- Hey guys, welcome back. And today I'm so excited,
it's a new series and it's all about finishes! And listen, finishes are tricky and a lot of people get them
wrong, even professionals. So I'm going to give you all the details starting today with tile. (upbeat music) So today's episode is tile. One of my favorites! But what do we mean when
we say tile for interiors? Well, we're going to have to
go on a history lesson for that Tile is actually the
oldest man-made material that we use in interiors. Archeologists have found evidence of tile as early as the 13th
century BC in Mesopotamia. That is so cool to me! I mean, look at these
tiles that they have found, they're amazing! And it didn't stop there. Let me tell you, the ancient Egyptians, they had tons of stone around and so you can still see their old floors. The Greeks and Romans weren't
going to get left out. They started doing things with terracotta, the stone mosaics that you can see in places like Pompei, fabulous! Medieval Europe brought in encaustic tiles which are tiles that have clay
colored all the way through instead of just a glaze on the top. And then of course, the
blue and white delft tile from the Dutch golden age in the 1600s. Oh my God! That's still kind of an it thing today. We're still using this stuff. So how do we use tile in interiors today? It's almost hard to know where to start. I mean, you've got things like terracotta. Finished an unfinished, I love both. Ceramics, glazed and
unglazed, both are great. Porcelains, one of my
favorite subcategories, they're amazing, they can look like so many different things. Stone of course and stone mosaics, that's also still being
used very beautifully. Glass and recycled glass, metal. Oh, this is kind of a new thing but you can use it on vertical
surfaces and it looks groovy. And even cement, which is my favorite. Now, for those of you who are looking for a unique cement tile which, it's actually not very easy to find, I have to tell you about this
brand that I absolutely adore. And we're lucky enough to
have them sponsor this video. Their name is Lili Tile. Here's their logo. And I'm going to fill
you in more about them later in the video. Now, I want to make it simple for you guys so I want to explain how
designers make tile selections so you guys know how to do it yourself. There's a couple of crucial
decisions that you need to make. The first one being, where do you need it? It could be tubs, tiles
to your entry floor. Maybe your it's your entire
first floor of your house. It could be all over. Pools, maybe you even
have some outdoor areas that you want to go with tile. So you need to think about
where you need it first. Next, you want to consider
what your traffic level is going to be. Now, if it's in a main entry hall, that's going to get a lot of foot traffic. As opposed to say something
like the backsplash in a guest bathroom, which is
going to get almost nothing. The third thing that you want
to think about is your budget for either the area that
you're redoing or of course, the whole space that's going to get tile. And you did to think about it both from the material standpoint and from the cost of installation, also very important to include. Now, the last thing that
you want to consider is what type of tile expresses
your design style statement. And I'm going to show you all
about how to determine that at the end of the video. So when you're looking at choosing tile for any installation,
walls, floors, anything, you have two choices here. You need to make a decision
about what the main area of tile will be and that would
be called your field tile. And then the secondary
area, if you're going to add an accent, would be
your secondary or accent tile. When you're looking at
your budget, here's the key because the most material
that you need to purchase is for your field area or the big expanse. So that's where you want
to kind of look at options that maybe you're a little
bit softer on the budget. And then you can spring a little bit more for some of the accent tile. And that's a way professionals like myself kind of make the budget move and flow so that we get the look that we want with maybe a little bit of lux or a little bit of a major statement but it's only done at a smaller area. So it's a good tip to remember. Typically for my projects, my go-to for field tile solutions is either porcelains or natural stone if the budget allows either way. Let me tell you why I love porcelains. Porcelain is super durable. It's easy to install, which
actually can save you money in installation and labor costs. It's virtually waterproof. So if you needed to use
it in a super wet area like showers and shower
floors, absolutely no problem. And it comes in this
huge variety of styles. Oh my gosh! This can look
everything like woods, you can do stone. Of course, it can look like stone at kind of half the cost. You can do metal. Oh, I love this porcelain
tile that I've done a lot on some fireplaces and
in some specialty areas and it looks like cold
rolled steel, it's amazing. You can even get porcelains
that look like cements or plaster finishes or
even other types of tile like the cement tile. Now, natural stone is also a
great solution for field tile because it's extremely durable but it is considerably pricier. So I tend to like it a little bit more for maybe accent areas, but
it comes in a huge variety of looks and style statements. Everything from like tumbled limestone if you're doing something
kind of transitional or traditional and you
want that softer look, or maybe a travertine,
travertines are great. Marble, who doesn't love marble? Absolutely. There's also things like
slate and bluestone. And then of course,
there's the stone mosaics which work really well if you're,
say, doing a bathroom area and you need that slip
coefficient to be super tight, then cutting that stone
up into small pieces like they do for mosaics, gives you that extra grip under
foot which is really useful. So pro tip guys, if
you're doing a tile floor, I don't care where, bathrooms,
your main entry hall, skip the polished finish. I know it's beautiful,
but the reality of it is, anybody in wet feet,
just not a good solution. There's lots of great ones out there. You can do a matte finish,
you can do a honed, flamed, leathered, there's all
kinds of finishes out there that you can use when
you're working on the floor. Now, if you're working on
a field tile on the wall, make it mirror, it doesn't matter. But you really want to
have a little bit of safety under foot when you're doing
the field tile selection for your floor. Now let's talk about accent tiles 'cause they're kind of the jewelry of the tile world, so to speak. And you really want to make
a couple of choices here. You definitely want to choose a tile that references your style and can also create maybe a focal point. Like this is a beautiful image tile that's done in this
bathroom or I love this idea of the fish scale done in the glass inset into a regular
blue tile in a shower, that's beautiful. Or even this black and white one where the field color is the
white and then the accents are the little black squares in between. Those are all great and groovy solutions and obviously speak to the style
that they're stating there. So one of my go-tos for accent tiles is actually cement tile. And now I want to tell you
a little bit about Lili Tile 'cause they rock this category. It's amazing what they have! They have some of the most stunning stuff. And when I told them that we
were going to do this video, they sent me a bunch of
things and oh my God, I thought I was going to weep! Let me show you. So their line is huge. You can do any style of
design with this product. That's one of the things I love. For instance, if you're doing
something rather transitional or traditional, oh my gosh,
this thing is so beautiful! They even offer custom, although I don't think you'd ever need to. And if you look at a good cement tile, you can see on the edge that
there's a full three eights of an inch of color all the way down. That's one of the reasons these products are so unbelievably durable
and last forever and look great because they're built to do that. They have groovy hexagons, oh my gosh! If you look at this
photo, this is a project that I did with one of them. And they're just great looking in a field or you can use them as accents, it doesn't matter, vertical or horizontal. This is a sweet little one too. This is a smaller hexagon. So glamorous, oh, I just
want to tile the front of somebody's bar with it right now. And here's a third hexagon
that I just drooled over the minute I opened the box. The thing that I noticed
about cement tiles is that they have this very sort of smooth kind of waxed finish. It's not shiny, it has a
bit of a matte look to it which is very sort of
restrained and important. Now, if you're doing
more contemporary spaces, I thought I was going
to cry when I saw this gorgeous black one with the dragon fly. Or just the black one with the
inset rectangle in the middle Solids in the torotso, note the little bit of a fleck of shell in it. Groovy mid-century modern look. I love this simple star, that's fabulous. Even this Sirolian blue with
like a twinkle star in it. So, I love cement tiles if you can't tell. And Lili is now my go-to for them because they just have such
a huge range to select from, I don't really need another option. But there's a couple of other reasons. I love that all their tiles are handmade. A completely green production line. And then the third thing is
I've had great experiences working with their team and they've delivered when they need to. They're just great, I can't
recommend them highly enough. So be sure and check them
out in the links below. So now with all of these
choices, how in the world do you go about making selections that will reflect your design style? Well, here's a couple of pointers. If you're looking for
something traditional, you're going to typically want products that are smaller scale in the tile. You can use stone like you
see here in this backsplash. Porcelains that look
like stone, of course. Terracotta, that's very
big for traditional. Glazed ceramics, also
very big for traditional. Think those blue delft
tiles from the 1600s, those are gorgeous. And of course, the pattern
tiles like I showed you in Lili Tile's collection, or, you know, you can do stone mosaics,
there's all kinds of options here that really can reflect and make a strong, traditional statement because tile and traditional go hand in hand. Perhaps you're looking for something a little bit more transitional, then you're going to
look for small or large. You can do both scales,
that's not a problem. Again, you can use stones or
porcelains that look like stone Terracotta again, but
you might want to think about keeping it super clean
as opposed to having it really look super aged. Glazed ceramics again, some pattern tiles, but you may want to limit their use. Maybe you want to do them
just in the powder room or maybe you want to
do just a single inset above a cooktop or you know,
something simple with it. And then of course with transitional, you want to have a more
muted color palette and maybe a little bit of a calmer option on some of your patterns. Now, if you're contemporary, things switch up a little bit. You often want large scale
field tiles for contemporary. I frequently do 36 by 48s because you want to make it long and sleek and like, it's just one
big slab of material. So stones, natural stones are good. Porcelains are even better because porcelains can be
fired at super large materials so that's great and they mimic other materials,
which is often great. So I love this one tile
that they've just done, it looks just like a black solid floor. Oh, that's amazing. You can also get them to look like cement, that's a very groovy look. Wood and stone, naturally you
can do in contemporary spaces. You can do them textured or plain. I like this little kind of combination. It's a monotone, but
it's all the same tile, just cut up into smaller pieces and then done in larger pieces as well. That's a very groovy contemporary look. Again, you want to stick to
neutral color ways with that. Maybe a single tone for the field. If you're doing an accent,
often the accent matches or is even simple like
this one huge fireplace. I just love that vertical installation of a stone-like porcelain
that's over that fireplace. That's amazing looking. So one last detail when we're talking about tile installations
and tile selections is you need to be mindful of your grouts. And let's understand how grouts
impact your overall choice. So, if you look at a traditional space, typically the grout is either
a light color or a cement tone and or it matches the
field color of the tile. So that it's meant to blend
in and sort of not take away from the importance of the tile. However, when you start
to move into transitional and contemporary, you can
start to play with the color. For instance, here's a perfect example. This bathroom has a white
chevron pattern to it and they've chosen to do
a black grout in there which really accentuates it but it also breaks up
the pattern a little bit. So, always think about
how can your grout line be the most blended with the field so that you get the least
amount of pattern unless, and the exception is this, you want an entire wall of
say, all one color of subway and then you're going to
do an accent grout there, then that's fine and that makes a great transitional statement. Now, with contemporary,
kill it back altogether. You want almost no grout line. Think about one 16th of an inch. You can badger your tile
installer to get that thin. It takes a bit of a comment, but you can. And that way, it makes all
of the materials look uniform and monolithic, which is
what you're looking for when you're doing a
contemporary tile installation. So, now we've covered one
of my favorite materials which is tile, and you've
gotten kind of the basics on it. So I want to say thank
you so much to Lili Tile for being with us on this video
and they're just great guys. You've got to definitely
check the note down below. And if you're doing any work
on your house this year, you want to make sure you
check out these videos and I'll see you next week! (soft upbeat music)
