Annette recovered some more tiles and together with what she had left from the boneyard at Fireclay Tile, she had enough to create a mosaic transition from the path to the U-shaped bench.
The tiles are on a bed of concrete, set with thinset and finished with gray grout. In the past, we used colored grout but it faded to gray in an outdoor environment. The gray works well, and we’re hoping that it will maintain its color.
The pavers behind – narrow modular pavers by Stepstone – were set on sand. They’re held in place with an invisible retention system on three sides and the concrete slab of the mosaic on the other. The joints were sanded after the grout had completely set, locking the pavers in place against the retention border.
The front of the mosaic has a recycled plastic header that was also the form used to contain the slab.
This mosaic is nearby, done about a year ago. As we find the time, we plan on adding mosaic touches around the landscape for a more artsy look and better color in winter.
The older mosaic also abuts narrow linear pavers, but adds brick, recycled concrete, found objects, decorative gravel and whatever else Annette finds interesting.
We’ll see how the metallic tiles age. My guess is that they’ll oxidize or otherwise age, since they’re not really meant to be outdoors. The other tiles, mostly Debris series from Fireclay, should hold up fine.