Building Your Base: Decorative Floors

Too many of today's homes are just simply plain, a little too vanilla. Either through fear of something different, or through the readiness of inexpensive materials, it just seems that almost every new home has the same non-descript tile laid straight with 12" or 13" tiles. But let me open your mind to the use of accent tiles.

The simple placement of an accent tile can add the interest and impact to any floor, especially key areas. To me, these areas include the foyer, entertainment areas and bathrooms. Each room needs to have a presence and the use of accent tile helps to create that presence, but it should still be simple and subtle. I believe in using accent tile as you would salt and pepper - at the right time and in the right amount.

These pictures are from a new home in Houston where we did the tile selections and designs, the project included the Kitchen/Utility areas and 5 -1/2 baths. Each bathroom utilizes specialty tiles in various applications and relates to the overall interior design of the home. Let's take a look - in the Master Bedroom, we used a antiqued Spanish Gold tile, with a honey-onyx in a fish scale pattern. This home is quite grand, so the Master Bath needed to be in line with the vision for the home. The slight contrast of materials with the green tones of the Spanish Gold and the yellow/golden tones of the onyx is very sophisticated.

This daughter's toile bedroom ensuite lent itself well to utilizing a fairly basic 6" matte glazed tile with a 2" gloss inset tile - reinforcing the black and white patterning of the toile. A dramatic look with a economic tile.

This bath was for the son of the family. We were concerned with allowing the bathroom to grow with the son's changing tastes. Here, the Jerusalem gold field tile borders the 2" tiles set on a bias. Notice that the tile in the threshold to the WC has been cut to reinforce the architecture, creating a stronger composition.

Another daughter's room had a bit of glamour to it. It was also one of the larger secondary bathrooms, so we had the ability to work a "rug" pattern, reinforcing the colors found in the granite selections. Again, the rug shape reinforces the basic shape of the room, helping to complete the interior.

Our last secondary bathroom we used a standard travertine tile. With an emphasis on patterning in this home, to walk away and leave this bath plain would not have made sense. Very simply, we created a bordered tile effect around 4 tiles. This accent tile comes on a 12" mesh sheet, so the tile setter merely had to cut the tile into strips and lay the strips in. As a note, using AutoCAD, we laid this pattern out several different ways, working the best possible layout for the entry axis, the axis side to side and the axis along the center of the toilet. Seem a bit crazy? I don't think so, ever notice a bad tile job where too main points don't align. I do, EVERY single on of them.

Don't be afraid to use accent tiles. These tiles are more expensive but you use so few of them that the benefit will out weight the cost. It is also important that while regular tile is often stocked, accent tile is often a special order and could take 4-6 weeks to be delivered.

For Fun Good Friday

On a trip to the Houston Decorative Center this week, I happen to walk by the Tai Ping showroom, where this lovely carpet sample was sitting in the window. Ever appropriate for Friday and for the floor, I couldn't resist.

The pattern is named Daisies and Grass and is a Tai Ping Carpet Pattern (http://www.taipingcarpets.com/). This one sample really speaks to the advancement of technology in the realm of carpets and rugs. Do you have a little girl that loves "Fancy Nancy"? Then this is the rug for her room. It is so plush and it feels good on the toes too! HAPPY EASTER!


In Houston ,and just have to have one for yourself? Contact your designer or the Tai Ping Carpet showroom (713-877-8432).

Building Your Base: Floors

Last time, we talked about wood floors, today, it is tile's turn. Tile is probably the most universal material for your floor. You can choose any color and any size and put them in any pattern. Yet, the most readily used tile is the basic 12" tile. So many opportunities are lost when we only use a 12" tile, set on a straight pattern.

To begin with, there are a lot of different types of tile, including: Natural Stone, Glass, Ceramic & Porcelain. They have varied price ranges, but for the most part, I prefer to use natural stone, glass and porcelain. I also try to select a tile that has a range of tile sizes available. And although not exclusively, I select a tile with a rectified edge (meaning a straight edge, no chips or chiseling). These tiles provide us with the greatest flexibility of use.

We are seeing many new products that give more texture, more modernism and interesting variations to the tile world. One of my favorite lines is Pietre/2 from Casa Dolce Casa (http://www.casadolcecasa/) This specific line is a great porcelain tile from Italy that is very consistent in color. We used this in a contemporary master bath for a few reasons. We wanted to create a slab look to the floor and the shower walls to help expand the visual space of the room. The rectified edge also allowed us to get tight grout joints, furthering this effect.

Patterning is probably the next most important aspect to tile. How you treat your floors can help accent good architecture or even reduce distractions. Every choice we make should be based in supporting the overall interior.

For instance, here is an outdoor veranda area that is very long across the backside of the home. By choosing this pattern, we created larger groupings out of 3 differently sized tiles. Another reason we chose this pattern was to provide additional slip resistance to the surface as this area is prone to being wet. Granted slate is not as bad as a polished tile, but the smaller tiles help provide a greater surface area.

It is imperative to choose a tile that is appropriately sized for your room. A 12" or 13" tile in a room that is 15' x 17' is probably undersized and just as awkward as an 18" tile in a 3' x 6' powder bath.

If your unsure of ideas, stop by a Dal-Tile, Master Tile or American Tile showroom near you. These showrooms don't sell to the public, but are available as a resource to you for ideas and products. Additionally, Dal-Tile's website (http://www.daltile.com/) is very searchable for products.

That's it for the basics, next time we will talk about decorative and accent tiles.