Envirotile Project with The Home Depot: Part Three #DigIn

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*This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Home Depot.*

If you have been following along on our outdoor gazebo makeover project, you have already seen my shopping trip at The Home Depot for the eco friendly Envirotiles from The Home Depot.

This past week my husband Joe has been busy putting this project together. When I brought them home last weekend he immediately set to work laying them out on the gazebo platform to get a feel for how they would look.

Home Depot Envirotile Gazebo Outdoor Project 1

He used these easy to follow instructions on How to Install Envirotiles from The Home Depot. The steps you need to follow exactly will really vary on the space and surface you are working with.

To start, Joe measured to find the center of the platform with his measuring tape and then placed the tiles going out in a plus shape, to create quadrants.  Then he simply laid the rest of the tiles out in the quadrant.  As you can see he had some overhang along the edge. To take care of these, he could have used a jigsaw or utility knife to trim them. (He used some creativity to avoid that, which I’ll explain later.)

Home Depot Envirotile Gazebo Outdoor Project 4

Using the  Envirotile Connector Clips around the perimeter, you are able to content the tiles together by lining the tiles up and securing with the connectors facing up.

Home Depot Envirotile Gazebo Outdoor Project 2Some pounding with a rubber mallet and these tiles should be in place. Except they weren’t. At least not for us.
Home Depot Envirotile Gazebo Outdoor Project 3We had several issues with the  Envirotiles which make them difficult to work with.

Irregular cut. This made it tough to clip the tiles together and to line them up nicely in squares. It was a bit of a jig-saw puzzle as Joe needed to find larger and smaller tiles to fit together to try to eliminate gaps. This made using the supplied clips almost impossible – even if he could get the clip to fit between the tiles, the clips he already installed wouldn’t stay put.

He was afraid of cutting them square because he didn’t want them to remain square. He did know that he might have to cut the tiles down as he needed to cover a 10′ x 10′ area and the 18 inch tiles would have a 6 inch overhang.

The recommendation to put clips only on the end tiles would work great if the tiles were square and of uniform size. But they weren’t.

Home Depot Envirotiles Install 1Since this was not the case, my husband experimented with a few different starting placements and solved his clip issues by modifying them. He simply broke off one of the tabs that stuck up and screwed the clip down into the patio. The clips put pressure on the tiles and that holds them in place. This worked perfectly. He filled in the gaps plus secured the outer edge similar to the instructions, but used the modified clips instead.

What about the overhang?

He was faced with the 6 inch overhang (3 inches on each side) and had to figure out what to do. Originally he was going to use Envirotiles edging and cut the tiles, but our local Home Depot didn’t have them.

The Solution

He decided it was probably more desirable to make the patio bigger instead of trimming the tiles. Not only would Joe avoid having to cut them, but the gazebo frame always hung over in the past, and expanding the patio would solve that problem too.
Home Depot Envirotiles Gazebo Project 4It turns out that after placing the tiles, he had overhang of 2.5 inches. That happens to be the width of a 1×4 + a 2×4 stacked ( 3/4 inches + 1 and 3/4 inches).
Home Depot Envirotiles Gazebo Project 2He bought the lumber and put it in place. The tiles fit perfectly.
Home Depot Envirotiles Gazebo Project 3

I was very excited to see this solution to our problem! Rather than do a lot of cutting, my husband modified our space to fit the tiles and also extend our space with about a $50 investment.
Home Depot Envirotiles Gazebo Project 5My husband also had some great help outside from our five year old son Warren. He was more than happy to try and clean up the space around the gazebo by raking old leaves. (We’ve only had our snow gone for about a week and still have a ton of cleanup on our yard.)
Home Depot Envirotiles Gazebo Project 6
He was also a great helper with the tiles themselves. I love his can-do spirit!Home Depot Envirotiles Gazebo Project 7
And the Envirotiles are now installed! I love how they look and finish off the space.
Home Depot Envirotiles Gazebo Project 8

Watch for my post tomorrow with our final reveal and how our gazebo came together, perfect for relaxing and entertaining!

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It’s home improvement time, and The Home Depot has everything you need to #DigIn for Spring. No matter what projects you want to tackle, they have great values on all you need. They’re ready to help you with renovation ideas and expert advice, too.

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Disclosure: I am thrilled to have this opportunity to work with The Home Depot and receive product to enhance our backyard. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

8 Comments

  1. This sounds like a math word problem you get in math class. (The family has 10 tiles and they’re X inches and they need to fill a space X inches wide….) Glad you all could come up with a solution that worked for your space! The tiles look awesome and already warm up the gazebo. Can’t wait to see the final result.

  2. It can never be too easy right?? Just reading this was giving me flash back from when we re-tiled our bathroom this winter.

  3. I love your patio! We are working on our front porch. I have a question for you… how do you finish the edges? Did you use silicone to glue the edges down? I’m worried about the edges causing a trip hazard, and I’d rather not use the envirotile edging strips.

    1. My husband worried about that at first too. But our local Home Depot didn’t have the edging strips so we waited to see if they have to be ordered.. Since my husband secured them very well and made our raised platform match the size of the tiles, they really don’t seem to be a trip hazard. After two months we haven’t had any issues with tripping or the tiles moving at all. Hope that helps and good luck with your own project!

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