Tile lay out and cutting

I'm back after a hiatus and am ready to tile. I spent an evening laying them out.

I started by mixing up the tiles in order to vary the differences that might occur in their production.

At first, I laid the tile out in a simple pattern and I thought it looked pretty good.

A few nights later, I returned with Allison and she suggested staggering the tiles. This turned out much better!

With the pattern laid out, I had to start experimenting with cutting the tiles to fit into the odd sized spaces. This took a few days of research and consideration but after awhile, I thought I'd just started practicing.

I practiced making one long cut from end-to-end. Then I practiced notching one side and then flipping it over and ripping it down towards the notch.

I decided I like the notched method because it leaves the surface of the tile intact. Ripping from end-to-end broke off a small portion of the tile surface at the very end. It's hardly noticeable but it's still there. Those are the strips with a what looks like a small tooth on the end.

Afterwards, I tried cutting the tiles in half width wise. I was kind of worried about doing this because the tile was so wide, it extended over the sides of the table saw. This meant I had to freehand cut the tile, without a "fence" (i.e. guide) to follow. All I had was the line indicating where I had to cut.

It turned out it wasn't so bad. Once I got the tile fed into the saw, it seemed to feed itself. All it needed was little bit of guidance and pressure.  

I think I'm ready to start tiling!