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Stella Goretti is the owner of Firenze Ceramic Tile in North Hollywood, a family-owned business located there since 1978. Stella literally grew up in the industry and in this episode, she shares her deep from-the-kiln-to-the-home knowledge of general ceramic products and processes. stella@firenzetile.comhttps://firenzetilela.com/Firenze Ceramic Tile7283 Bellaire AveNorth Hollywood, CA. 91605
From Disaster to Dream Home! takes you inside the homebuilding process, from the ground up. In each episode, acclaimed interior designer Jana Rosenblatt brings you both the time-tested practices and the latest trends in homebuilding through conversations with leading architects, designers, and industry experts. Whether you’re building a custom home, rebuilding after a natural disaster, or renovating an older home, From Disaster to Dream Home! is your trusted source for the insights and connections you need to bring your home dreams into reality! www.FromDisasterToDreamHome.com
This is the EWN Podcast Network. Tile is one of the most creative materials we install in our homes, and there will be a lot of it. How is a homeowner to choose? Stella Guerretti of Forensi Ceramic Tile is with us today on From Disaster to Dream Home to identify the important aspects of tile we must consider.
Speaker 2:Welcome to From Disaster to Dream Home, the podcast that takes you inside the home building and rebuilding process. When interior designer Jana Rosenblatt had an 80 foot tree fall in her house, she saw the opportunity to create the customized home of her dreams. From Disaster to Dream Home provides you with the information and resources Jana wished she had during her rebuilding process. Now she's sharing with you the expertise of leading architects and home builders and the newest products and materials on the market. Here's your host, Jana Rosenblatt.
Speaker 1:Welcome back, homebuilders and remodelers, to another episode of From Disaster to Dream Home, the podcast that will take you through the process of building or rebuilding a new home from the ground up in 52 episodes. If you're rebuilding after the loss of your home or building a new home from the ground up, each episode of From Disaster to Dream Home will help you know what you and your design team will need to do to make the construction process fluid so your dream home can rise from the ashes. When we begin shopping for tile, I feel it's best to determine a direction with my clients prior to visiting the showrooms. That's one of the several reasons I shop with my clients for countertop materials as the first design material that has color and texture. So when we start to look at tile, we have something to match.
Speaker 1:We will have already talked abstractly about colors and the feelings the homeowner wants to experience in the house. We have been sharing photos and saving them in files as we develop the final house plans shot for our plumbing fixtures, appliances, and overall flooring. Now I go back to the files and print all the photos that incorporate tile for kitchens and bathrooms. Often, there are early photos that we shared that are just what the client has in their imagination for the tile. Now we must locate and purchase it.
Speaker 1:Today, our guest, Stella Guerretti of Forensi Ceramic Tile here in Southern California, is here to talk about tile with us. I was touched when I went to their website recently and found this quote on their homepage. The art of tile, building lasting friendships since 1978. I feel after twenty plus years of working together, Ferenzi is more than a vendor to me and to my business. They are a partner, teacher, and absolutely a friend.
Speaker 1:I bring my clients to Ferenzi as a first stop, and I call the little table in the showroom my office. I start at Firenze because I know my clients will feel welcomed and as comfortable as I do, and the selection is both current and timeless. We will see things that my clients will expect as well as tiles that will surprise us. Shopping for tile can be overwhelming for many, but Stella and her staff make everyone feel at home. Stella, I know that you're second generation in your business because early on, there was a large room with a big desk.
Speaker 1:It was a little bit scary in there. Yes. Tell me about growing up in the business and how you and your sister at the time made it your own.
Speaker 3:Well, we made it our own because my dad would sit, like you said, in that room, which was a big desk. And he would we wouldn't come out. So me and my sister were like, okay. Well, he's in there. We will just do what we do.
Speaker 3:So we started. We just turned it into our old family thing. You know? He would come two, three hours. Alright.
Speaker 3:I'm done. I'm gone. You girls take over and leave. And he would go do his thing because he knew he could trust us Uh-huh. And, you know, take care of the business with no problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, was there ever any other idea that you might go into another field? Was did you have any other interest?
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, no. I just decided to stay with the I think it's fortunate. Oh, it's very fortunate
Speaker 1:for me.
Speaker 3:Because now from for forty years that I've been doing this, I've met, like you said, a lot of friends Mhmm. A lot of partners, a lot of clients that have become friends. They're not just people who walk in the door. They are friends now. Well, I, for one, am glad that you are there.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:I come in because your customer service is above all others in a world of numbers and coordinating parts, and you always take the success of my projects to heart. When in the building process should we begin shopping for our tile? Well, I always tell the clients when
Speaker 3:you know when your framing is completed and you start your drywalling because when framing is still there, things can change. So, oh, I want that moved over four feet, five feet. But when it's the drywall stage, it's done. You're not gonna change anything. So then visually, you can see it better.
Speaker 3:You can see the layout of the bathroom. You can see the layout of the kitchen. You can see things, and nothing's gonna change anymore. So your accuracy of square footages will be the same, and then that gives us time to order products if they need to be a week, two weeks, three weeks out. We do have time because drywall does take time for them to finish.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It does. Then they prep in the shower.
Speaker 1:Weeks. Correct.
Speaker 3:And I have the time to order the tile for you guys if it needs to be ordered. Mhmm. You know? And if it's in stock, then the product will sit at the warehouse until the job is ready. I can let the tile sit there for a month, two months.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Least you know
Speaker 1:Very helpful because
Speaker 3:it's safe. My god. It's safe. It's safe in my store.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Whether the client comes in alone or with their designer, where do you start? What are the questions that you'll ask us to begin to to guide us through the process?
Speaker 3:Well, I always ask them first what style home do you have? Contemporary, modern, traditional. And a lot of times they say, well, transitioning. We're, like, very contemporary, but I wanna modernize it. I it's very Spanish, but I wanna modernize.
Speaker 3:And I said, no problem. Transitioning is totally great. Mhmm. Then I ask them, do you have a color palette? What is your favorite colors that you're playing with?
Speaker 3:And then they tell me. You know? And I say, well, do you have a little bit of pictures? Do you have something to show me so I can have an idea? 90% of the time, it's no.
Speaker 3:But that's okay because I try to get as much out of it as possible.
Speaker 1:You draw what you can from the source. Before we talk about designing with tile, let's talk about the terms that people are going to hear that they may not have heard before. So I'm going to just name them off to you and you're going to tell
Speaker 3:us what they are.
Speaker 1:All right. Field tile.
Speaker 3:Okay. Field tile is your main tile that is going to be the main thing in a shower wall. That's your main color. Like, this is an example. Field tile is what it's gonna be overall.
Speaker 3:That's your main. It could be the main color. 90% of time, I tell them stick with a neutral palette. Mhmm. Because your other things can be colored.
Speaker 3:Your paint, your towels, your tchotchkes. Field tile is the main tile that goes up on walls or shower floor bathroom floors, main floors of the house that you decide to do. Yeah. Backsplashes is a main tile.
Speaker 1:Okay. And then but about accents and and deco tiles? Feature strips. Correct.
Speaker 3:Feature strips now are used so many different ways. Feature strips are used as niches sometimes because they don't want too many too much color. So they said, let's just do the back of the niche, which is a shampoo box for that. Uh-huh. Sometimes they do the shower pan in a feature strip.
Speaker 3:And sometimes, of course, they do lineal designs where they just like to put a nice stripe going across the top or something like that. That's a decorative element. It just brings the color that a person wants to see. It's not much, but it's just boom. There.
Speaker 3:Color or texture. Mhmm. Oh, yeah. Definitely texture. Gives you a very subtle transition.
Speaker 3:Two tone color. Two tone, mean, one white and white, but the texture of the white is the darker color. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then and then edge detail and and edge tile.
Speaker 3:Well, that's your bullnose pieces, like your quarter rounds, your bullnose pieces. Nowadays, there's not too many of those pieces around because a lot of the European states don't produce them. It was more of an American thing, to be honest. You go to Europe, they don't have trims in Europe. If you
Speaker 1:go In Europe, where is it only? They miter their edges, which
Speaker 3:they miter or they leave them raw edge. Yeah. Uh-huh. The actually, The United States, or I could say, was the ones that came up with these old trim pieces, the quarter rounds and the bull noses and the mud caps and all those old pieces from years ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what these actually are pieces that have a curve cutter that transition us from the tile surface into the wall surface.
Speaker 3:Correct. Yes.
Speaker 1:And that can be as little as, a pencil Correct. Pencil line, whatever they're called. Or it can be a little bit bigger than that and be a quarter round.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 1:Or it can be a bullnose Right. That's actually, you know, baked into the tile as
Speaker 3:part of the tile. Exactly. Part of the tile. Correct. And now as much as
Speaker 1:I hate to say this word, grout. Ugh. Tell us about grout.
Speaker 3:That's been a problem since day one, and I
Speaker 1:don't know if
Speaker 3:they'll ever fix that, but they have gotten better. Yes. For sure. Okay. There are a lot of different grouts now that are staying resistant supposedly, and now there are grouts that are just like you can use the same grout for sanded and non sanded.
Speaker 3:Non sanded meat is when you do put the the tiles buried next to each other. They call them butt joint. Yes. Yeah. Or you have a
Speaker 1:grout joint of one eighth and above. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And when it's one eighth and above, you have to use a sanded. They always recommend putting a grout with tiles even though people want them, but join it together because it's a because all tiles are not the same size for one. Even though they are supposedly perfect, they're not. Right. So that grout joint also gives you the Right.
Speaker 1:So it it helps it makes it so that if it's in a shower wall or something like that, it's not gonna water isn't gonna be absorbed into even the microscopic, you know,
Speaker 3:mess of the grout. No. But back in the old days, yeah, they did. The grout was such a pain in the caboose. I mean, now it's gotten a lot better.
Speaker 1:I am grateful for that, but you'll hear as we go through my affection for grout wanes. And then finishes, glazed, matte, polished, and honed.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah. There's all different types of textures. Now there's even textures that are like sandpaper for outdoor usage because people like to put tile around swimming pools, and they wanna make sure you don't slip in an entry outside porch areas and stuff like that. Matte finishes are there's different even matte finishes, believe it or not. There's satin finishes.
Speaker 3:There's really unglazed finishes, which are matte. And then there's just a real nice soft matte. There's different textures for all different things. I really don't like suggesting using any type of high sheen on floors because of slippage reasons. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know? But people love it. Yeah. And I say, okay. I don't wanna you know, if you fall, don't fall.
Speaker 3:I don't you know? Because people can even slip on concrete, but there's so many different textures. Walls, people love to see the sheen, you know, because it just brightens things up for people. And then they'd love to see the matte finishes on walls of showers because, you know so there's three to four different types of textures. You can always feel them.
Speaker 3:You can just feel all the different textures when you come into the show.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And when and you can see them. I mean,
Speaker 3:for sure,
Speaker 1:that's as much visual interest as you
Speaker 3:need Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Is is the inherent texture of the tile. Mhmm. So then explain the difference between a glazed surface and through and through.
Speaker 3:Okay. There is all tiles are now 90% are porcelain bisques, which means that there's the bisque which has been fired. First, it starts off as a ceramic. Uh-huh. And then they add a special Going right into next question.
Speaker 3:Oh oh, you go, girl. Okay. I can't pronounce the word that they use to make this, but it's a special kind of clay. It's not like everyone thinks a porcelain is a porcelain doll, which is a very delicate and fragile thing. No.
Speaker 3:It's a special type of of ceramic that's fired at a very higher degree than normal porcelains. Mhmm. And so that temperature is what makes it the porcelain. But then if you have a glaze, a glaze is like a paint. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And then the paint then is fired on top of the bisque. So it's actually double fired at the bisque. It's fired at a high degree of 13 to sometimes 1,700, I wanna say. Yeah. Oh, I don't wanna be wrong a little bit.
Speaker 3:And then they put the glaze.
Speaker 1:Part is not something we're gonna probably need.
Speaker 3:And then the glaze is put on top. To get a decorative element, you need a glaze to make the pattern. If it's movable pattern or marble look or of a slate look Yeah. That's what the glaze did, and then it's fired on top of the base.
Speaker 1:So what that means in tile design and for for those of us that are working with the material is when you cut a glazed tile, you're gonna see the layer of the pigment Correct. And you're gonna see the a different color Correct. Below, which is why there are edge details. Correct. But if it's a through and through material, whether it's natural or porcelain Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Then you're gonna see that the color goes all the way through. And so that means you you may not need Correct. Have
Speaker 3:an edge. Tile guy then. Yeah. He can get his little machine out, which is like a a buffer. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And he can bullnose his own edges on a solid bottom edge. Porcelain. A solid bottom porcelain. Correct. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes. Those are things to consider depending on a little bit how how good your walls are.
Speaker 3:Correct.
Speaker 1:Yes. Because if there's a lot of, you know, in and out space between the tile and
Speaker 3:the wall It could be a little difficult. Correct.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yes. Beautiful and elegant way to just finish your tile by not adding another element. Exactly. And then, so I wanna talk about the different material options that tiles are made of.
Speaker 1:Now you've just started to talk about ceramic and porcelain. What is ceramic and porcelain?
Speaker 3:Ceramic is a product that's not fired as high of a degree in temperature. Okay? So it's strictly for walls. It can't it's not fire high. You know?
Speaker 3:It's fire we used to have a kiln at Firenze years and years and years ago. Yeah. We used to do our own decos back in the day. Oh, yeah. We used to
Speaker 1:have I would love to have seen that.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, girl. We had so many people doing decos for us. But you fired it at seven, eight hundred degrees Uh-huh. Versus portions being fired in the thousand. So that's the difference.
Speaker 3:And they're mainly for walls. So you can't use a ceramic. Now back in the day, there was biocuturo ceramics. There was monocuturo ceramics, which biocaturo means double double fire. Monocaturo means single fired ceramic.
Speaker 3:So they were fired a little bit higher Mhmm. To become stronger be until they came out with the porcelain. Because prior to that, it was only ceramic monocotoro and biocotoro, and then they came out with porcelain.
Speaker 1:So porcelain is harder Very
Speaker 3:much so.
Speaker 1:And more stable? Very much so. Okay.
Speaker 3:It's stronger than natural stones, believe it or not, because it's fired at a high degree temperature.
Speaker 1:That's my next segue. So now let's talk about granite and marble. Mhmm. Tell me about those materials for tile.
Speaker 3:Granite is one of your strongest elements of stone, for sure. That's why they use them on kinship counters. That's why you can use them on floors. But they do sometimes can scratch depending on the granite because there is different grades of granite to where the open veined granite, more of a swirly type of granite Yeah. That you have more movement on a granite can be a little bit softer, but it's still strong.
Speaker 3:Uh-huh. But then the tight grained granite, which is like a salt and pepper kind of look when, you know, when you have that one there, That's a harder grained granite. Mhmm. And, of course, your marble being so many different ones, they are a softer product. Yes.
Speaker 3:They will have a tendency of scratching, staining, and absorbing. And I don't like to tell clients to use any type of detergents that contain any acids in cleaning the product because it will destroy the stone. Mhmm. So if you go use bleach, no. No.
Speaker 3:No. No. You can't. It will destroy the stone. Yes.
Speaker 3:Because it's gonna take the natural surface off the stone.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's true. Right. Now I think that that's one of the reasons because it is a softer material that people tend to use it in bathrooms where, you know, maybe the hardest, you know, thing that's gonna be whipped around is a towel. Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so I think that's one of the reasons why, historically, it's it's led to all of these beautiful,
Speaker 3:know, white marble. And they don't use bathrooms. Bleach in those in the days back then. That's why the marbles are still holding up. But here, people have to, oh, I have to clean my bathroom with ammonia, and I have
Speaker 1:clean my no. Don't do that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It doesn't need it. It doesn't need ammonia.
Speaker 1:It doesn't need bleaches. It's the chemical product on its own. Out in nature
Speaker 3:all over the And that's why because they never used any detergent to clean it.
Speaker 1:So then clay and handmade tiles.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Clay tiles are there's different kinds of clay tiles. You know, you have your your paving stones, which are clay, like your subtitles tiles and your Lincoln tiles, which are the subtitles were sun dried outside, and that's why you have the variations, and they used to stack them like pyramids. And that's why you have the variation of color on the sapitos. And then they're lightly put into a kiln, but then they're put in with whatever they could find, tires, wood, and they threw that in there.
Speaker 3:So it's not a high fired product at all. That's why sapitos are very uneven in looks and sizing and not perfect at all.
Speaker 1:Right. Which is you you have to embrace that as
Speaker 3:a design. Knowing that that's what you're looking for is that's what it is. And then there's handmade hand tiles, which are used for shower walls and stuff. Yes. They're fired at a higher degree temperature, so but they're all literally made by hand then put into a mold, but that mold is also made kinda like by hand.
Speaker 3:And you have a gentleman or a lady or whoever putting the clay into a mold and pressing it and then sticking them in the kilns Mhmm. And then taking them out of the mold, and that's with the way the shape is. If they have a little
Speaker 1:bit more clay, less more clay inside the mold. How large can a handmade tile be?
Speaker 3:We've gotten up to like, for flooring, they go up to, like, a 16 by 16. Oh, wow. Oh, yeah. We have 16 by 16 subtilos and clay pavers that are
Speaker 1:Oh, right. Yeah. That they're
Speaker 3:thicker. Right. Yeah. The bigger the edge, the thicker they are. That's right.
Speaker 3:Correct. And then you have your handmade products. They don't go up to be that hot big, to be honest, because then they're just they're not looking like a hand yeah. They're not like to look like a real handmade product. So they have four by fours and six by six.
Speaker 3:And there is a couple of eight by eights, but not too many.
Speaker 1:And, of course, the thing with handmade tiles is that because they're on uneven edge, a natural edge, there's more grout. Oh, yes. You know how I
Speaker 3:feel about Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. You'll have very unevenness in grout.
Speaker 1:Yes. You have to embrace your inner grout and your outer grout. So what are the cost differences now between the different levels or degrees of durability between the porcelain and the natural materials?
Speaker 3:Well, like people have to understand, porcelain tiles are machine made. So, unfortunately, when products go up, when things go up, electricity, labor, all that affects the mix of a porcelain tile because it's machine made and and made by a person who's doing a computer, doing all that. So that's what makes a porcelain more money. And, of course, it's a it's a product that it's it's when you make a porcelain tile, like, you make a thousand square feet of a porcelain tile. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Out of that thousand square feet, you may get one or two square feet that's nonusable. Uh-huh. It's a production that's not gonna give you any type of defective tiles because it's fired high, fired fast, boom, done. And then when you have a ceramic tile, you'll have more waste. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Because you have the it's not a high end firing temperature, so you'll have more defective tiles at the end. More breakage at the end of the production of ceramic tiles. So the cost relies upon honestly. Now, unfortunately, now that we've had this year or two of economy things going crazy Yeah. Prices are going up because freight goes up.
Speaker 3:This goes up. That goes up. Everything has gone up in that sense. Not because of the production of the porcelain and not the core of the tiles. It's because of everything else that's happening.
Speaker 1:And so then has that brought the the man made tiles up in price more comparable with the natural materials? No.
Speaker 3:Because your handmade tiles are always always more money.
Speaker 1:Always. Always. Well, the handmade tiles.
Speaker 3:Correct. Oh,
Speaker 1:what about, like, natural, marble and granite tiles
Speaker 3:versus the porcelain? They've I mean, like, I always tell people jokingly, that mountain's been there for thousands and thousands and years. How can you raise the price of the marble? But what it is again
Speaker 1:It's the
Speaker 3:transportation, the trucking, the slicing of the material because they slice it like a huge slope loaf of bread, the mountain. So that's why that goes up in production also. That's what makes the things go up every single time. But marble is more money because marble's always been more money than your porcelains. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Always. You have your porcelains going, this example, 5 to $8. Your natural stones start at eight and up a square foot, you know, because it's just always a marble tile, and it's always a granite, and they will always be more money. They've always been more.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Always. So then what about glass and and mosaics? But maybe glass first. It's one of the most colorful things that we can use.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and tell me about the production of it and where we
Speaker 3:use it. Well, the glass is too there's also different types of glass. There's crushed glass. I've had I have glass that's been crushed four or five times. So when you crush a glass, of course, again, it's more time consuming when you make it in the kilns and when you do this and when you do that.
Speaker 3:And then you have glass that's only been crushed once and made into a solid form, and it's a solid color. That also has a difference of pricing. And when you have mosaics of gloss that's put onto a mesh mounted sheet Mhmm. That have different sizing of the same colored glass we're putting in, it's all labor intense. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Everything is all because of labor. They gotta mesh mount it. They gotta laser jet it. So if you have a design pattern, it goes through the laser and it zing zing zing zing zing. It cuts it and meshes it.
Speaker 3:It's it's a lot like that. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And there have been sets of years where people have used a lot of glass Mhmm. For whole walls and showers and Yep. Yep. Things like that. What are you seeing people using glass for now?
Speaker 3:Not as much anymore. It's still around for sure, but they're not doing it as a whole anymore. They're doing it more accidentally, more decoratively now. People like to do behind cooktop hoods where they put the beautiful glass. They'll do a beautiful long niche in a shower wall.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. So if the niche is like if your shower wall is like
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Eight foot shower back wall, they have to do a niche eighteen, sixteen inches high, right, three or four all the way across. It's gorgeous. We need that. Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Gorgeous. It's bringing you the color. Yeah. But then that's it.
Speaker 3:It just makes oh, when you walk in, oh, look at that. It's beautiful. Exactly. So
Speaker 1:so those are the sets of options that we have to work with in the showroom. The major decisions first will be about whether we're going to be using natural or man made tile. And what are the factors that we should consider in choosing which direction we're going?
Speaker 3:It depends on the style of the house. I mean, for example, if you have a totally Spanish home Yeah. You don't wanna go put something very, very modern in it because it's not gonna fit the feel of the house. Mhmm. And if you have a very, very modern modern modern home, you don't wanna go put a Spanish handmade because, again, it's not gonna fit the house.
Speaker 3:But they'll go, oh, I wanna transition a little bit. Okay. We can transition, but it's gonna have to be something that's a little bit of both. And sometimes it's a little hard to find it, but we always do. We always do find it.
Speaker 3:So you gotta kinda see how your house is before you start picking the tiles. Mhmm. Like I said in the beginning, you've gotta see if you transition both ways. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And then, when do we talk about the budget aspect in term I mean, do you wanna know that when we first walk in? What kind
Speaker 3:of pricing number? No. Usually, I don't bring up, oh, what do you want? $2, 3 dollars? No.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No. No. No. Hear what they want.
Speaker 3:I show it. I present it. And then they sit there and they ask me, what is the prices of these products? So I tell them the breakdown. And I always tell them, listen.
Speaker 3:I don't know your product. I mean, excuse me, your budget. But I'm ask I'm telling you, this is $2. This is $5. This is $8.
Speaker 3:And they you know, we price all three items out, which are many different things we have chosen for the bathroom because sometimes have two or three different lines that we're looking at. And they'll sit there and go, oh my gosh. This one's perfect. Oh, this is a little bit high in the price, you know, price point that I'm going for. And I said, no problem.
Speaker 3:So let's find something that's a little bit like that
Speaker 1:in a lower bracket. That's right. Yeah. That's what I love actually about what you do with us, which is that, you know, if we go in and we choose for love, then we start to break it down. Exactly.
Speaker 1:If they've chosen something usually, if they're looking towards something handmade and I don't think it's the right appropriate place, I'll direct them away.
Speaker 3:But
Speaker 1:if I haven't, and I you know, and I'm not even sure what the budget is necessarily at that stage, then, then you'll direct us to Oh, always. To create the same.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. We try to find that
Speaker 1:in your budget range. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So during the industrial revolution, when mass production made tile affordable to a broad market, They were primarily small glazed squares for walls and even smaller, mosaic shapes for floors. I feel like in my twenty plus years in my career, I've seen these small tiles grow to 12 by 12, then 18 by 18, then 12 by 24 bricks, and now they're like four foot by eight foot panels. As I do not love grout, I love using larger formats for floors and for shower walls. How have you seen the sizes of tiles change through the years?
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. They have changed drastically through the years. When these big formats started to come out in now 24 by 40 eights and 48 by 40 eights and all these big, big panels, people come and say, I want like you said, no grout. I say, no problem. We have large formats.
Speaker 3:And they go, okay. Show me the large formats. But when your bathroom, your shower for, say, is three by three by three Right. You can't put a large 24 by 48 in there. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Even though they want to, I go, it just doesn't unfortunately work. So then we could squeeze it down to a 12 by 24 Mhmm. Which that will work, you know, no problem. People don't want the four bys, the six bys, the eight bys. They they want the big ones.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. But sometimes it can't work. So the majority of the time now is 12 by 24 if they want the large format. But if their shower wall is an eight foot back wall, which now a lot of people are doing really quite large showers because they're taking the tub out. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're extending it. You can use those large 24 by 40 eights. The bigger ones are usually mainly for more floors. Your 30 sixes by 30 sixes, your 48 by 48, those are mainly more for floors. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:But people are doing definitely larger now. Definitely.
Speaker 1:For years, I designed with, square tiles Right. Straight for contemporary and on the diagonal for Mediterranean traditional styles and played with those two things. And I thought I was on the cutting edge. But then in recent years, square tiles in all sizes have faded away to be replaced by the rectangular bricks. Why why don't we have the option?
Speaker 1:Why did they take my square tiles away?
Speaker 3:That's what I asked the vendors too. Yeah. Because And did they
Speaker 1:have answers? No.
Speaker 3:They're saying they're saying things are changing.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously, it has to be driven by some kind of factor
Speaker 3:in market. Not selling anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah. But that's, yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3:They're not selling anymore. And I tell them, you guys have to understand. People still want four by fours. Now some have come out. We've gotten some new four by fours and six by sixes.
Speaker 1:I've seen them coming back in the smaller tiles. Yeah. But but not in the floor size tiles. No. They're still
Speaker 3:not back. Nope. They will not I don't I don't honestly know if
Speaker 1:they will come back. Yeah. It is tricky. If you're doing a large, you know, Mediterranean home, you know, you want to be able to get some beautiful, you know,
Speaker 3:Italian looks like Diana. Old, old copper phony feel. It gives you that lane. And and and these big tiles, you can't get that effect. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You're right. No. I could just
Speaker 1:It is what it is.
Speaker 3:We can't control everything, unfortunately.
Speaker 1:So even with all the changes in sizes and textures, the three by six and four by six four by eight glazed subway shape tiles are what we see in historic homes, and they're still so popular. In your years in the business, have you seen the subway tile popularity ebb and flow? Or right now, still Oh, it's still booming.
Speaker 3:It's still booming. And the difference is you have the different sizes. The standard traditionals are three by six and four by eights. Mhmm. But there's three by twelve, four by 20 fours, eight by sixteens, two by tens, two by eights, a lot of different subways.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, of course, knowing that the two by eights and the three by 12 sometimes can go a little bit more modern contemporary feel when you have the longer lengthed planks, they make the house more contemporary and more modern. Mhmm. And when you have the smaller ones like the three by sixes, like you said, they're more traditional. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:You know? And so there's and then there's a way you install them now. You go vertical offset. You go stack vertical. You go lay they call it lying down soldier stack.
Speaker 1:You know? Right.
Speaker 3:So that changes the style and the way the home can be.
Speaker 1:And you can do herringbone.
Speaker 3:Heringbone. Oh, herringbone's my favorite.
Speaker 1:Entropyment patterns. And, of course, that holds true in both natural and man made materials.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes.
Speaker 1:For sure. And then some of the other variations are changes in textures. So sometimes there'll be mixed box where you get all the like, three or four different textures, and then when you put them in in a feel Correct. It gives you the simplicity of the brick shape, but giving you an interesting feel. Yep.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yep. Or I recently used for a backsplash one that came with blazed patterns.
Speaker 3:Correct. Yes. Yes. It's beautiful. From a distance,
Speaker 1:it looks a little bit traditional. And as you get closer to it, like a painting. It reveals itself. Little patterns. Little patterns.
Speaker 1:Yes. So we've talked a little bit about the edge details in tiles. And, you know, people aren't gonna come in understanding what they're gonna need. Yeah. So, how do you explain to them?
Speaker 1:And, in in different, materials, what are the different things that are gonna be most prevalent?
Speaker 3:Well, my first question is always, I said, have you spoken to your tile mat, your installer? Because they're the ones who will tell you what you need. And, honestly, 90% of the time, they didn't they even the installers sometimes don't give them, okay. You need a hundred square feet of tile. I go, have they told you if you needed trims?
Speaker 3:And they're like, oh gosh. No. Right. And I'm like, okay.
Speaker 1:Right. Another good reason to hire a designer.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Exactly. So all these are all done. Exactly. Between your They get everything tile
Speaker 1:and installer and and knowing how far how thick the grout is from the Correct. Correct. Yeah. Or the material. The material that thins
Speaker 3:that. Right? So I say, okay. Well, tell your tile man that this product only has a penciled bonus and the way he will prep his shower or prep his floor or prep whatever needs a trim piece to that. So he cannot build the wall away
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:With that much mortar Mhmm. From the wall out because it won't have that special piece that the tile man wants. He has to prep it to what the tile has.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The conversation has to happen. Exactly. If you're really specific and you know what you want it to look like, it has to happen before that element And that happens. Exactly.
Speaker 3:And now they're using a lot of metal Schluter edges,
Speaker 1:which is not metal. Get into Schluter. Let's talk about Schluter.
Speaker 3:A lot of people don't like it, but it's out there. It's out
Speaker 1:I'm glad it's not just me. No. It's not only you. I've been on a learning curve with Schluter Yes. As I like my edge details to blend with the real tile and not contrast, because they're a different material.
Speaker 1:Also, I find it more contemporary, and sometimes the house isn't contemporary. Although, luckily, I think, and more and more people are getting toward, this sort of spa like, you know, bath that's been around a long time, but wanting it to be super clean and and easy. So in the early years, when I was seeing demo, you know, of the jobs I was gonna you know, we were gonna be rebuilding into, I saw a lot of yucky aging metal. And that's one of the reasons that I have shied away. Correct.
Speaker 1:Yes. Was it was it Schluter back then,
Speaker 3:or was it a different product? I believe Schluter's been around quite many years, many, many years. But now from what I'm understanding because I always ask that too. Hey. Can this mold away?
Speaker 3:Can this change color? Can this be used outdoors? And they're telling me now it has the product is a lot better. It is a lot better. I think that's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I
Speaker 3:hope that's true. Yeah. Me too. But I haven't had anyone come back and say, oh my gosh. This, this, and this.
Speaker 3:Thank goodness. Not yet.
Speaker 1:You know? I mean so especially as I'm using more and more large tiles.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:If it's through and through, I'm perfectly happy to not have an edge unless the installer tells me there's a reason why he needs to fill that space. Right. At which point, Schluter is now the only answer. Correct. And I'm glad it is coming now in in a little bit more of a variety of textures and
Speaker 3:tones. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes. I can blend it as much as possible, and it's not like a sharp stainless steel edge. Not anymore.
Speaker 3:Not anymore. Like, when we do stairs, we do have the textured ones now that have that roundness that Yes. When you do, like, especially wood on stairs, people wanna have that same wood look. They have these great ones now that are textured, that are colored in browns and beiges and stuff that when you put it on there, you're like, woah. It looks like part of the wood.
Speaker 3:So that's the good thing. It's not like
Speaker 1:you said, just strictly polished metals. No. Not anymore. So when did you see Schluter start to become popular again?
Speaker 3:When did it reinvent itself? A few years now. It's been a few years. Yeah. It has.
Speaker 3:Because the the the trims aren't being produced anymore. That's the problem. That's very sad. So when there's no trims Yeah. How else are you gonna finish it?
Speaker 3:You have to finish it with a metal edge. Yeah. That's why. Tricky. There we're sort of There's pencil bullnoses.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There are pencil bullnoses, which are just like a little rounded pencils. Yes. They are making more of the jollies. They are making them, but they don't match everything.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, if you have a tile that there's no color that's gonna play with, what do you gotta do?
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a very complex aspect of the tile design. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For sure. So when I work on renovations of older homes, unless, we're doing a historical restoration, which I love to do, we are removing old tile countertops and so much grout. In your experience in the field, talk to me about the evolution of ceramic tile countertops and to hard surfaces, to slabs and quartz and porcelain.
Speaker 3:And And once that comes up again, that to do a countertop in a tile Yeah. There's no finished edges at all. Meaning like your old four by fours and six by sixes, you had
Speaker 1:to be So now we're we're completely marketed out of that decision anyway, which is a fine decision for me.
Speaker 3:It's because, unfortunately, you know, there's no V caps. There's no chair rail moldings like they used to be where you finish off the edges. Okay? So now they're like, well, again, the grout because you gotta put a grout joint. They don't want the oils and this and that to go in there.
Speaker 3:So that's why they're using hard surfaces. Mhmm. Whether it's a granite, a quartz, a quartzite, whether it's any of those three products. Mhmm. And it's just one big solid piece with no problem that the fabricator can do his edging however way you wish to have it done.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. But with the tiles, they don't have trims, and you can't do them, unfortunately. You may have a bullnose. You may have a bullnose. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But then the tile guy's like, well, I don't wanna put a bullnose on the edge and try to do that.
Speaker 1:You know? In that regard, I only consider it unfortunate if you are doing a renovate a restoration. I get this. I have done some beautiful 1920s homes early on We did want to recreate in a more hygienic way what
Speaker 3:was there. It's hard find. Very hard to find.
Speaker 1:Yes. It's true. So during the pandemic, I brought in my clients who were rebuilding after the Woolsey fires. So we were shopping for two whole houses of tile, both including four to five bedrooms, all with attached bathrooms, which means four to five full shower bathrooms per house, plus the powder room, and large open kitchens where the backsplash can be an important visual statement. Whether the client comes in alone or with the designer, where do you start?
Speaker 3:I always, of course, ask the designer the major questions. I go, okay. So what type of home? Like always, modern contemporary. You know, we always used to start we always like to start with the master because that's their main for a client.
Speaker 3:They want their master and their powder room to be the special ones. Because when people come in, that's the hello bathroom. Yeah. And that's how
Speaker 1:we deal with it with the plumbing fixtures.
Speaker 3:Exactly. There's a boost
Speaker 1:a a kick up in
Speaker 3:the That's like, oh, good. And then the masters. And then, you know, again, we get stuck in. What's your color palette? What what type of tone of colors are we playing throughout the house?
Speaker 3:You know, we're gonna pull color from that room to put into that bathroom. If you're greens and blues, let's pull a little bit of green into the bathroom because it's in the bedroom and and things like that. That's how we start. And, of course, you know, we start by each bathroom one at a time. And most of the time, if we do a countertop that's gonna be specifically a color, that sometimes we have to deal with that first.
Speaker 1:Right. And then we then
Speaker 3:we pick the major main field tile, which will be the shower tile. And then then the floors are usually the last because then if there's a color in the wall tile or a color into the countertop, then we pull that onto the floor by a tone of a contrast or a slight contrast of a tone that's you're pulling out of somewhere. And that's how we get started.
Speaker 1:And, you know, what's interesting is sometimes we haven't really created a full color palette. And and the and I leave sometimes that opening with for the shopping. But that's one of the reasons that I do shop for countertop material first because if someone is attracted to beautiful blues in in quartzite Right. Or an amazing, you know, sharp color in man made material Yeah. I'm going to want that to be what we then blend to.
Speaker 1:So that's where you pull all your color We'll have samples of the flooring with us that's going through the rest of the house, plus a sample or good photos of the countertop materials that we're considering. If they're man made countertops, you also have samples there, which is really, really helpful.
Speaker 3:Yes. I have a whole variety
Speaker 1:quartz we can pull something and
Speaker 3:take a All
Speaker 1:right. So I think that gives us a pretty good idea of the range of what we're looking at and how to get started. Is there anything I've forgotten to ask about the basic nature of tile and designing with tile? Well, usually, like you
Speaker 3:just said, the main color of your floors in the house. Because a lot of people are doing real wood floors, you know, wood wood tiles. Mhmm. So that there sometimes is like, okay. I need to see that.
Speaker 3:Because I'm in I'm in the dark. When you come in, I have no idea what your house looks like. Yes.
Speaker 1:I I go Sometimes the client doesn't know. Exactly. So when
Speaker 3:a client says, well, it's, you know, it's the honey color oak wood, and I'm like, oh my gosh. Honey color oak could be so many different hues. Yeah. This oak could be different. This this this cherry wood could be different.
Speaker 3:So I'm in the dark. I'm always I'm always blind. So I try to pull out information. So the more info you give me, I give you. So if you can bring samples in Yeah.
Speaker 3:Of like, again, sometimes they're in the dark about color palette, and they don't know yet until they come into me, and then I try to help them pick a color.
Speaker 1:See what they're attracted to.
Speaker 3:Right. But if you have all that, bring it in. Yeah. You know, bring it into me. Help me help you by Yeah.
Speaker 3:By by showing me what you kinda want a little bit. Exactly. I'm blind. I don't know what I'm seeing in your house.
Speaker 1:So I can't believe that we just spent a whole episode talking about tile, and we haven't even begun to talk about the application in our specific bathrooms, kitchens, and throughout the home, all of the other areas that you can use tile. Stella, will you hang out with me and continue the conversation?
Speaker 3:For sure. For sure.
Speaker 1:Thank you. When I start thinking about each category of the things we must consider in the process of building our new home, it amazes me how many things I take for granted knowing the experts I work with were going to continuously educate me and my clients. We hope you'll join us for the next episode about how to apply what we've just learned about tile and apply it to the rooms in our house. If you're in Southern California and need tile, please check out FirenzeTileLA.com and drop in the showroom in North Hollywood. As always, we want to hear from you.
Speaker 1:To see pictures of the houses we've designed after the Woolsey fires here in Oak Park, California and drop us a line, go to ww.fromdisastertodreamhome.com.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining us on this episode of From Disaster to Dream Home, the podcast that takes you inside the home building and rebuilding process. Each week, we bring you time tested practices and the latest trends through conversations with top professionals in the building industry. You can find other episodes of From Disaster to Dream Home at ewnpodcastnetwork.com as well as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Audible, and most other major podcast streaming services. Need design help? You can contact us or find out more about our guests at fromdisastertodreamhome.com.
Speaker 2:Until next time, let us guide and inspire you as you create the home of your dreams.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. This is the EWN Podcast Network.