After the festive season and the gloomy January, we usually see an increase in the number of projects with the spring coming soon. Starting a bit early to give you the chance to choose your favorite finish ahead of time and plan your next project accordingly, this series will go through various materials you might be wondering about and look at their technicalities to make sure they are suitable for your project.

We are starting this new series with flooring, and more specifically tiles today!

There are a lot of options out there, add to that all the beautiful Pinterest looks and you might not know which one to settle for. Let’s have a look at your options when it comes to tiles and what you should know and consider when choosing them.

1. Man made tiles

• Porcelain vs ceramic

Sometimes, porcelain and ceramic are used interchangeably when referring to tiles, but they are not the same. Knowing the difference between them will help you to easily make your decision.

Porcelain tiles are made from very fine clay, glazed and fired at high temperatures in a kiln to remove the moisture, resulting in a hard and dense tile.

Ceramic tiles are also made using natural clay but fired at a lower temperature and then usually glazed. The firing process still reduces the water content but not as much as the porcelain tiles, and that’s where the big difference lies: ceramic tiles are not as hard wearing as porcelain tiles, they can be chipped more easily.

So as a designer, I favor porcelain tiles for the floor, especially for high traffic areas and rental properties and keep the ceramic tiles for the walls, either in the bathroom or in the kitchen, as splashbacks.

• Cement and terrazzo tiles

Cement tiles and terrazzo are so trendy, you really can’t escape seeing them in magazines and online. They are for sure beautiful but before you settle for them, read on, you want to know what you are signing up for.

Cement tiles are made by hand, one at a time, using mineral pigments, cement, a mold, and a hydraulic press. Unlike porcelain and ceramic tiles, they are not fired but instead cured at room temperature and don’t have any glaze layer on their surface. As a result, you can expect first a trickier, longer and more labour intensive installation as they are inconsistent in size (even by a few millimeters). Second, as they are not fired and not glazed, they are extremely porous and therefore absorb pretty much everything...the grout but also any substance, even a puddle of water will leave marks. To prevent that, sealants are available but you need to know that to prevent staining, you will have to seal it very, very often, making it an extremely high maintenance option.

Terrazzo is a composite material made of natural stone chips (marble, granite, glass or other) poured into a binder which can either be cement or chemical based (epoxy or acrylic). Similarly to the cement stones, it is not fired but cured at room temperature then ground and polished to a smooth surface. And for these very same reasons, terrazzo is very porous and while the surface may be hard enough to withstand heavy foot traffic, it does need protection from stains and for that, you will need to treat the surface with a protective sealer, again very frequently.

The good news is, tile suppliers are getting more and more creative with porcelain and ceramic tiles to reproduce the look of cement and terrazzo tiles without the cons of the real thing!

2. Natural stones

Natural stones are any type of stones that have been taken from the earth, primarily quarried, and they come in natural, honed or polished finishes. Natural surfaces are usually matt with some texture, honed tiles are smooth and matt whilst the polished ones have a smooth sheen. The higher the polish, the more water-resistant, but also the more slippery the tile is.

Some of the most commonly used natural stones are:

• Granite: a very hard and durable material making it ideal for floor tiles in heavy foot traffic areas.

• Slate: a durable option, coming in a range of colours from light to dark grey.

• Limestone: a softer material with earthy shades to probably avoid in high traffic areas.

• Travertine: a soft and porous material with a natural textured surface, it needs regular resealing.

• Marble: although porous, if you choose a honed or polished finish, you will get this extra luxury feel in your bathroom.

3. Other technical characteristics

• Rectified tiles have their edges cut at a right angle which create a very neat finish. It also means that the grout, i.e. the joints between tiles, doesn’t have to make up for the tile imperfections and is therefore narrower, usually 2 to 3 mm.

• Slip resistance is a technical characteristic of the tile important to take into consideration if you are having tiles in a bathroom or wet room, in an area with an incline or having more vulnerable people around, you don’t want to create a hazard by having tiles that are too slippery.

• Check which substrate needs to be used. As you would prep a wall before painting or applying wallpaper, tiles require the surface to be adequately prepared. Your tile supplier or tiler will be able to tell you what is required.

I hope this post has answered your questions when it comes to tiles characteristics, if you have any others please leave a comment or get in touch.

Julie