When we bought our house over thirteen years ago, we updated the floors in the kitchen and the bathroom and opened the wall between the kitchen and dining room to add a countertop with storage below. For all three of those projects, we used tile, and the leftover tile has been sitting in boxes for thirteen years. Also, we have a wrought-iron garden table and chairs that I have been meaning to address since we brought them home ages ago. The chairs came with simple rounds of plywood for seats that I always wanted to replace. Recently, I was inspired to pull out all that leftover tile, bash it into tiny pieces and start imagining mosaic designs for the chair seats. I’ve also collected some other styles of tile to add additional colors to the designs.

I have some experience in working with tile after doing our floors and working on the tile countertop, but I’ve also been reading about mosaics and techniques for creating them. I’m currently reading Mosaic Today by Elaine M. Goodwin which covers historical mosaic art as well as contemporary pieces in addition to offering step-by-step instructions for projects. It will be a slow process, but I’m looking forward to having some colorful, new, tiled chair seats around the garden table.