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Stella Goretti is the owner of Firenze Ceramic Tile, a family-owned business based in North Hollywood, CA since 1979. Stella literally grew up in the tile business and in this episode, she shares her deep knowledge of tile selections for bathrooms and kitchens. 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. Are you looking forward to designing the tile in your bathrooms and kitchens, but you don't know where to start? Join us for the second of our two part series on the art of designing with tile on this episode of From Disaster to Dream Home.
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:It is after all the drywall is in place that we will do a final measure and draw the detailed plans for all the tile and stone installations. The more materials we have selected by this time, the better and clearer the plans will be. The better we can estimate the amounts needed and the closer to the outcome will be to what the homeowner owner is imagining. In part one of our conversation with Stella Guerreri of Forensic ceramic tile, we talked about what tile is, what it's made of, how it is evolving, and current trends. Today, we'll talk about how we design with tile in our bathrooms, kitchens, and throughout the inside and outside of our home.
Speaker 1:Welcome back, Stella.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for
Speaker 1:having me. Staying with
Speaker 3:us. My pleasure.
Speaker 1:As the largest volume of tile in the home will be in the bathroom, let's start with bathroom tile. What are the material options that we're looking for in the bathroom?
Speaker 3:Well, we're looking for again, if people like the natural stone, we can do that in all bathrooms, which is no problem. Mainly, we do those in masters and in powder rooms because the powder room, once again, is that kicker bathroom when people walk in. Mhmm. They love to do the mosaic patterns on the floors with, you know, like a pinwheel pattern, a basket weave pattern, a herringbone pattern in a natural stone, which gives you a kick. And in the masters, they like to do, again, those large tiles of natural stone because it gives you that more formal elegant kind of look.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. You know? And then the ceramics, when you do the porcelain in in a tile shower area, again, they want large, they go large formats.
Speaker 1:And and what about what are the inherent differences also between wall tiles and floor tiles? Well, wall tiles, for one,
Speaker 3:are the ceramic product again that cannot be used for floors because they can break. It's not that they're so soft. It's just if it gets a lot a lot a lot of
Speaker 1:traffic not as durable.
Speaker 3:It's not as durable. Correct. Yeah. So that's the difference. But, of course, don't forget, porcelain go on walls every single solitary day also because there's so much to put on walls and floors.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. So that's the, you know, that's what you do with the ceramics and walls.
Speaker 1:And then with people's concern about slipping in bathrooms, what are the things we should consider for our bathroom and shower floors? Always on
Speaker 3:the shower pans. We always always tell people to please put mosaics even though they got a lot of grout, but that grout helps you. That's what makes you from non no. You know, from nonfouling, basically. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But people go, well, I want I want big ones. No. You don't. Yeah. Because you will slip.
Speaker 3:That is that
Speaker 1:is one the one area where grout is our friend.
Speaker 3:Correct. That is
Speaker 1:our friend. And, you know, it doesn't have to be a contrasting material. No. No. No.
Speaker 3:No. It can
Speaker 1:be many of the larger porcelain tiles have four by four or two by two Correct. The baby mosaics go with them. Exactly. You can make it blend
Speaker 3:as one. Exactly.
Speaker 1:And you won't even really see the lines on
Speaker 3:the tiles now do come with mosaics. That's the good thing. That's a real good thing that's happened. Yes.
Speaker 1:And so with natural stone Mhmm. How can we make those floors safer? What are our choices?
Speaker 3:Well, they're always you know, there's a honed finish on marble, of course,
Speaker 1:and your polish is finished. Less slippery.
Speaker 3:Correct. A little it still can be. It still can be. And I just tell clients, be careful. I mean, I I can tell you until I turn blue in the face.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But I can't tell you not to put it in unless you if you really want it, you're gonna put it in there. There's nothing you can do to make it non skid because it's a natural finish, and there's really not much you can do. But they love them. And I'm not gonna argue with them because it's gorgeous.
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Just gotta be extra careful. And so when I started working with contractors that were developing houses for sale, all bathrooms were marble. It was a given. And it's perceived value. Correct.
Speaker 3:That's what they think. Yes.
Speaker 1:So first of all, is that changing in the building world now that people are building more and more contemporary stuff? Even here in LA and California in general, we did a lot of these Cape Cod style homes. Style homes. Are people still as determined to use the marble?
Speaker 3:Not really. Honestly, it's changing. I mean, people say, well, I have to use marble because it's going to value the home. Not necessarily. You put a gorgeous porcelain in there, which sometimes is more money than a than a marble.
Speaker 1:Yes. That is one of those things that we have to educate people about because, you know, especially as the formats get larger and larger, the square footage prices.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it does. And well, it's not marble. It's not going to make the value of the home. Yes, it will make the value of the home, your porcelain tiles. They will.
Speaker 3:Because how you can decorate more with porcelain tiles, to be honest. You can add more things with a porcelain tile than with the natural stone some most of the time. So I tell people all the time, if you think your bathroom looks cheesy with a porcelain, no. It does not. It doesn't.
Speaker 3:It's gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It can be incredibly elegant.
Speaker 3:Course, it can definitely be elegant. But, of course, people want the marble, and I'm not gonna argue with anybody saying, no. No. You can't. Marble's gorgeous too.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. It's just, honestly, 90% of the time what the people like. But in spec value, when people turn around their homes, they don't wanna put the money into a marble. And that's when they go to an apportionment because it's less money to do it.
Speaker 1:Yes. Exactly. And so yeah. So I think especially when people are rebuilding, you know, there's insurance budgets that are, you know, budgets that have been thrust upon them and not always fully informed of what prices are current. And that's why I think incorporating the porcelain yes.
Speaker 1:It's not just open up the creativity. Opening creativity and the
Speaker 3:budget can be more affordable. Right.
Speaker 1:These are all design words. Exactly.
Speaker 3:Cheap. Not cheap. No. No. No.
Speaker 3:Not Not cheap.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's really interesting. So the shower walls can be treated as a large open canvas Yes. Where a tile designer can really show their stuff. I personally have either created or commissioned amazing graphic mosaics on shower walls and surround them with, you know, interesting, simpler field tiles.
Speaker 1:What are you seeing as the most common trends now? Are people designing intricate tile patterns, or are they going spa like and zen in the bathroom?
Speaker 3:Yeah. More spa like zen. Yeah. More spa like zen. They wanna go there and just like they wanna relax.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They wanna see crisp, clean, just calm. That's what they wanna see. You know? I mean, there are and I I I love that look.
Speaker 3:It's beautiful. It's a beautiful, beautiful look.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And have you seen that change through the years? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Before color color's coming back. Don't get me wrong. It's coming back.
Speaker 3:Oh, it is big time. But prior to that, it was always softer tones and and monochromatic tones, which is still going. But now people are like, you know what? Let me pop some color, but not as a main. Right.
Speaker 3:I don't do many solid blue walls, which I've done, but not Yeah. Because they're like, oh my god. That's a committed color. I can't change that. Like, I can change
Speaker 1:You can change your paint.
Speaker 3:Right. Can change your accessory. Exactly. But you can't change that shower.
Speaker 1:Invested in that tile.
Speaker 3:That shower will be there forever. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And so now in the kitchens, the next place that we see the creative use of tile is in our kitchen floors and backsplashes. A lot of kitchen floors now are being with, you know, wood or people are carrying the wood Correct. Throughout. How do you feel about wood versus tile in a kitchen?
Speaker 1:Well, I
Speaker 3:not no offense, but I'm not a big fan of real wood in kitchens because of many things that can happen. Flooding the kitchen, you know, water damage underneath the sinks. It goes onto the floor, and it buckles the real wood. I've had people things have fallen out of the oven and hit the floor wood, and it burns the wood. The wood can scratch and stuff like that depending on I don't know how much about wood, but I know it can a lot about wood.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It can scratch, which I know people have told me, and it buckles, and it just, you know, discolors, especially if the sun's hitting a certain area of the floor. If the sun is directly hitting on wood floor Mhmm. You can see the difference from that corner of the wall to that corner of the wall, the discoloration of the wood floors, and things like that. I mean, you know, people say, well, I want the warmth and the softness.
Speaker 3:No problem. But if anything happens, that's the wood floor.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. So what's on your floor in your kitchen?
Speaker 3:I have tile. Mhmm. And how
Speaker 1:do you transition from the wood to the tile? What are the ways that we're going to make that Well fluid? Well, a lot
Speaker 3:of people say, well, I wanna keep that same look. So if they have the dining room and the family that will go into a kitchen, they say, well, I wanna try to keep that same look and that same wood look and tile color. You know? I'm like, no. You don't.
Speaker 3:Try to contrast it off a little bit. Don't try to pick that same wood tile into a porcelain wood now because there are porcelain tiles that simulate the wood, of course, and people think they can try to match their existing wood. No. You can't. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 3:It's always off. So I tell people, if you want the wood look in a porcelain Yeah. Do a contrasting tone of it.
Speaker 1:Right. And change the direction. Exactly. Yeah. There are lots of ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Lots of ways of doing that. Yeah. And if you wanna put a tile, again, if your wood is a mahogany or a blonde or a cherry wood, I said, okay. We'll keep that family tone. But then what other colors you have anywhere else?
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Let's throw that into the kitchen also. As long as they complement and play with each other, you can definitely transition to any type of tile into a into a kitchen.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. You know, you brought up the, the ceramic wood look tiles. Of course, they're wood look. Yes. Now I'm gonna say it was about ten years ago
Speaker 3:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:That we started to see them Yep. Creep in. So all of a sudden, that is the product that didn't exist yesterday and exists today. Correct. And now, you know, there's a whole wall of them in the showroom.
Speaker 1:It's quite prevalent. What
Speaker 3:do
Speaker 1:you think drove those that that material coming in and becoming so popular? Yeah. Again, the scratching factor.
Speaker 3:Yeah. The warpage factor. Yeah. You know, that kind of factor, discoloration factor. People are like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:I put that beautiful wood floor down, and, you know, it's only been down a year, and it's already scratched. So I have to refine you know, refinish it and the da da da da. And and I'm tired of doing that. I want a maintenance free. And I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3:Then we go to ceramic. I mean, we go to porcelain wood looks Mhmm. Which I do them, and you do the whole house there. We're just talking not a bedroom with, like, kitchen, living room, family room, dining room. You do
Speaker 1:the whole tile. Space of
Speaker 3:the house. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. That's an option certainly is to run the tile throughout. A lot of times if I'm gonna do a kitchen with tile, I'll I'll pick up that tile in the entry hall Correct. And, you know, something like that so that it does it comes in and out of the living space
Speaker 3:of the house. Yes.
Speaker 1:Maybe the powder room is the same tile or something like
Speaker 3:that. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes. But I also you know, what I also love to do with the wood look tile is I I mean, we can't run our wood, our natural wood outside. We can't even use our luxury vinyl plank, which we'll talk about in another episode, outside. But what I've done really successfully is match the interior wood and taken it outside. Correct.
Speaker 1:So that it looks like the the patio off the master bedroom
Speaker 3:way up.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Opened all the way up. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing to do.
Speaker 3:And they're making the which are now new textures for outsides Uh-huh. Called called r 10 and r 11 textures. Those are the textures that we use for the outdoors because it gives you that grit so you do not skid. And I have many lines that are your regular matte finish porcelains that go indoors that can transition its way right to the outdoors of r 10 and r 11 finishes Mhmm. Which is great for the outdoors.
Speaker 1:Yes. That's gonna be it's good to be able to evolve that area. Tile design now is almost you know, has no boundaries on the house. It can go straight out into our pool areas and our garden Yep. Which is awesome.
Speaker 1:So meanwhile, back in the kitchen, What are the best materials to be looking for in terms of ceramic or porcelain and or natural materials for the kitchen? What are the things for the floor and and the backsplashes? But we'll talk
Speaker 3:a little more about those. For the floors, I, you know, I don't suggest any type of natural product because it gets too much traffic. No natural marbles of any sort. Yeah. So it used to be really popular
Speaker 1:to do, like, these big travertine fields of different shapes and sizes. Honestly, the travertine Yeah.
Speaker 3:It just you especially if you start using solutions of detergents to clean it. Yeah. It it just ruins the floor. If you're a person that would love to wax and maintain your floor two, three times a year, go for it. If you wanna be married to it, go for it.
Speaker 3:But if you don't wanna be married to your floor, I don't like to use natural stone. It's gorgeous. Don't get me wrong. People do it. I just like to tell my clients everything about the natural stones for kitchens because you you you're on there every day.
Speaker 3:It's your main traffic floor. Mhmm. Yeah. You know? And it will scratch.
Speaker 3:It will stain, and it will absorb. Mhmm. You know? And then, you know, you go into a porcelain tile. You don't have to worry about any of that.
Speaker 3:You know? You just it's if it can clean itself like an oven, it would. But, you know, you have to do it. Yeah. Because it's not a self cleaning oven.
Speaker 1:So so featuring really then porcelain is, you know, is gonna probably be the most important material to use more than ceramic because it's gonna be more durable and harder. But even not all porcelain tile is rated for all applications. Some are strong enough for the floor, but others are best for wall applications. How can we tell, if our if the material that we're attracted to is going to be best for the floor or if it's only a wall material? Because I I that's That's your job.
Speaker 3:That's my job. That's when you come in and say, Stella, what's this used for?
Speaker 1:And I tell marking system
Speaker 3:for my isn't saying, okay. This is this and this is that. I tell you, okay. This, I will not let you use on the floor. This, yes, you can use.
Speaker 3:And for the walls, again, ceramic is just as great on walls as, you know, porcelain tile is on walls. So definitely ceramics are on walls because now all your subways are ceramics. All your decorative tiles are ceramics, and those are all your wall tiles. You know? They're for showers or for backsplashes and things like that.
Speaker 3:But, of course, any porcelain too.
Speaker 1:And so then, what are the specific things if we are gonna run our floor from the inside to the outside Mhmm. That we should consider if we want that to be the same floor? Well,
Speaker 3:you'd like like, right now, there are a lot of them that have patterns. So, like, a lot of these tiles, Versailles are coming back.
Speaker 1:Versailles patterns or what is your model? Different shapes? Correct. Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 3:That's coming back now. That also has So
Speaker 1:that will imitate that real you know, that original
Speaker 3:travertine floor that can transition itself outside. They have the matte finish for the inside interior and then the outside interior. And, again, the wood looks are like that now too, and a lot of the 12 by 20 fours are like that. They're coming every size, to be honest, can be indoor and outdoor. 24 by 40 eights now are coming indoor matte finishes and r 11 finishes for both.
Speaker 3:You know?
Speaker 1:Should do we have to worry about the larger format on the floor if if it's a rated a high rated porcelain?
Speaker 3:Well, the only thing you have to worry about when you do the large formats Yeah. Is the installation. Settling? Well, the installation.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh. Okay.
Speaker 3:Because a lot of the tile guys, now they're getting more and more used to doing these big products,
Speaker 1:these
Speaker 3:big prob Yeah. Tiles. To where back in the day, they're like, oh my gosh. These are huge. I don't even have the right cutting materials.
Speaker 3:I don't have the saw. I don't have this. I don't have that. And they weren't used to them because they just came out. You know?
Speaker 3:They're like, oh my god. Here we are. Yep. Tile man. Get used to it.
Speaker 3:Right. Welcome. Hello. So now that's getting a lot, lot better. And it's the way you install these big guys.
Speaker 3:You have to install them properly. You gotta treat them like, honestly, an installation of
Speaker 1:Slab material.
Speaker 3:Slab material. Yeah. A lot of product underneath. Yeah. There's special spacers now that are used to make the leveling of the floor proper.
Speaker 3:There's pedestals, which are these different height elevation processes that you use for two centimeters type pavers for indoors I mean, for outdoors. There's all different types of product, you know, installation things that you need to really consider.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I recently did, a bathroom, which was a kind of railroad style bathroom where it's like the vanity, then the toilet, then you go into the you know, back of the room is the shower. And we use these four by eight Mhmm. I'm sorry. Three by four tiles.
Speaker 1:So there are only three lines of grout in the whole bathroom. Right. And it's it's just beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You've I mean, when you do the big ones Mhmm. My god. They're like you said, no grout. Yay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But you gotta have a good size area to have a large format because you can't just have one big piece on that floor. You know? You can't go put if the bathroom's five by five, you don't wanna go put, you know, a 24 by 48 and then like, okay. Well, you got a half here and a half here.
Speaker 3:It's the the the big formats have to fit into an area. The tile man's gonna have to know, you know, how to make it work. A lot of this has gotta do with
Speaker 1:the insulation too. Yeah. And then so I think it's similar to what's going on with the slab materials, the the hard surfaces, because porcelain is becoming more and more prevalent as a countertop material. Yes. And not all the fabricators are trained.
Speaker 1:They have to be certified. Exactly. And they need special, you know, razor jigs and all that sort porcelain. Correct? Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yes. So I think that I guess you really have to have a conversation with your fabricator to make sure
Speaker 3:to talk to them
Speaker 1:prior. Something that they're
Speaker 3:gonna be comfortable with. Porcelain slabs now. They love them because they're beautiful. But you gotta talk about the insulation, the fabrication part. That's that's what you gotta talk to them about.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You have to talk to them.
Speaker 1:So in the kitchen, the most creative area is our backsplash. Mhmm. And the tile design can vary from being very intricate to very, very simple. How have you seen the trends in backsplash design change over the years? Well, they've changed because my first question I asked my I asked the clients is like, okay.
Speaker 1:You have three full Do you think need to cook? That too. That's for sure.
Speaker 3:Are you a Betty Crocker or or or or Or you call in. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because that has a lot to do with it too. But I also ask him, what do you wanna see when you walk into your kitchen?
Speaker 3:Uh-huh. Do you wanna see your cabinets because that's your focal, or do you wanna see your your countertop because you that's your focal, or do you wanna see your backsplash? And they usually go, oh, wow. We didn't think about that. Well, you gotta think about that because some people say, oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:I've spent so much money on all my granite. I want that to be the focal. I want the backsplash to disappear, so let's just blend it in. Okay. Fine.
Speaker 3:People go, no. You know what? I want when you walk in, I wanna see that backsplash. I want people to say, oh my goodness. Look at that.
Speaker 3:And we make that the focal. And then we put the color, and then we put the the textures, and then we put the different kind of sizes if you wanna do that kind of stuff. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So it
Speaker 3:all has to do with what they watch wish to see. You know what I'm saying? I've spent 50,000 on my cabinets. I want that to focal. Okay.
Speaker 3:Then we'll make everything else disappear. Oh, no. No. My cabinets are let's make the countertop. You know?
Speaker 3:So it's all different questions you ask, and
Speaker 1:they usually tell you. So when I have a client who's attracted to several options and are having a hard time choosing, I often try to suggest contrasting the field tile with a detail behind the range or cut in the field some kind of pattern or texture. And I love creating intricate tile designs, but most recently I've really been enjoying running larger tiles up and down. So again, there are very few grout joints. And a lot of the tile now has beautiful textures vertically from the countertop to the So we kind of just make them all go up and down and it's really beautiful and unifying.
Speaker 1:What are you seeing as the trends now? What's trending?
Speaker 3:People are exactly like you're saying. They wanna see texturing. Exactly textures. So, again, like you say, you gave a 12 by 24. Well, your backsplash is usually only 18 inches in height.
Speaker 3:So it's hard to put a 12 by 24, you know, because there's only 12 inches, and then you got the rest remaining cut. So like you said, they get the 24, and they cut it like that. Right. And then you run it behind the backsplash, and they wanna see texture. They wanna see all kinds of stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. And that's what I've been doing a lot of now is a lot of that type of textures. Mhmm. Again, it's tone on tone most of the time.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Because they wanna see the same colors, but they just you know, you see a wave. You see a diamond pattern. Pattern, you see something in the tile because now they're making those three d effects and they're making all that kind
Speaker 1:of stuff. And actually, it reminds me as you're describing this. It's also really important. We've chosen or narrowed down to maybe two or maybe three, the the countertop materials. But now it's important to take the tile to the showroom where the slab material is.
Speaker 3:Oh, you
Speaker 1:have to see. Because, I mean, there's such subtleties in, you know, grays and in warmth, you know, beige to cream to ivory. Many different hues. Right. And you really want to pull those hues out.
Speaker 1:Pull that complement each other. So running back and forth from showroom to showroom is necessary. Unless they
Speaker 3:are nice enough to give you a piece of the natural product, which they usually don't. Yeah. They don't wanna destroy the slab. This is
Speaker 1:how that that has been working. Right. They used to do it much more than they do now. Now if we are sure and we pay for it, we can get a
Speaker 3:little bit of a fix. Exactly.
Speaker 1:But, you know, it depends. I mean, the if it's a man made material, it's easier to get a sample because they are manufactured for the chips
Speaker 3:and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is really, really helpful. If it's, you know, comes from nature, you also don't wanna, you know, break off a piece where you're gonna be cutting. Are you
Speaker 3:sure don't wanna do that?
Speaker 1:Edge, that is, of course, ideal to be
Speaker 3:able to take
Speaker 1:some home. But thank god we all have, you know, really high end cameras on our cell phones now. No. We take pictures. We have high end pictures.
Speaker 1:We do the best we can at least
Speaker 3:But those darn phones sometimes do not get the right colors.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know what? That is the hardest part.
Speaker 3:Goodness. It's tough. It's
Speaker 1:you know? And, you know, like, there's something to nature. You can't really match it to a in a photograph. The same thing as with the natural tell people Yeah.
Speaker 3:Take everything home with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And run over with your, you know, with your pile. I've given people
Speaker 3:so many slabs. They're like, oh my goodness. Me still have my whole car's full. I'm like, you know what? That's the only way you'll make a decision.
Speaker 1:How I get my upper body work in. Yep. Workout. I carry lots of tile samples throughout
Speaker 3:your workout.
Speaker 1:And that is the thing about larger tile format that it makes me
Speaker 3:a little crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's not easy. Nope. Yeah. I mean, that's you know, it's good I have a convertible because I drive around with him sticking out.
Speaker 3:Sticking right out.
Speaker 1:Like Flintstone. Yeah. As my audience knows, I consider grout a necessary evil. So I have embraced the use of larger tiles with clients who are looking for that clean, fresh spa look or that really tight knit kitchen backsplash. I also have my fabricators installed with minimal grout, which can be less than a sixteenth of an inch grout line.
Speaker 1:Twenty years ago when I started designing with tile, the rule of thumb was that you leave a tile, a grout line, the thickness of the tile. So if you were using a half inch handmade tile, you use a half inch. And if it was quarter inch porcelain tile, use a quarter inch. Why can we now make them I'm grateful. But why can we now make them closer?
Speaker 3:Well, because again, they have made them to be a little some of the porcelains nowadays are also rectified. Rectified means that on one side of the tile, it will line up with the other side of the same tile. And usually, they'll have an an arrow on the back of the tile. Some factories do that. Uh-huh.
Speaker 3:And that's when you can definitely put the joints closer together. But now 90% of the tiles are also three eights. So that doesn't mean you're gonna put a three eighths joint. No. It's because of the way they produce the tiles now.
Speaker 3:They're fired at a higher degree temperature. You can get a 12 by 24 and literally butt joint them like we say or put a sixteenth or put an eighth. Again, like I said before, tile guys really don't care for that, but they'll do it. They just gotta play with the tile a little bit more because even though they're great strong porcelain, they're on a conveyor belt. And that little conveyor belt can throw that little tile off in the bisque if it's still warm.
Speaker 3:It can nick it up a quarter a sixteenth of an inch. It can nick it down. It can nick it up. So you still are not a % perfect. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Even though they're supposed to be perfect, that's not perfect because they're on a hot, warm conveyor belt.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And that conveyor belt moves. So it can move the bisque. And that's why they're like, well, if the grog joint's a little thicker on that end, don't yell at me because you're making me butt joint it. And then over there, it's a tighter joint. Don't lay out at me because the towels are not
Speaker 1:gonna sit perfect. Getting more and more rare for the installer to line them up and then tell me they have to get bigger than minimal. But you have to look at them because you have to know how it came in.
Speaker 3:Exactly. But they're doing them every day.
Speaker 1:So now we've talked a little bit about carrying tile from the inside to the outside into the entertainment area. But let's talk about some of the other areas where tile is popular in our house. Where are some of the other places that people are using tile? Well, honestly, everywhere. I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that's the thing.
Speaker 3:There's nowhere in a home that you can't use tile.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I wanna make sure I I show you on the way through my fireplace.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. I do so many fireplaces now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Have a a I call my house a cottage. It's, you know, it's small.
Speaker 3:It definitely is a cottage. So cute. You got to see your house. But
Speaker 1:but on the fireplace, we use these contemporary, because they're so large, tiles that have this beautiful kind of old world stenciling pattern on And and it's just beautiful. And then I have a live kind of edge mantle on the top to kind of soften it all. But I've also used beautiful stack stone for fireplaces and cold walls.
Speaker 3:Yes. Yes. I'm doing so much to where they go from the mouth of the fireplace all the way up to the ceiling. Mhmm. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:We do quite
Speaker 1:a lot the ceiling tile. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And they use the large formats. Yeah. Because they wanna see, like, 24 by 40 eights going all the way up Mhmm. Which is beautiful because there's so many different kinds of glosses and and matte finishes and textured finishes and all those type of tiles that you can do any style on a fireplace now. And then when people wanna do just around the mouth of the fireplace, 90% of the time they wanna put a big tile, they go, but you can't.
Speaker 3:You only got six or eight inches on both sides. How are you gonna put a large decorative element when you're gonna cut the design pattern out? So, usually, they gotta go with some type of a mosaic than usually around the mouth. Some type of decorative element that's not so big that you can put them in that six to eight inch span that's around the opening of the mouth. Usually, on the top, you have a good twelve, fourteen, 18 inches.
Speaker 3:It just depends on the fireplace. But now oh my gosh. All the way up. All the way up, it looks great.
Speaker 1:Which is great. And, you know, ceilings are only getting higher. They are. Yeah. They you know, the last two houses that we built in Oak Park, the ceilings were, you know, nine to 12 feet depending on the roof.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we did a stacked stone five
Speaker 3:Stacked stone all the way up there. It is.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so then what are the kinds of materials that people are using for whole walls?
Speaker 3:Well, the whole walls, again, are the big formats. Yeah. Because they want a clean it, again, depends on the home. Modern. They go that big 24 by 40 eights because they want that clean, sleek look.
Speaker 3:You know? The rustic type homes, the traditional type homes, the stack stones. That's a real popular one, the stack stones.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Those are really quite popular. Yeah. So many different
Speaker 3:kinds of styles because colors too.
Speaker 1:And and and they're different because some of them are natural cut kind of. Some of them are machine more machine cut so that that would make it a much more contemporary. Exactly. You only have them looking. Exactly.
Speaker 3:You don't have so much texture texture texture. Mhmm. You got three or four that are soft and and and little bit of and then you got texture texture. So on a panel of a six by 24 panel, you have different textures that just change the whole look. And different colors change the look.
Speaker 3:Everything changes the look.
Speaker 1:So we talked a little bit about this at the beginning in the first episode. But let's talk about art versus budget because this is one of the major design elements financially that we're gonna be investing, especially when it's a rebuild situation and there's a specific budget. When should we start to think about that in the design process? The budget? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well,
Speaker 3:it depends also on their bidding with their their developer. Sometimes the developer says, okay. Here's an example. I'm giving you $5 a square foot.
Speaker 1:Right. Which is
Speaker 3:absurd.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Nerve. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Okay. And then they don't bother to tell the client that if, okay. You gave me 5, but I picked something that's 7, that $2 is coming out of whose pocket?
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's coming out
Speaker 3:of the designer. Mean, the the Right. Customer's pocket. Mhmm. So I always try to tell the clients, okay.
Speaker 3:I get it. You gotta build it, but you gotta tell the builder, even though the client may not know, which they don't, they don't know the pricing of tiles. Unfortunately, they don't know. And sometimes the clients don't know that, okay, can I have an allowance? This is an example.
Speaker 3:There's always called change orders. So if I do not pick something that's in my budget range, how much more allowance do I allow myself for the tile? Mhmm. You know, the tile guy goes, well, I told you $2. Now it's your problem to come up with $4.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh, that's not nice to tell your your client that. No. That's not. Mhmm. You know, it's not nice.
Speaker 3:I don't like when they tile my they do they tell me to my face. Well, I told them only two. Why are you telling them 4? I'm sorry, but they wanted you know? Yep.
Speaker 3:Well, Stella, who's gonna pay for the difference? Should you you you shouldn't have quoted them that low. Yeah. You know being a a tile man. You know the tile prices now.
Speaker 3:Right. The builders know. Yeah. You know, I wish
Speaker 1:the builders spent a little more time in showrooms.
Speaker 3:Exactly. I think there
Speaker 1:are formulas, and I think that they upgrade the formulas every certain amount of years. But, but, you know, I'm concerned even if I see a budget that where the tile is $7 a square foot because tile is, you know, it's up from 10. Yeah. So, I mean, at least if it's $10 a square foot, I know that on the lesser bathrooms, if we come to six or seven, that would be a couple of dollars. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I feel like I'm constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Speaker 3:And that's the great thing, though. Yeah. You know? It's a great thing.
Speaker 1:I can make sure I mean, I I there was a light plot on one of my recent houses that had too many lights in it. And I said, listen. Let's take 10 lights out of this thing and put them toward the tile because Yeah.
Speaker 3:You don't have enough money at
Speaker 1:the tile. You play it.
Speaker 3:You play it. You know? Like I said, well, this budget bathroom we did, like you said, a five. Awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Now you got 2 more dollars to go play in the kid's bathroom.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. You
Speaker 3:know? And that's the great thing. So we I trust me. When they tell me they have a budget, tell me what it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Which is especially, I think, important with rebuilding.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:You know, it is important for me to walk through and just simply see what they're attracted to. Yes. But I know I try to give you a little heads up before we come in so that you can kinda look at me sideways and steer me. And and that's what I and
Speaker 3:they tell they come in, like, fifteen, twenty minutes. Okay, Stella. This is what we got going on today. Yeah. If I'm going the wrong way, let me know.
Speaker 3:I'll Yeah. I'll tell you. Yo. Yo. No.
Speaker 3:No. We're not going there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Actually, I appreciate that. In many ways, your showroom is sort of set up that way. Yeah. So I know if I'm in I I feel it intrinsically if I'm in the wrong neighborhood for what the budget's gonna take.
Speaker 1:No doubt. So because designing with tile is such a creative opportunity, I prefer design now and pay later. So we we look at what people like. And then as you said, you know, earlier, we'll find a way to get that same kind of idea. Always.
Speaker 1:You know, maybe if you wanted it to be full, huge, you know, panel of of large format, but your budget needs you to go to smaller format, we can blend the grout so that it looks like a solid palm.
Speaker 3:Exactly. There's always a way. Trust me. Exactly. Always a way to accommodate.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So what are the most interesting changes in the industry that you've seen through the low many years that you've Wow. You've been doing it? Well, you know what? What comes to mind?
Speaker 3:Things from thirty years ago, which it was back then. Yeah. A lot of patterned floors. Yeah. Lot of lot of lot of lot of pattern.
Speaker 3:Not like the patterns of today. More earth tones from back then in the days. A lot of earth tones. A lot of those floral patterns that they used to do. Those old Italian old look of Tuscany type homes Yeah.
Speaker 3:Were very popular back then. Then it came to a complete halt for the longest time, and then we went into the tones of taupes and grays and and a little bit of blues, a little bit of the greens, but solids. No pattern. Dead for years. Then they start to come back with these beautiful patterns, but they're changing the tones.
Speaker 3:They're blues and they're grays, and there are no more earth tones in those patterns.
Speaker 1:They're changing the materials that they're made out of so that they're more stable and easier to use on. I love highlighting laundry floors.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness. Those real beautiful pattern. And we're doing those beautiful patterns on backsplashes too behind the cooktop hoods, which are beautiful. We're doing those beautiful patterns in back of shower walls now. We do a back wall of gorgeous, beautiful pattern, and then the side walls are solid.
Speaker 3:You know? And they continue that onto the shower pan and into the so there's a lot of those patterns have changed. Colors have changed. Sizings have changed. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's changed. I mean, like I said, I've been doing it forty years, and it's it's it's changed. Yeah. And it's
Speaker 1:like fashion. I mean Yeah. You know, things that go out of fashion, and then you see them trickle
Speaker 3:down in fashion. What happens with tile, but they're coming back different colors Yeah. Different sizes
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And stuff like that. Yeah. That's how it's coming back.
Speaker 1:But Yeah. I mean, I'm really actually grateful for the changes and the evolutions because, you know, every so often when I walk in the showroom, there are new things for me to play with. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:Again, I'm getting a bunch of new things in.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm
Speaker 3:sure that you feel that way.
Speaker 1:I have to. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You gotta keep up with the times. Yeah. That's what I love about you. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. So, Stella, thank you so much for helping educate our audience on the creative and practical aspects of designing with tile. The tile work will make a major visual element, and we can now see how it can be a colorful artistic statement or create a subtle van zen environment. Stella is an expert in the field with a career's worth of experience. Be sure to stop in the showroom here in North Hollywood, California and contact her through her website, www.forensictilela.com.
Speaker 1:To see pictures of the houses we've designed after the Woolsey fire here in Oak Park, California or to drop us a line, go to www.fromdisastertodreamhome.com, and we look forward to hearing from all of you.
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.