Customization---easier say than done

Back in Los Angeles, during the school time, we had a complete IKEA home. We swore so many times that we won't  do it any more once we graduated.
Easier say then done.....sign....We still shopped in Ikea when we lived in Stockholm and Taiwan. Please don't get me wrong, there were many good design pieces in Ikea but it was like you picked up some Lego pieces from the same toy box and trying to arrange them in a slightly different way than other people did. 

Customization was the key to us in this project in order to create something new but what we got from the workers is big"NO !!"  They told us either " it's too expensive!" " too much trouble" " you will regret" or simply " WE DON'T DO THINGS THAT WAY !"

The rules we set for this remodeling projects are:
1. Use as many local materials as possible.
2. Design as many parts as we can

So, Here is the first part we made under these 2 rules.
I liked the old American hexagon shaped tiles but it was too small and impossible to find in Taiwan:

I also was thinking about using marble as tiles because the entire East-North coast mountain in Taiwan is marble. Green material! Oh yeah~~
2009 when B's parents visited us we went hiking there ---Taroko, Taiwan. It was beautiful~

So I combined two things I like and made 5cmx5cm Hexagon shaped marble tiles and they looked great.
We used them in the kitchen and master bathroom