Coles Fine Flooring Porcelain

Tile Tips from the Experts!

Table of Contents 240x300 Tile Tips from the Experts!To give your home a more natural look and feel, you can choose ceramic or stone floors, rough textured tiles or even tiles that look like wood planks. Tile floors require less maintenance and give warmth as well as beauty to any room of your home. People use tiles for walls, floors and counter tops to achieve that earthy and elegant look.

There are a whole range of colors, designs, and types of tile to choose from; ceramic, marble, glass, granite, porcelain, and stone. For areas where moisture will be present, like bathroom or a shower, a non porous type is usually best; however you can seal a porous stone and be able to use it in a room where moisture issues could be a problem.
When tiles are used on a floor or flat surface, stains are inevitable. Any natural material can be damaged and stained, usually easier than man-made materials like ceramic tile. Stone, because it’s porous, has the potential to be stained even more. When tile is used on a counter top or floor, it really needs to be sealed to prevent moisture and dirt from soaking into the natural stone. Cleaning these tiles is easy when the tiles have been finished properly.  Coles provides a variety of cleaning and sealing products for your stone and tile floors. Whether you tile your bathroom, your living room, or your whole home, it will provide you with years of comfort and natural elegance.

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Using Decorative & Accent Tiles

When planning to use tile or stone in your home, you may find yourself considering accent tiles, decorative tiles, border pieces, etc. These designer tile pieces are an easy way to enhance a larger tile pattern, incorporate a color scheme, or define an area as a focal point.

Here are some quick tips on how to integrate these accent tiles into your decorating scheme:

  • Create a decorative band in a shower, or as a tub surround.
  • Backsplashes and sink splashes are great opportunities to use these decorative options.
  • Wainscoting border- install a tile border about wainscoting level to create a divide along the wall.
  • Tile-framed mirrors are fun and unique- you can build a tile border and have it installed directly to the wall, surrounding the mirror
  • Hard surface area rug- create the look of a rug with a tile border or inlay, used to set off an area like a dining room or a foyer.
  • Line the perimeter of a countertop, and create the effect of an outline or border.
  • Trace the base of a kitchen island, using a border to set off the island within the kitchen.

Remember, there are no real “rules” to using decorative tiles & accent tiles- your design opportunities are a endless as your imagination!

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Bathroom Floor Tiles As Design Statements

Strange though it may seem, one of the first things your guests will see is your bathroom. Even if you entertain casually and never have much traffic outside the living or dining room, your friends will still need to see the restroom. Consequently, that seemingly unimportant powder room should receive just as much care and attention as the often-improved entrance hall.

But despite this crucial role, many bathrooms remain in the design dark ages. Most are covered with dated and worn bathroom floor tiles, relics of a bygone era rather than shining beacons of modern style. Toilets and plumbing fixtures are often tarnished and loose. Some full baths have remarkably dirty and mildewed showers. No matter how nice your foyer might look, no guest will be thinking of the entry hall when they enter a bad bathroom!

Luckily, today’s tile market offers many different options to help you get the ceramic mosaic tiles your bathroom deserves. These tiles provide an incredible variety of design options, everything from standard stone-finish flooring to intricate inlays. With the right company, you can go from design concept to installation quickly and efficiently. Even better, ceramic mosaic tiles are less expensive than stone and much more pleasant to walk on: where stone can sometimes grow chilly, ceramic mosaic tiles stay much more reliably at room temperature.

Ceramic Mosaic Tiles

Without a doubt, tiles are an excellent option for giving your bathroom a vibrant new look. But don’t just think of them as bathroom floor tiles; good ceramic is much more versatile. Here are just a few ways you can use a seemingly common tile to give your bathroom unexpected flair:

  • Create a pattern on the floor.
  • Vary the size of the tile while keeping the color constant.
  • Incorporate a tile accent.
  • Install tile on your walls or counters as well.
  • Design your own wall art to highlight a sink or architectural feature.

With so many options, ceramic tile is the clear choice for the bathroom and beyond. Check out Travertine stone tile.

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Mohawk Flooring: Part Of A Wider World

Mohawk flooring is certainly good. It is durable, quality, and comes in a good range of styles. But Mohawk is only one company of many in the flooring market today. With the internet as a resource, why settle on the first company you find? Find out what exists beyond Mohawk flooring. Enter the world of alternative flooring.

Alternative Flooring Basics

It should hardly come as a surprise to hear that there are floors available beyond wood and stone. From sustainable new-material surfaces to bamboo, cork, reclaimed wood & porcelain tile flooring, the new styles offer all the durability and strength you could want while being environmentally responsible and wallet friendly. Cork flooring has recently become popular due to its unique look and sustainable manufacturing. Cork is an extremely durable material, made from the bark of the cork oak tree. A single cork tree is resilient and easily able to provide many floors from its bark.

Porcelain Tile Flooring Basics

Another recent innovation in alternative flooring is porcelain tiles. Although the word “porcelain” might make you think of fragile porcelain in plates and cups, these tiles are as durable as slate. They are fired at a high temperature, making them much stronger than ordinary ceramic tiles and as hard as granite. Many styles of porcelain tile flooring look almost identical to natural stone, but they provide much more versatility: some types are ADA slip-resistant, making them an excellent choice for a pool or other area where water can make traction difficult.

Porcelain tile is very easy to clean. It absorbs almost no water, making cleanup of spills easy and stains almost unheard of. The color of a porcelain tile is also more thoroughly distributed than in natural stone, giving the porcelain a finish and depth that even the best quality natural materials just can’t match. Porcelain tile is also an investment in your home: if you ever decide to sell, the value of your porcelain tile’s striking appearance is likely to be double or triple the price you paid to install it.

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