Keeping Your Kitchen Current

Tile is your kitchen's best friend - and here's why. Everyone knows the kitchen is the most popular room in your home for gathering for a meal or for entertaining—more often than not, everyone ends up in the kitchen. When it comes time to choose hard surface options for your kitchen, durable and stylish tiles offer counter, backsplash and flooring alternatives that meet your practical needs and interior decorating preferences.

Let’s start with the kitchen floor… so many designs and tile sizes, textures, colors and shapes. In fact, you can use the same design elements in other areas such as back splashes and countertops. It makes for a very cohesive design.

With the ability to customize your floors, you can design tile the way you want, with small 12x12 tiles or large 18x18 tiles. You can use a variety of patterns and borders and even use different patterns on different parts of the floor: simply use a thin, 4 or 6" wide border to separate both areas.

By using tiles in a grid pattern with tight grout joints, a floor virtually flows. This technique draws your attention to a backsplash where pattern and texture may be emphasized with the use of smaller tiles, slightly more open joints and contrasting grout.

On any of your tile surfaces, you can change things up by changing patterns within the tile field. An inset of field tile inset on-point in a diamond pattern draws your interest. Complete the treatment with an array of chair rails, single-frame, double-frame and or diamond insets. It’s all about texture.

Repeating patterns, to scale, on floors, walls and backsplashes coordinates your design without making it mundane. Think about taking part of a pattern and using it to face a shelf for your cookbooks. It’s this kind of detail that claims the kitchen as yours!

Some Interesting Choices

What could copper, stainless steel, hardwood and glass possibly share?.. a virtuoso place in contemporary kitchen design. And, they characterize the latest tile trends happening in stylish kitchens

Glass
A kitchen is designed to integrate light and warmth into the space. Of course, light is a necessity for dicing carrots and icing cakes. As a bonus, a kitchen with ample light brightens your morning and cheers your mood on gloomy afternoon. Glass tiles play with light and accentuate the luster of the room. Since glass tiles are translucent, light gleams through them, intensifying their inherent brilliance and illuminating adjoining space.

A kitchen backsplash tiled in glass will shine from sunrise to sunset, and glitter under task and ambient lighting as well as candlelight. Designing and installing a glass mosaic in your backsplash establishes a focal- point in your kitchen, integrating design, color and style into a room normally defined by function.

Hardwood
What’s not to love the look of hardwood flooring? But it is a high maintenance option for a kitchen floor. Tile manufacturers have perfected faux hardwood tile selections that are the next best thing and definitely a stylish and practical choice.

Through high-definition imaging, the tile industry has refined manufacturing tiles out of one material to flawlessly resemble another. An outstanding example is porcelain tile made to look like real hardwood. Existing in traditional plank widths, the faux bois tile are a snap to maintain, and they have porcelain's natural resistance to germs and moisture, enhancing their wellness-friendly ranking.

Metal
Looking for a tile that harmonizes with your collection of copper pots? Or, how about one that goes with your stainless steel range and refrigerator? Search no more, metal wall tile will afford a stunning impression.

Metal tiles are far more appealing than huge sheets of stainless steel or copper. You can create singular patterns and designs with metal wall tiles. The most obvious application for metal wall tile is the kitchen backsplash. For a polished, contemporary look select stainless steel, available in an assortment of finishes from satin to brushed. Inviting bronze or copper tile add enduring charm to kitchens with more traditional style.