooring: One Room Challenge Week 2

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Welcome back for our second week into the One Room Challenge! We were really hoping to be further along with the pantry room flooring, but as Murphy’s Law would have it, we ran into a little problem with our special order tile that set us back on our timeline by a week. I’ll explain all of that shortly.

All we were able to do this week is finish painting the walls, putting the cement board down and work on the diamond pattern for the hexagon tiles.

At least today I can show you:

  • what tile we purchased
  • the method behind the madness for making the tile pattern
  • how we organized the mosaic sheets before we install them
  • and, of course, I’ll throw in a sneak peek of the pattern
One room challenge week 2 pantry room black and white hexagon tile floor

The tile I purchased is Bedrosian’s Minimal Hexagon tile in matte white and matte black from Lowes. The black tile has a slight metallic sheen to it, which I love. I ordered enough tile to cover the square footage we needed plus 10 % overage.

I didn’t realize there was a difference with what I ordered and what I received until I got home. On Lowe’s website, it said that each box of tile covered 9.40 square feet but the boxes I received said 8.60 square feet. The manufacturer had updated the sizing to be almost a whole square foot less per box but that change wasn’t reflected on the website. Not a big deal since all it took was a phone call to let them know the discrepancy.

Fortunately, Lowe’s customer service and the tile manufacturer were super easy to work with and they’re sending us a box of each color this week.

tile from Lowes

We still had plenty to do since the most time-consuming part of our floor is making the pattern.

We decided to change the pattern just a smidge so it would fit better within the three-foot-wide walkway between the wall and the pantry cabinets. If we’d gone with the original pattern from my mood board, the diamond would’ve been about 21 inches across by 25 inches long. With the new pattern we came up with, the diamonds are about 16 inches across by 15 inches long.

How to make a diamond pattern with black and white hexagon tiles:

Once we had an idea of the design, we laid out the sheets of white mosaic tile on the floor and marked our pattern with a Sharpie. The ink comes right off with alcohol if you make a mistake.

Then, we removed the tiles we marked from the mesh. I’m surprised we both don’t have blisters on our fingers from removing the one-inch white hexagons to make room for the black ones. But, it’ll be worth all the hard work because the diamond tile pattern we’re making will be something you don’t see very often. It will also fit in well with our home that was built in 1915 since black and white hexagon tiles were very popular in the early 20th century. Classic materials never go out of style!

There’s a separate bowl full of black tiles we took off the mesh sheet ready for when we install the white mosaic tiles.

Since we’ll be running the tiles slightly below the cabinets, we only need to cover a 3 foot by 10-foot area. The strip of painters tape is where the long row of lower pantry cabinets will start.

One room challenge week 2 pantry room black and white hexagon tile floor

Once we finished removing the white tiles, I put the numbered sheets back in the boxes in the order that they’ll be installed.

One room challenge week 2 pantry room black and white hexagon tile floor

By this weekend, we’ll have our hexagon tile installed and start building the pantry shelves. I’m like a kid on Christmas eve!

One room challenge week 2 pantry room black and white hexagon tile floor (5)

Update: After we got the rest of the tiles in, we spent an evening getting them installed and grouted. We used the same grout color that we used in the master bathroom shower, Pearl Gray by Mapei. Here are some pictures of the floor before and after being grouted.

black and white hexagon diamond pattern floor in the pantry

TO-DO LIST & DESIGN PLANS FOR THE WALK-IN PANTRY RENOVATION:

I will be updating you every step of the way while we turn our old bathroom into a pantry. I can’t wait to share how the design plans come to reality!

Update: Click this link to see the finished pantry !

tricia

RELATED POSTS:

One Room Challenge Week 1: Pantry Design Plans and Mood Board

7 Easy Steps for Installing Faux Tin Ceiling Tiles

ORC Week 2: Progress with the Modern Farmhouse Cottage Guest Shed

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9 Comments

  1. Love this floor! Do you have a printable pattern or video tutor for creating and installing the mosaic tile? How do you attach the black tiles and keep them in place when installing? I’m not an experienced DIYer
    Thanks!

  2. This is timeless and beautiful! I am planning to mimic this pattern in my bathroom. What percent of the total square footage did you order as black? Thank you for this gorgeous plan!

    1. Thank you, Morgen! Although it was a labor of love, our pantry floor is the favorite part of our remodel! We have a lot of single white tiles leftover from the mosaics sheets, but to give you an idea how much to order, it was a ratio of 4 boxes of white tile to 1 box of black. We’re still trying to come up with some ideas for how to reuse the white tiles. Maybe for our fireplace hearth? Good luck with your project. It’s worth it, I promise!

      Tricia

  3. Love the tile pattern! I haven’t been brave enough to do something like this in our home yet – but I love how it looks 🙂 All that work will be so worth it in the end!

  4. Hey Tricia! This is going to be amazing when you are done!! I am also in the ORC this spring (pursuitofhome.com) and own a 100+ home which we love! I feel like we are design sisters and I understand your desire (and sometimes struggle) to maintain the style of the home but keep up with modern times and amenities! I can’t wait to see your your progress.

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