Lundy P. Wilder, Author at Cement Style

Tile Designs Based on Textiles

We had never heard of Kuba cloth when Stu Neyland submitted his new designs for his super cool collection of cement tile. We just knew it was a great floor tile design. Turns out that Stu and his wife Suzie have a collection of authentic Kuba cloth. Several pieces are framed and hanging above their fireplace and Stu had used them as inspiration for his tile design.

One wonderful aspect of Stu’s Kuba tile is that one can lay the tile in any orientation and the resulting pattern looks different depending on your choices.

Read more about The Stu Neyland Collection of cement tiles and see the Kuba tiles in various colorways.

More and more designers are becoming aware of African Kuba cloth.
To make Kuba cloth the Kuba people of the Congo cut and weave dyed pieces of raffia. The several different sub-groups of the Kuba people have unique ways to make their fabric. Many of the patterns are arranged to have meanings. And what a handsome floor tile it makes !

The Best LOL on TV

Without a doubt, The Colbert Report is the funniest show on TV. I wish it was on big 3 network TV so all the public would see it. But would they watch ?

PrepKitchen, Little Italy

We furnish tile to many restaurants but it is not always easy to get photos of these installations. In this case we called on the phone and chatted with a friendly employee who promised to send us some photos. This was months ago, *then* like an unexpected Easter Egg we received 3 emails with nice photos of our tile at the popular California eatery “PrepKitchen”. It is the new location in San Diego. We think the inset tiles set off the powerful striped wood flooring in a wonderful way. PrepKitchen seems to be a foodie’s favorite as the review sites show many stars and wonderful comments.
PrepKitchen Little Italy
1660 India St
(between Date St & Cedar St)
San Diego, CA 92101
Neighborhood: Little Italy

Don’t you just love the look of cement tile on walls ? You see this so much overseas and so seldom in the States.

Bahama Bathroom

A while back we had a wonderful experience of working with a couple who were building in the Caribbean. For starters, they sent a great diagram of the entire room’s elevations. They were careful to count all necessary bullnose and edger tiles and having this elevation diagram that showed all openings and tile edges was a huge assist in the tile count. Oh how we wish every home-owner job had the same up-front planning.

Sue and Dewey used our Villa Lagoon Tile Collection’s “Trellis Shell” tile as a perfect beachy bathroom tile. These photos she sent were while the bathroom was still under construction, but even so, we think they look great.

The bathroom also used our Italian Trellis “Azul” and Light Turquoise color from our Caribbean color selection.

Using the correct sealant is all important in a bathroom. All cement tile must be sealed, but where water is always present and lots of cleaning takes place, it is especially important. Villa Lagoon Tile has access to the right sealants for cement tile bathrooms, kitchens, and outdoor installations.

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A Tropical Touch

Our Basket Weave tile has been put to great effect in a Gulf Coast rental beach condo. Originally the living room and kitchen areas were tiled when the owner bought the condo and the bedrooms were carpeted. As you can imagine, in a sandy environment, the carpets were like sand magnets and resulted in numerous rental management charges for ‘carpet cleaning’ .

Now the new Basket Weave tile floors lend a great tropical look to both bedrooms and provide a floor that is much easier to keep clean.

The new Basket Weave tile is sealed with our low-gloss water-based sealant. The first coat was as a grout release and an additional thin coat was added after grouting.

Delightful Video Series

We are enchanted by Sonia Gill and producer Mariana Hellmund’s video series about Sonia’s Travels. Even tho we only get a trip out of the USA once or twice a year (usually once), we feel like we have had a mini vacation w/ some exotic inspiration when we watch the latest installment of their short flicks.
Today is the garden behind Notre Dame…who knew ? Sonia of course.

Contemporary Bathroom with “Cuban Tile”

We love it when one of our clients sends us a photo of their installation and we flip out when they send a photo like this one ! Client Franz Goebel used our Surf “Agua” tile and a matching solid color tile in this elegant contemporary bathroom. With the new modern sealants it is possible for the “skiddish” to use cement tiles in the wet areas without a worry. Note how the grout color of the deep aqua tiles was color matched to the tile. We think this enhances the rich look.

Tropical Basketweave Tile

Needing an easy-to-clean floor in a rental beach condo a client used our Basketweave cement tile to replace carpeting that was needing frequent cleanings.

The living room and kitchen areas were already tiled with a nondescript big box tile which of course was thinner than our cement tile. This is no problem as the creative tile layer picked up some pre-assembled mosaic tile strips at Lowe’s to use to create a threshold between the rooms. They work beautifully.

We think the Basketweave is a great choice for a beach-y tropical look and we promise to add photos to the blog when the rooms are completed.

New Patchwork Tile Photos

For the longest time we only had graphic images of our popular Patchwork Mix tile. Now that the weather is so perfect, we went to the warehouse and lay out one box of each of the 8 mixed tile boxes. To make a complete rectangle we had to also slip in 2 or 3 extra tiles to finish it out. But now clients can see exactly how the actual Patchwork Cement Tiles will look. See see the finished Patchwork Cement Tile layout here.

Photos of Antique Mexican Cement Tiles

Antique Mexican cement tiles in a church

We visited Mexico and while there we took snapshots of shop and office cement tile floors as we strolled around. Amazing cement tiles were everywhere. Often times the office personal or shop keepers would invite us in for better photos. Everyone was proud of their historic tiles…well, not everyone. Some shops had covered over their tiles with cheap ‘modern’ flooring, which usually was not holding up nearly as well as the old tiles. Villa Lagoon Tile just added one page of old Mexican tile floors and another is soon to come.