This Mississippi kitchen features seven multicolored handmade tile panels, each carefully planned and thoughtfully placed around the kitchen.
Each panel is different! The color pattern repeats, but no two are alike.
Some feature trees, and all feature animals.
I love that the dog and cat are looking at one another from either side of the sink. (Cats are a recurring theme in this kitchen and home, more on that later...)
The largest of the panels was originally designed with a few white tiles mixed in, but after seeing them in person, she decided to swap them out with other colors. Here is the final version installed:
And here are all the panels before they left the studio, with the white tiles in the central panel:
I think she made the right call! Good thing she ordered a few extra tiles, just in case!
The project was a collaborative effort. The layout for each panel was carefully drawn by hand by the very creative and diligent homeowner, L.C. The tiles were made by me (naturally!), and then expertly installed by Justin of "Premier Flooring" in Hernando, MS. This is one of those situations where careful planning really paid off!
The white field tiles look handmade, but are actually commercially made by "Anatolia." According to the homeowner, “They are 3 × 12 Marlow tiles in the color Cloud, matte finish (Stock #4000-0071-1). They were not especially expensive tiles, so that helped my budget.” I personally love the new generation of "handmade look" tiles since they blend so beautifully with the ones I make, allowing my wonderful customers to make a big impact with a smaller number of handmade tiles while keeping costs under control.
This project was an absolute delight to work on! The homeowner genuinely loves ceramics and is an artist in her own right. As evidence, she made this ceramic cat decades ago in a high school art class. She received a well deserved "A" for it and has kept it with her all these years.
Here is a lovely video she kindly made of this fantastic space. If you watch it all the way through, you see one final cat... and I don't mean the ceramic kind!
Thank you so much, LC, for including my tiles in your happy home. You were a delight to work with.
