Amazing Tiles by Petra Antiqua
19 February 2010
“Styling”
The one product I am never able to walk away from whenever I am online doing blog subject hunting is tile, both because of the need we all have for it-even if we use it only for backsplashes in bathrooms and kitchens-and the many things that can be done to the product and with it. It is one of the most creative things that absolutely ever was. And the Petra Antique line that we are featuring today is certainly a case in point.
I don’t think there is a home that would not benefit from the judicious use of tile, be it in kitchen backsplashes, or as we’ve featured it here, as covering for an entire wall. And this latter has enormous strengths as a decorating motif, both because of the unusualness-at least in this country-of such a design element, and the. oh, what’s a ten-dollar French word fo
r flair! But there is so much that can be done with such a product. Ours is a simple tract home, but with just a bit of imagination-my wife and I are working hard to supply it!-it could be ever so much more than that. The fireplace surround is simple bricks, but to give it bit more than that, the designers of this house made the surround a simple wall some 40 inches wide that runs floor to ceiling. Face that wall with one of these tiles from Petra Antique, and suddenly that space would be revolutionized; there’s no other way of describing such a change.
Walking through our home I can see any number of short walls that would be especially amenable to such a treatment, but more to the point, there are surely such walls in your own home. Instead of the bland wallboard and off-white paint that covers all, think what a transformation one could make with tile such as these.
It’s hard to believe that these are travertine tiles, because Petra Antique has completely transformed them with modern metallics like gold, copper, silver and iron. They have 
also used mother of pearl and red and violet finishes, the better to bring this ancient product into the modern world. That’s the part that always blows my mind about tile. It’s been in use for thousands of years, and people are still re-designing it! The tile themselves come in a wide range of sizes that can be set in vertical or horizontal arrangements, or in a combination of both, just to spice it up a little. And the other thing I find myself admiring about what Petra Antique has done here is that each of their tiles has an unusual textural finish that just begs one to touch it.
I’ve also included some pictures from some of Petra Antique’s exhibitions in Europe, but in doing so I really must point out that what you see here is not just displays in a showroom somewhere. What they are, really, is enormous slices of creativity, waiting for one to apply these concepts to one’s home. I don’t know if the kids still say “you’re styling,” but I can say absolutely that if you’re tiling, you’re styling.
Joseph
No comments yet
Leave a Reply