Wednesday 19 March 2008

Tiles 'R' Us


Here's our youngest choosing some tiles at the weekend. I can appreciate her aesthetic sensibility, they were small, square, glass and black, all of which are fine attributes in a tile. This particular tile had glitter embedded in each one though, which hubby firmly objected to.

I don't know how long normal couples spend arguing over various finishes in their homes, but this seems to be an area where we actually operate in some kind of parallel universe and actually agree very quickly. We decided to start at the lo-end of the spectrum, Topps Tiles (which is where we got our plain square white tiles from last time) and move up to Reed Harris and Fired Earth next weekend. The theory being that we'd rule out the cheap options, find something perfect in the high end ranges and see if our architect could source them cheaply from his Iraqi tile manufacturer.

As it transpired, we found some tiles we were happy with at Topps Tiles - they're called rectangular mosaics, so they're like little bricks ie wide and short. Hubby suggested laying them upright (so the tiles would be thin and tall) but in a small room I think it best to lie them longways, to give the illusion of width. The options with tiles this shape is to lay them like bricks, ie the row above sits halfway over from the row below, but we decided that it'll look better to lie them in neat repeating rows (again helping the sense of spaciousness).

On the colours - I like gunmetal grey which is quite dark, and hubby likes a more oyster grey. We'll discuss this with the architect as he may have a view. We haven't found any floor tiles yet, but they'll depend on which colour the wall tiles are as black flooring might look too harsh with dark walls and dark grout. Also, must ensure the tiles are sealed properly this time round as dark colours and toothpaste is asking for trouble….

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