Archive for category: Designing With Tile

Our next four blog posts will focus on the four most important things to know about limestone. Today, we start with IMPORTANT THING #1: COLOR.

Limestone is a product of nature, man simply cuts it into convenient shapes. Limestone is a sedimentary stone found virtually everywhere around the world.

Most of the limestone used in the tile industry is comprised primarily from shells and bones of aquatic creatures, that has undergone extreme heat + pressure + time, which is why most limestones are light in color.

Darker limestone have been colored by other stones and minerals with heat and pressure over time.

For more information on how to design with limestone tile visit us at our Scottsdale Showroom.

Stay tuned for our next post on the density and strength of limestone.

When I first began in the tile business back in 1980, floor tile was 8″
x 8″.

Ten years later when I built my first tile showroom, tile was
mostly 12″x12″ with the bigger tiles at 13″ x 13″.

In 2001, when I began Villagio, we made displays to fit 24″ x 24″, but the vast majority of
tile was 16″ or 18″ square.

24″ was available, but was mostly a novelty at the time, with few customers. Now we’re almost halfway through 2015.
Ultra-thin (1/8″+) porcelain panels up to 5’x10′ are available from almost all distributors. Requiring new cutting and handling equipment as well as special adhesives and specific installation techniques, ultra thin porcelain has been slow to catch on residentially. However, traditional porcelain tile has been growing to larger formats as well.
The best selling size by far is 12×24, but we are seeing tremendous interest in 18″x36″ and even 24″x48″. We have over 20 selections of each of those sizes on display in our showroom.

But the most dramatic has to be our piece of 48″x48″ porcelain tile (not ultra thin). 16sf in a single tile—amazing!

Why larger and larger tile? It’s quite simple: less grout joints and
unmatched elegance.

We have two installations of 24″ x 48″ in our showroom—you’ll be amazed how it works well even in smaller rooms.
Smaller rooms with less grout joints give a more sleek contemporary look.