Cement Style

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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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. 

Cement tile enthusiast Susanna, living in Sevilla has a nice blog about discovering old cement tiles. Her latest post is about looking up at the undersides of balconies in to see the cement tiles which probably cover the top sides of the balconies too. Susanne was in Cocentaina (Province of Alicante) in Spain and took some interesting photos of some very old cement tile while she looked upward.

How fun is this ? To put cement tiles facing outward UNDER your balcony. What a great decorative touch on a home’s exterior. When you think about it, all balconies are just plain fun anyway.