For the past few months, our focus has been to get the rental apartment in shape and get it rented. As experienced tenants, we focused on changing the things that we would like as tenants (hello laundry!) and prioritized accordingly. Unfortunately our budget does not permit a full overhaul of the place (I’m talking to you ugly kitchen tile).

This is what the kitchen tile looks like. It’s so awful it’s almost amazing. Almost.

One of the major issues we wanted to address was the kitchen. It was too large. Yes. Huge. For a one bedroom apartment the kitchen was enormous. So we set out to make it smaller. As part of this process, we removed a center island that served no other purpose than to hold the cook top, while the oven sat all by its lonesome in the prime stove spot.

Well, surprise surprise, there was no tile under the island. We looked ahead of time, but the hole we cut through the island floor apparently was not far enough in and ta-da! We’re left with this.

The area is 10 sq ft. And a much bigger headache

Great, right? I’m sure this probably seemed like a good idea at the time. But it has put a pretty major cramp in our reno.  And so the great ugly tile hunt begins. As predicted, there is no matching tile to be found.  After much searching around, I found a passable match-ish (I kid. It looks nothing like it, but it’s the same size and thickness. 2 out of 3…)

The background pattern and the finish are kinda similar.

It is by no means perfect, but I think in the grand scheme of things it will work. The spot is right in the middle of the kitchen and it screams for a kitchen table (and I’m guessing a rug).