When I looked up how much real Delft tiles cost, a little piece of my heart died.

I’m talking $80 a tile. And I needed over 100 tiles for a whole backsplash. My dream kitchen priced itself right out of my budget before I’d even started. I sat with that disappointment for a while because this wasn’t just a passing pinterest phase for me. 

This goes all the way back to my grandma Helen’s house.

WHERE IT ALL STARTED

If you ever stepped into my grandma’s home, you felt it the second you crossed the threshold. It was almost pure magic. Stained glass front doors, English-inspired wallpaper, stone floors, that soft golden lighting she somehow had in every single room… and the Delft tiles. Everywhere, the Delft tiles. Her style was English and French inspired, heavy on the blue, and every piece of it had been collected slowly, over years. Nothing in that house ever felt trendy.

My grandma had ten kids, my mom was number four. When my mom was an older teen, she and my grandma started bonded over decorating the house together, it was genuinely one of the ways they became best friends. As a kid I did not get the obsession at all. It wasn’t until I was a teenager, walking into other people’s houses and sensing how different they felt, that I started understanding the “why.” Style is such a quiet way of sharing your energy. I swore up and down I’d never follow in my mom’s design footsteps.

Now I just laugh at myself cause here I am.

When my grandma passed away, I was given her copper pots and pans. They were the first things I ever intentionally collected, and they gave me a kind of direction I didn’t know I was looking for. I could never get rid of them. They’re a treasure to me.

Since buying the tiles seemed completely unrealistic, I figured I’d shoot my shot at something even more unrealistic. I decided to make my own tiles. From actual clay.

In true Abi fashion, I didn’t just accept “too expensive” as the end of the story.

Last year I bought around 300 plain tiles from Home Depot and hand painted every single one of them myself, trying to fake my way into the Delft look. And right before we were about to install them, standing there looking at all that work, I realized I could do better. They just didn’t feel right.

I decided to make my own. From clay. Worst case scenario I could use the ones I painted from home depot, but I wanted to try.

I started spending a couple hours a week at a local pottery studio, turning literal mud into something that might one day live on my walls. With no prior pottery experience and no idea if it would actually look good, I got to work. Just a stubborn feeling that I wanted this enough I had to get uncomfortable, and be willing to fail at it.

5 MONTHS LATER

Every single tile passed through my hands, then into a kiln, then back into my hands, then back into the kiln — sometimes more than once, because the first version wasn’t right. Shaping. Picking glaze colors. Firing. Waiting. Then doing parts of it all over again.

The fear that never really left me the whole time? That the end result would look like a kindergartener’s craft project glued to my wall. That I’d end up with an entire backsplash I’d have to quietly lie about loving for the rest of my life.

My husband Ammon helped me install them, tile by tile, in the exact order I’d made them. And even standing there with the last one in hand, I still wasn’t sure.

IT WORKED.  

When In saw them installed and finished for the first time, I broke down. Not only did it work, I was completely blown away by how imperfectly perfect it turned out. There’s something about handmade tile that store-bought just can’t fake. The tiny variations, the slightly different blues, the fact that my hands actually touched every piece of it. It doesn’t look like a kindergartener made it. It looks like it has a story, because it does.

My goal was to have it all fully installed by mid-April of this year, when I turned 40. And somehow we made it happen.

300 TILES TAUGHT ME A LOT

I had two choices: let go of the idea or learn how to make it work.

There is something incredibly satisfying about discovering that those aren’t always your only two choices: afford it or go without it.

Sometimes there’s usually always a third (or fourth) option.

Make the ugly first version. Paint 300 tiles you ultimately don’t use. Walk into a pottery studio knowing absolutely nothing. Risk making something terrible. Keep going until what exists in your hands finally starts looking like what existed in your head.

I learned a completely new skill I didn’t know was hiding inside of me for 40 years. I made something that will probably live in this house longer than I will. And somehow, without meaning to, I found another connection to the women who taught me that a home can tell a story.

So yes, I hope you chase your own version of this.Not because everything you try will turn out beautifully. But you’ll never know unless you try. I’m so glad I tried.