I have once again reached the stage of a renovation project where I whisper to myself in the shadows: “I am never doing this again.”

But, we know how that goes.

Every project inevitably ends up being more exhausting, more expensive, and more time consuming than I could ever imagine. And even with all of the gratitude in the world—and I have heaps of it—there are still times when the negativity creeps in.

Whenever that happens, I always find myself rescued by a circumstance or special something that reminds me of why I started in the first place. Receiving this tile in the mail is what rescued me this time!

I’m not gonna bore you with the long droning explanation of Delft tile’s history, so to summarize 500 years in one sentence: Craftsmen in 17th century Netherlands were inspired by the blue and white Chinese pottery style known as chinoiserie (which you’ve definitely seen) and invented Delft tile which is typically white or off-white tile with hand-painted blue drawings, and the tile has been used in interior design ever since with several rises and falls in popularity over time.

Delft tile can be found in super ornate designs but also in more down-home country and cottage style homes, and the latter is where I found inspiration to use it in the Chanterelle Cottage. Because it’s me and I make everything more difficult (just ask my husband I think he’d agree!), I really wanted custom tiles done in the delft style that had depictions of the flora and fauna from our property, Benwood Gardens, so that guests of the cottage could get inspired by the whimsical figures dancing across the kitchen tile when they make meals or enjoy a cup of coffee.

I would absolutely love for guests to get home to the cottage after a day of enjoying the land and recognize some of the animals and plant life they saw during the day depicted on the tile. What a fun moment!

I began my search for a custom delft tile maker and after a bunch of fruitless emails to people in far away places like the Netherlands and London, as often happens, abundance was much closer to home: Florida!!!

Alexa play Florida!!! (featuring Florence and the Machine).

I came across a very kind and very helpful and very fast working artist named Tania who has a shop on Etsy, Blue Garden Tiles. Her work is inspired by Azulejo, a Portuguese style of tile that is very similar to Deflt tile and uses cobalt blue on white tile, but typically has patterns instead of depictions of nature.

When I saw some of her work in her shop I knew I had found my holy grail. A few messages later and there were dozens of tiles being made for the cottage!

This is the part where I add a disclaimer to avoid a design snob yelling at me: the tile I’m using in this project is inspired by the colors and motifs of the Delft style, but is not true Delft tile as it’s not made by a Delft craftsperson, doesn’t reflect the exact details of Delft tile, and is done in the colors and materials more typically used in Azulejo tile.

That being said, the tile we received from Tania was exactly what I had envisioned for this project: whimsical and simple but beautiful. It’s giving cottage, it’s giving country, it’s giving story book. And I’m obsessed.

The painted tiles will be intermixed with white blank tiles on the kitchen backsplash in a random pattern, leaving lots of blank space between the painted tiles so that each one can be examined apart from the rest.

We’re planning to do it this month so check back in to see how it’s going, and see some inspo for the design below!

xoxo Beau