Browse Forums Flooring & Floor Covering Re: Timber look tiles 10Nov 13, 2014 8:43 am At the end of the day you need to balance up the pros and cons and see which material suits your home and lifestyle the best. Yes it is an imitation - but not everyone wants the upkeep that is required with natural products. Be it stone, timber, encaustic tiles, traverint, etc...its a personal choice. I do however disagree with line of thought that you cant use glazed/printed tiles as they show more chips, etc. 90% of the material coming out of Europe for many years are glazed fired tiles. A positive that shops will tell you is that vitrified tiles are "generally" a similar colour right through. The problem is two fold - they are generally very plain tiles that tend to show everything, streak, marks etc and secondly when you chip a tile it creates a cavity on the surface. Yes initially it may be a similar colour - But unless you get on your hands and knees and clean it out, it will accumulate dirt and show on such a plain colour tile. Note the darker the tile the less a problem this is. Glazed tiles yes are a top glaze coat, and yes the pattern does not go right through. But glazing allows us to put such detail in a tile where we can make it look like timber as shown above. Secondly this detail hides day to day dirt from showing, and finally if it does chip would you see it on such a tile with so much variation? We stress to clients you want a tile that's easy to clean, but just as important something you don't need to clean all the time. The movement and character in glazed tiles is there to make it look as similar to what it is imitating - put it introduces a great deal of day to day practicality. Sara also if you are looking at matt tiles tried to stay away from matt vitrified tile. Feel the surface if it feels - make sure it is not too dry feeling (technical term - not) as everything tends to stick to them. They don't absorb as such but they can need a scrub to clean. Final word of advice - the tile will always look lighter and less busy once laid in a bigger space. The lighter the tile - the lighter it will look. People always make the mistake of look ing at one tile and thinking that's exactly what it looks like once laid. Note these are opinions we pass onto our clients. At the end of the day it is a personal choice and you need to make a decision which suits you best. Cheers Re: Timber look tiles 11Nov 22, 2014 1:07 am Thanks for the excellent advice Zedman. I wondered about the 'dry' tile. We have a few samples that we've got out under our carport and walk over them constantly to see how they look when they're dirty and what they're like to clean. The 'dry' one although it doesn't show the dirt (it's brown) the mop sticks to it and you just can't mop it shame, it's one of my favourite looking ones. BTW FWIW, I love the 'timber' plank tiles for all the reasons stated above. Durability. And isn't it weird how we take notice of what floors feel like to walk on. I don't like today's 'timber' floorboards, find them unsettling to walk on. They feel like bits of MDF that are stuck onto a concrete slab. The original floorboards these modern replicas are modelled on were real planks of wood all the way through, nailed down to wooden joists. They feel very different to walk on. They kind of give under your body weight and bend back as you walk. Anyway, who cares but us individuals what we want in our own homes Re: Timber look tiles 13Nov 29, 2014 12:19 pm Hi Sara Thought you may like to see some of the new lines we just got samples of. Something a little different and unique.. Have not go pictures from clients yet as we only just received the samples. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Hope it helps and inspires... Cheers Interested in getting either the Polytec Boston Oak or Palace Peak for kitchen cabinets. Looking at the Boston Oak ones, it appears that the colour varies significantly… 0 9169 Engineering timber is certainly a less fuss option, times cheaper to supply and install and better withstands humidity. 1 15908 No the fireplace doesn’t work. It’s been enclosed. I’m not sure what was removed, as it was done quite some time ago - well before what I can see with photos online… 2 11584 |