If you know a little something about bathroom tile design...

If you've been around the bathroom tile design "block" once or twice in your life...

...then you might know these 5 easy bathroom tile design steps.

But for me, it's always a new thing.  This is a mini bathroom tile package which, if followed correctly, will yield a vastly different bathroom than the one you originally imagined.

1. Use tile focal points.
2. Install a tile accent wall.
3. Break up your tile with new patterns.
4. Add a tile surround to the walls.
5. Learn to use tile grout creatively.

So easy, you could practically do it blindfolded!

Image:  American Olean

When you weren't paying attention, Corian sinks grew up.  I've always thought of Corian sinks as being integrated sinks--these magical fusions of sink and counter so that they are sinkcounter...or countersink.  It's really quite miraculous how a fabricator can seamlessly mate a Corian sink with a Corian countertop (yes, it does need to be like material with like material).

But there's more to Corian sinks than that.

One increasingly popular variation is the apron-front Corian sink.  The front of the sink is exposed and becomes part of the kitchen decor.  Also, these apron-fronts (or farmhouse sinks) have much deeper bowls than their drop-in sink cousins.

Image: American Standard

As if we needed another thing to be depressed about...

How about spending $2.12 million on a house in New York, then another $500,000 in home renovations, and then beginning divorce proceedings a mere 2 weeks after moving into the house (after a year-long round of renovations)?

That's what happened to Leslie Williams and her husband, both New York-based television producers.  Check out this article and slide show from the New York Times about what happens when home renovations, divorce, and a poor real estate market collide.

Image:  Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

Creative thinking will get you everywhere:  I have a list of tile manufacturers on file I use while writing About Home Renovations; I have a need to produce articles for the same website.  Combine the two:  article.

Why hoard this list?  Gosh, I don't know.  I hadn't thought about it until now.

When I say "tile manufacturers," this is a fluid term.  Do we mean quarries?  Shops that fire the ceramics?  Importers?  Well, these are kind of the middlemen companies--not quite the invisible Italian quarry mining the travertine; not quite the Tiles 'R' Us shop down the street.  At the least, these are major conduits of tiles.

In most cases, you won't be able to buy tiles directly from these companies.  The tile is available from any of three sources:

1. Big box stores like The Home Depot.
2. Local tile design stores with names like EuroTile, where you work in conjunction with a tile designer.
3. Local warehouse-type tile outlets.

Tile Image from Merola

We spoke to Jacob Martin, of the online retailer Floors to Your Home, about where laminate and engineered flooring are today and where they are going.  We even talked a bit about hardwood flooring, too.  Trends in the industry are:

1. High-Gloss Flooring - for laminate.
2. Solid Hardwood Flooring - Not doing very good, industry-wide.  It's considered a "high tier" item that many homeowners cannot afford now.
3. New Species - Tigerwood is one "species" of laminate flooring that is becoming more popular.
4. Waterproof Laminate Flooring - What to do about laminate's poor water resistance?  New PVC products are taking laminate flooring into bathrooms, basements, and other water-intensive places.
5. Handscraped Laminate - Better surfaces make the laminate flooring look more and more like real handscraped wood.

Image:  Mannington

...if only for one reason:  to learn the difference between shades and tints.

See, I consider myself a pretty smart guy (and who doesn't?  Unless you're a gal, of course).  When it comes to closely-related terms, I can usually puzzle out the difference.

But with room paint colors, I thought that tints and shades meant basically the same thing.    Not so:

• Tint -Adding white to the base color.
• Shade - Adding black to the base color (shade? get it?)

Good to know.  Good to know also that room paint colors are more than just "Gee, I like this color; this Martha Stewart Color display at Home Depot looks fab, and I just love this Boiled Maine Lobster color."  It's imporant to keep things in mind that go beyond the color itself, things like:

1. How colors affect moods.  Did you know that yellow makes children more agitated when used in their bedrooms?
2. The "Pop Factor"  And you thought that room paint colors were 2-dimensional.
3. Unifying rooms can be accomplished easily by addressing just one area--say, a hallway.
4. Paint chips are pretty worthless.  Get paint samples and slap them on your wall.
5. Paint can be used to mitigate a room's shortcomings.
6. And more!

Image:  Valspar

Why is it so hard to find a contractor or other type of home improvement company?

The stock advice is:  "Ask thy neighbor."  The stock answer is:  "But if I had a neighbor to ask, I wouldn't be asking you for advice."

Online find-a-contractor sites pop up as frequently as dandelions; and like dandelions, *poof* they go and the wind whisks them away.  Some of my brushes with them are:

• Some guy with something called Project Turtle spammed my site.  But because the idea intrigued me, I wrote up a review (what a sucker I was).  Today, Project Turtle has all of 1 job posted on it.
• Fixr - Another contractor matching site.  I've had discussions with this guy--Andres Torrubia--and his heart and mind are in the right place.  Fixr began strong, but it still seems lodged in a small region of the U.S. Northeast.  Update 10/30/09:  I received an update on the status of Fixr from Andres Torrubia.  Fixr is still going strong and is expanding throughout the U.S., beyond its initial East Coast origins.  This is evidenced by Fixr's new contractor directory.  A check proves that Fixr even has contractors in my neck of the woods, Washington State.
• ServiceMagic - Oh boy.  Don't get me started about ServiceMagic:  all over the Web, but this does not translate to "well-loved."  My #1 e-mail complaint from readers concerns ServiceMagic.  And my #1 complaint from contractors is...ServiceMagic.  Contractors say the leads are expensive and bad.  Consumers question ServiceMagic's screening process.
• RipOffReport - Obviously, you're only going to get bad reviews of contractors here.  What about the good ones?
• Angie's List - Not a bad site, but who wants to pay for this service?  I just wanted to get a referral for one plumber to fix my toilet; now I've got my credit card down for a recurring, monthly payments.  Gee, thanks Angie.  I'm now stuck with you for life?  Makes me want to sing those lyrics from the Rolling Stones song, Angie, which go:  "Angie, you're beautiful, but ain't it time we said good-bye?"

So, the other day at the Seattle Home Show 2, I talked to a guy named Dave Richards of HelpHive.com who is starting a new referral/recommendation site (still mainly in the Pacific Northwest) to connect professonals with consumers.  The right thing about this--other than that it's free for consumers--is they appear to be well-funded.  This is no guy-in-his-boxer-shorts-in-the-basement kind of startup company.

HelpHive.com has a lot of those warm & fuzzy social networking tones about it--user recommendations, videos, a blog, ratings, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Let's cross our fingers and hope for the best for this company.

I have previously written about wood countertops and how they may not be the absolute best kitchen countertop choice, because:

1. Wood countertops are porous.  Non-porosity being a good thing when food preparation is involved.
2. They scratch.
3. They aren't necessarily a bargain choice.

But, urged on by outside influences--readers who are avid fans of hardwood kitchen countertops--I have taken another look at wood countertops.  Here are some points coming from the wood-countertop-fanbase:

• "Pretty much unbeatable visual depth."  The "fake countertop surface" makers (meaning laminate counters such as Formica or solid surface such as Corian/DuPont) when they try to reproduce a natural material--usually stone, not wood--just can't swing it.  They are getting better at it, but no dice yet.  That's one reason why homeowners do pay that extra amount for natural materials.
• "Who says wood countertops are unsanitary?"  Wood countertop adherents say that as long as wood counters are religiously maintained, they are perfectly sanitary for food prep.  DeVos Custom Woodworking recommends once-a-month mineral oil wipedowns.
• "Chipping, scratching?"  Think wenge.  Think mesquite, tigerwood, or mahogany.  All top out the Janka hardness scale at 2,000 or above.  Translated:  that's hard wood.

Vessel sinks are revered by some people, despised by others.

Vessel Sink Lovers...

Do I need to explain?  If you revere vessel sinks, it's probably because you like the fact that they are unique and showy-looking.

Also, it's the only way you can get a glass sink basin on your bathroom counter.  Glass vessel sinks are a major staple of this market, because you're elevating the basin above the dank, dark recesses of the bathroom vanity cabinet.  With the basin elevated, you can have vessel sinks in all different types of glass:  clear, frosted, and colored.

Vessel Sink Haters...

If you despise vessel sinks, it might be because:

• They aren't highly practical.
• They can dislodge.
• They require extra-high faucets (if coming from the counter) or from-the-wall faucets (as pictured).

Also--let us say this quietly--some vessel sinks can look a bit pimped-out (Kraus Copper Snake glass vessel sink, I'm talking to you).  Yet this Janus-faced bathroom sink can go another way.  When you're dealing with ceramic vessel sinks--white, on-counter, recessed, and/or square), they can look downright classical and old-fashioned.

There is a white square vessel sink from Ronbow that I would consider for my own bathroom.

Image St. Thomas

Wow. Tile patterns can go on forever.  I began looking into the issue, thinking that I would completely exhaust the topic after about eight or ten examples.

Well, duh.  As long as you have tiles of different sizes and shapes, you can endless arrange them.  Infinitely?  I'm not so sure about that, but pretty darn close.

Significant discoveries:

• One tile patterns involve the repetition of just a tile of one size:  say, a 12" x 12" tile.  The picture above is a one-tile pattern called (can you guess it?) brick or brickwork.  The advantage of one-tile patterns is you just buy multiple boxes of the same tile.
• Two tile patterns introduce another tile of a different size.  You can really make some cool tile patterns simply by adding another-sized tile.

Cobblestone tile pattern, while it looks highly complex, is just a two-tile pattern.

But even with a one-tile pattern, all you have to do is set the entire pattern at 45 degrees (i.e., a diagonal pattern) and your boring grid-like pattern suddenly looks fresh.  The picture above is an example of this.  It is a brick tile pattern, yes, but it's also angled to the room.

Image Copyright Creed Craft LLC