Slate Tile is My Love Language

  As usual, spring weather brings a list of spring projects. At the top of our list was to come up with a solution for our concrete patio! I know. Thrilling. We would spend weekends scrolling through websites and strolling home improvement stores trying to find a way to cover up the concrete (and the giant crack in the patio) all while sticking with the guidelines of the solution being thin enough to work with our current door situation.

We had bounced around all sorts of ideas and then settled on this tile from Lowes! I didnt realize that most bathroom tile can actually be used outside! In one evening, we bought lots of slate tile boxes, mortar, grout, cement cleaner, and flowers (for me of course).

We also had to purchase a tool to grind down the cement crack. Keep scrolling for DIY tips and a fun surprise at the end!

I spent a lot of time washing down Bunker after this process. Cement dust was EVERYWHERE:

Now for the cement cleaner, which dripped into my flower beds...

For those of you wondering why Derek was doing all the work, I would like to point out that I was working on trimming out our flower bed. Here you can see the almost finished product (and Derek getting ready to lay the mortar): 

We then mixed up the mortar and started to lay the tiles down. I was following behind cleaning up the tiles:

For the next 2 days, we worked on wiping down the tile and getting it ready to be sealed. Not pictured is grouting the tile with a dark gray grout! 

TADA!!! Finished Product:

In the end, this project turned out better than we had hoped. We absolutely love the slate and it really helps pull together our front patio area. Our next project will be adding a pergola to help create a little more dimension and shade to Bunker.

And for those of you who don't know (but I have been telling everyone, so I am not sure how you wouldn't know by now), we are picking up our goaties next month!

xo