Mermaid Bathtub Tiles

Hello! I’m thrilled to finally be sharing the amazing tiles we installed in my bathroom. They are truly breathtaking. They may be the most beautiful part of my house.

I still remember the first time I saw a picture of tiles like this. I fell instantly in love and was determined to find a way to have them in my new cottage. I searched and searched, but all the ones I found online at US tile stores were quite expensive. Finally, I found a way to order directly from the factory, but it was in China, and as you can imagine, shipping heavy tile isn’t cheap. But the tiles themselves cost so much less that I decided to at least order samples to see what they looked like in person.

They were sent express and arrived quickly. Wow! They were even more beautiful in real life. I was nervous about sending hundreds of dollars to China via PayPal, but I wanted them so much that I took the plunge and ordered them. It was the first big purchase that I made for my cottage that wasn’t completely necessary, but I’m so glad I did. I could choose any of the colors from the samples in any combination, but they were all so gorgeous that I asked for a random pattern incorporating them all. It took a couple of months for them to arrive, and of course I was worried about breakage so I ordered extra, but they were packaged well and there was very little damage.

They came on a webbing background in blocks of about one square foot. Marcus hung the tiles, my dad did all the cutting and fitting, and I helped out any way I could- and bored everyone with my constant remarks about how beautiful they looked.

We hung them on all three sides of the tub, going almost up to the ceiling.

I love the pointy tops, and decided to have a wavy, natural edge on the top rather then cutting them to be flat. We even let the upper corners flow down a bit so it looks more like water droplets.

The tricky part was the edging for the sides. I found some lovely edging tiles that matched, but it would have cost almost a hundred dollars for two six foot edges. So I headed to the Habitat ReStore and picked up some ugly brown edging tiles for fifty cents each. The pattern even looks a bit like seashells. Dixie Belle Slick Stick was the perfect primer. I mixed a peacock blue chalk paint with a seafoam green metallic to get a lovely aqua blue with a sheen to it. I sealed it with Dixie Belle Gator Hide and a Rust-Oleum spray sealant, alternating back and forth until I had six or seven coats. They are pretty well sealed.