Given that the tough economy has forced most of us to look twice at every expenditure we make, one of those decisions is whether or not to spend ones hard earned dollars on sprucing up the home. We all know that putting money in to your home is one of the best financial decisions you can make, but we see our clients asking themselves if now is a good time to be spending money on home remodeling projects. Our answer is that there may never be a better time.

With contractors of all skills and trades looking for work there has never been a better time in recent memory to negotiate on the labor portion of any project you may be considering. In addition, materials costs have come down to levels that places most any small project within the reach and budget of most consumers. Below, we offer three money saving tips for customers thinking of using tile for their Kitchen project.

• Instead of using natural stone on a backsplash, try many of the low maintenance ceramic tiles on the market that offer a similar look to stone but cost a fraction of the amount of stone and require very little maintenance compared to the regular sealing that is required of natural stone products.
• If using Glass tiles on your backsplash is out of the budget, try using glass mosaic tiles as a border piece paired together with your primary tile to add a little contemporary style to any project.
• If you are using a basic ceramic tile as your backsplash material, dress up your design by adding in accents like decorative metal tiles to bring some depth to your backsplash

The possibilities are truly endless when designing with tile and one is only limited by your imagination. Feel free to phone us anytime you may have questions about incorporating our tile products in to a kitchen, bath or other type of remodeling project.

We spoke to a client recently about installing paper-faced tiles and she brought up a point that we don’t talk enough about so I wanted to cover it in our Blog today. This applies mostly to the DIY’ers out there who will be installing their own material.

When installing paper-faced mounted tiles such as our Kawaii glass mosaic tiles, care needs to be taken during the installation process when setting the tile in to the adhesive. Since the tiles are paper-faced mounted, the paper should be removed from the face of the tile when the adhesive is cured enough to hold the tiles in place in the mortar, yet not too cured so no adjustments to the tiles can be made as the installation progresses.

When to remove the paper from the face of the tile depends on a number of factors including the weather and how hot or cold it is at the location where the tiles are being installed, what type of mortar adhesive is being used and how long the mortar takes to “set up”. Trial and error is the name of the game and installing paper-faced mounted tiles has been and can be installed by DIY’ers and Tile pro’s alike.

Paper-faced mosaic tiles have been around for years and they serve their purpose for some mosaic tiles vs. others. Feel free to give us a call anytime if you have questions about installing your Kawaii glass mosaic tiles.

We wanted to send out a heads up for our customers that we have several new and exciting eco-friendly products on the way in September. We won’t let the cat out of the bag just yet but we think our customers will be excited with the new material making it’s way to us as we speak. We are working hard to monitor industry trends and more importantly to listen to what our customers are asking us for.

We always welcome our customers input and we encourage the two way conversation we have with our customers. That conversation will improve in the next several months as we join the social media bandwagon. Hopefully by doing this will allow us to gain an even better feel for the pulse of our customers. Always feel free to send us your comments to customerservice@anchorbaytile.com

We have received a nice response from our customers about our new FREE SHIPPING policy and we appreciate your comments and your support. This change for us was a long time coming and now that the change is completed so far it has worked out well. Most importantly, our customers seem to be pleased which is why we decided that the change was necessary.

We appreciate the comments and the feedback and we welcome any additional input that would help us to improve and make the customer experience better for our AnchorBayTile shoppers.

We have decided to change and some would say “modernize” our Shipping policy to now offer Free Shipping on all orders over $299. We had been considering the move for some time and we put a lot of time and effort in to thinking about how this change would affect our business in both positive and negative ways. At the end of the day we felt that Free Shipping is something that our customers wanted so last week we made the conversion on our site and we hope our customers appreciate the new policy.

It might take us a few weeks to get used to the adjustment since we have been operating with Flat Rate Shipping almost since the start of our business. So please bear with us as we respond to our customer requests and inquiries and we work through any growing pains that may come as a result of this change.

As always, we appreciate your business and your support and we look forward to working with each and every one of our customers that trust our company and our products for your home remodeling projects.

We have many happy customers who love the look of their new subway or glass mosaic tiles in their homes. However, most of our customers only choose one or the other and rarely combine the two for fear of putting the more traditional subway tiles together with the decidedly contemporary look of glass mosaic tiles. But as you can see from the photo above, glass mosaic tiles look beautiful with subway tiles and at least in this photo, really add a nice focal point and centerpiece to the kitchen area.

We have several colors and designs of glass mosaic tiles to choose from with most being in stock and ready for immediate shipment. That said, our subway tiles are also in stock and to combine the two really sets your project apart from the neighbor down the street.

Our subway tiles come in either a crackle glaze finish or a glossy finish and they are in stock in sizes of 3” x 6” or 2” x 4” mesh-mounted. Call us anytime with your product or project questions and we would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Solana Glass Mosaic Tiles Meadow
Our Solana Glass Subway Tiles are available in both a flat and a beveled edge. The nice part about choosing our Solana brand of glass tiles is that the collection of glass tiles comes in other sizes and colors that allow more design possibilities for any project.

In addition to the available glass subway tiles we also offer matching color glass mosaic tiles in a 1” x 1” size. Also, a glass tile quarter round is available to use as an edge piece when a project has an exposed edge that needs to be covered. All Solana tiles are in stock and ready for a quick shipment to your project location anywhere in the US.

For specific matching color possibilities try our Smooth Grey glass subway tiles with our Solana glass mosaic tiles in matching blend colors meadow, smooth grey, or moonshadow. Our Mint color glass subway tile matches with our meadow blend. And our Cappuccino or Khaki glass subway tiles match well with our Sand Dune glass mosaic tile blend.

Use glass tile colors to add depth and provide a focal point for a kitchen backsplash or shower. Call our sales team at AnchorBayTile and we can help answer any questions you may have about using tiles from our Solana glass tiles collection for your next renovation project.

Bamboo Subway Tile in Chestnut
For those wanting to be environmentally friendly without sacrificing style, try our Chestnut color Bamboo Subway tiles together with our Latte color Solana Glass Mosaic tiles. These two tiles in the colors above show very well together and would upgrade any backsplash, accent wall, or kitchen island marvelously.

Try using the Bamboo Subway Tile in 3 x 6 as your primary tile with the Latte color glass mosaic tiles as a well placed accent strip. The Chestnut and Latte colors play off each other quite nicely with the tan color in the Latte blend being a nice match with the soft shades of the Chestnut bamboo tiles.

We are always looking for project photos showing our tiles used in different combinations and this combination is one of our favorites. For any of our blog readers who may want to try out the Chestnut Bamboo subway tiles and the Latte color glass mosaic tiles we would be willing to offer a generous tile discount in exchange for nice photos of the completed project.

Contact our sales team at 1 888 260-7371 and tell us you saw our Blog post about our Bamboo and glass tiles and whether you would like to use the two tiles in your upcoming tile project. We look forward to speaking with any of our clients who may have an interest in these or any of our other tile combinations.

Next week we plan to post some suggestions on product combinations using products (of course) from AnchorBayTile that work well together and would add a nice Design touch to any home.

Many of our products and the color choices within those product lines work very well together and form some dazzling color combinations that would fit nicely with any project.

Stop by our Blog next week to see what you think and please add your comments or suggestions for combinations that we may not have even thought of.

In the meantime, have a nice weekend and be safe everybody!

In our on again, off again look at the housing market we always are looking for signs that the market is coming out of the doldrums and finally showing some signs of life. Last week there was a bit of good news from one of the housing industries biggest players and maybe it is wishful thinking but we hope that this might be the start of a string of good news in the housing industry and things just may start to look up.

Last week the nation’s number-two Homebuilder PulteGroup posted a profit of $76.3 million dollars which was the first profit for the homebuilder in 14 quarters. Part of the reason for the profit is the federal Home Buyer tax credit though the Pulte has worked hard to cut overhead in the past several years and the company is hopeful that these efforts are starting to show results.

In another bit of good news, real estate website Zillow.com said on Monday that a smaller percentage of U.S. homeowners were saddled with “underwater mortgages” in the second quarter vs. the first quarter That is the good news, however, the bad news is that much of that improvement is due to more homeowners entering the foreclosure process thereby removing some of these underwater homeowners from that “stat sheet”.

We agree the news could be better but hopefully some of this will translate in to more good news from other builders and by the end of the year or the beginning of the next, the housing market will begin to show some signs of life.