Tile Massacre

In general, things are going really well. Progress is being made every day, and I love watching little things change over time. The bathroom is finally coming together, and Eduardo has put up 4 of 6 of the screened windows, and 2 of 6 of the accompanying storm windows. And they look gorgeous!

And today, we got the call that our (my!) accent tiles for the kitchen had arrived from Sao Paulo. I hadn't realized how attached I can get to little things. For example, gorgeous artesenal tiles that are hand painted and add just the splash of color I was hoping for. I had obsessed over these tiles. I looked at all the options on the website, I added each of my favorite patterns in the model to see how each one would look. And yes-- I have a 3D model of the house which I obsess over on a daily basis. And I gradually narrowed it down to my favorite. I counted up the exact number that we would need for the space; 54 center tiles, 52 edge tiles and 2 corner tile. 108 tiles at about R$10 per tile wasn't going to come cheap. But they're amazing!



And today, they arrived! Eduardo brought them home and laid them out on the floor. And apparently, the trip was a tile massacre. Eight of the tiles arrived chipped or broken, and of the ones that were whole over 3/4's were damaged. The glaze that protects the surface was completely chipped. No pieces had fallen off, but on many the glaze was essentially shattered.

So now our option is to either send back the vast majority of the tiles and have them replaced, or to just send them back and start obsessing over tiles all over again. The likelihood that a second shipment will magically arrive unblemished has p<<<0.05. Unless they're shipped better than 50 tiles / box with no protection at all stuck in the back of a truck traversing half of Brasil. Needless to say, I'm pretty bummed. Back to the drawing board...