Flooring’s beset by tiles and errors
Tiling might be an appealing design choice, however Elizabeth Mayhew warns they are a commitment in cost and labour, not to mention household disturbance.
If you haven’t snapped the picture yourself, you have probably seen it on social media: an image of two feet, shot from above, standing on an intricately patterned ceramic mosaic- or cement-tiled floor.
Sometimes the person’s shoes are of interest, but more often, it’s the graphic flooring that catches your eye.
Of course, tiled and patterned floors have a long, ancient history in places such as Turkey, Greece, Morocco, France, Italy, Spain, and Mexico. (Remember when you could travel and see them?)
In the United States and Australasia, such flooring has been a popular design choice in hotels and restaurants, where it is often the only pattern in a room. The propagation of these social media images, I think, is largely responsible for making tiled mosaic and cement floors done in bold patterns a growing trend in home design.
But although such floors might seem like an appealing design choice – especially after you have seen them in all their glory on social media – they are a real commitment. There are, however, ways you can get the look without an ‘‘oh my, what did I do’’ outcome. I spoke with two designers about how they approached the challenge in their own homes, and how homeowners can do the same.
Jen McDonald is a self-described patterned-floor fan, so when she and her husband bought their home – a nondescript 1970s split-level that she says ‘‘had no character’’ – she used an ornate black, white and grey cement square tile in her laundry. (The space has since been converted into an office/ classroom/craft room for McDonald and her three children.)
The flooring makes the room more fun – just what she wanted and needed in her laundry, McDonald jokes – and the space quickly became the room her friends commented on most often.
‘‘The tiles make a huge impact, and they definitely define the room,’’ she says.
McDonald acknowledges that the flooring was a big commitment because, unlike a rug, you can’t just roll it up if you get sick of it. But she says the bold pattern was tempered by the classic black-andwhite colour palette. And there has been an additional benefit to the choice of tile, McDonald says: The floor is easy to clean and care for.
‘‘I love rugs but having a tiled surface is just smarter with a young family,’’ she says.
Katie Ridder, an interior designer known for her bold use of colour and pattern, has been experimenting with floor and wall tiles since returning from a 1989 trip she and her husband, architect Peter Pennoyer, took to Turkey.
Perhaps one of the greatest design gambles Ridder has taken was installing lavender hexagonal ceramic tiles in the entryway of the house that she and Pennoyer designed for themselves.
‘‘It’s a colour I love and don’t get to use very often, and I knew it would work well with all of the colours in the surrounding rooms,’’ she says. But although she knew the colour would technically work, it was a gutsy and expensive choice.
Painting the floors would have been amuch easier and cheaper alternative, but Ridder says part of what makes it work are all the colours that are within the tile.
‘‘The way the material takes colour makes them more multidimensional, an effect that you could never achieve with paint,’’ she says.
Ridder acknowledges that most people would not make such a bold choice for such a large area, so she suggests trying either patterned cement tiles, such as the ones McDonald used, or colourful mosaics in a small space, such as a powder room.
‘‘A patterned floor can give a small room a lot of punch, show personality and character, plus it’s a room your guests will see, so it’s worth splurging.’’
One place Ridder says to not use ceramic or cement tiles, though, is the kitchen. ‘‘It’s just too hard a surface to stand on for long periods of time,’’ she says. She also hesitates to recommend it for entryways or spaces that have a lot of traffic from the outdoors, because pebbles and gravel can work their way in – a lesson she learnt the hard way. ‘‘The ceramic tiles can chip,’’ she says. ‘‘We have taken to touching up our floor with purple nail polish.’’
If you like the patterned floor trend but are hesitant, Ridder recommends picking a pattern with neutral colours, and she says to ‘‘keep the surrounding space pared down with simple wall treatment’’.
Ridder also says that should you install tiles and have second thoughts, you can always cover it up with an area rug. That, of course, makes for an expensive endeavour, but ‘‘the tile becomes an interesting decorative layer in the room’’. Another option is to go with a bold pattern in a less expensive, easier-to-install material. For example, McDonald just installed peel-and-stick patterned vinyl floor tiles in a custom doghouse she built on her property.
‘‘They were very affordable, user-friendly, graphic and fun,’’ she says. ‘‘I just cut them to fit and installed them on top of plywood. They can give you a good idea of what something more permanent would look like.’’
Another of McDonald’s tips is to make a template of the tile you like by printing out the pattern to scale on paper and putting it on your floor. You will know pretty quicklywhether you can live with the design.
When it comes to buying the tile, ‘‘whatever you do, make sure you read a lot of reviews and look at customer photos that show the tile in situ before you buy,’’ she says.
‘‘A patterned floor can give a small room a lot of punch, [and] show personality and character.’’
Katie Ridder