Tile in a boat...and moving aboard!

"The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure."

~Joseph Campbell

"If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try."

~Seth Godin

Well, I've committed to moving aboard now.  I gave notice of 30 days to my landlord yesterday--April 1--no fooling!  I've been a bit nervous about this, which, ironically, is exactly why I decided I HAD to do it.

She's not 100% ready (and I'm not sure I am)...but here we go!

She is really close to ready, though.  The head has been tiled!  There are a few small places we still need to tile, but the majority of the work is finished.  This was a learning experience, and I am VERY thankful for the help I received!  Don Atwood and Melanie Walls helped get the tile installed, and Mees Distributors helped answer questions about products to use in a boat.

Before tiling, I started doing some searching online--trying to determine what others had learned through tiling their boats.  I was worried that the flexing of a boat would crack the tile and/or grout.  I found this conversation in the CruisersForum.  Important learnings from this: the adhesive and the grout both need to be flexible.

The tile that I chose is Icelandic Pencil by Jeffrey Court (available at Home Depot):

The tile is a mosaic with both marble and glass pieces.

The adhesive we used is Super Flex Latex Modified Mortar (more information can be found here):

We also needed flexible grout.  Mees Distributors was very helpful in selecting one.  I chose Bostik QuartzLock in the color birch:

Before adding the grout, we sealed each of the marble tiles so that the color would not change. 

I am amazed that many think tiling is a DIY project--especially on a boat!  It requires the correct tools, precision cuts and ingenuity to get the job done well.

Without the proper tools and experience, I would not have wanted to take this on.  Don Atwood (Atwood Remodeling) was very generous with his time and patience in helping me with this project.  I do not hesitate to recommend him to you for your tiling or renovation needs (513.378.2671).  I can't express how grateful I am for his help!  And it looks fabulous!

The windows provided a extra challenge!  They are parallelograms, not rectangles, and the edges were rough:

To give the edges a smooth, clean finish, we used an aluminum Schluter Strip (available at Home Depot in lots of colors):

In this pic, you can see Don Atwood placing the Schluter strip around the bottom edge of the window.

And here is the clean finished edge with the strip in place.

Here are some more pics of the head:

This pic shows the high cabinet and the sink cabinet (from IKEA--Godmorgon series in high gloss gray).  The wall above the sink cabinet will have a medicine cabinet.  Once it is installed, we will tile around it:

The shower wall is not completely installed yet.  When it is finished, we will tile the ~5 inch band around the top, as well.  You can see the wall cabinet (another Godmorgon piece from Ikea).

I love the way it is all coming together.  Several people have commented that I did not choose orange tile.  The sink will be orange...

But, I did find this tile (Interstyle Barcode Tile), and I would love to figure out a way to incorporate it:

Any suggestions?...

The head is almost finished.  The good news is that the marina has a bathroom with showers...this may come in handy, because I have committed to my adventure!  Ready or not....scared or not...I am moving aboard!