Innovative Tiles by Gardenia
5 May 2010
“Low Impact Exercise”
Tile has so many applications that I don’t think I am ever going to run out of ideas to blog about. Gardenia is very much a case in point. What first caught my eye about this product is the Crystal Ker floral tile we show at left, but as I explored their site further, I found idea after idea, washing over me in a kind of–wait for it now–tile tsunami. But, honest to goodness, the things they have come up with here!
One of the concepts I particularly like is in the picture at the top of this blog. I never really thought of making a vanity with columns and then tiling over those columns, as they did here. But what they got with this procedure is wonderful, really. It makes it look as though the entire bathroom were made of masonry, of tile building blocks, as opposed to a 12″ tile. But it provides a design concept that is pretty unique, I think.
Now granted, this particular picture-in fact most of the pictures in this blog-are of bathrooms that are larger than the norm. But the vanity we’ve shown here would fit quite nicely into just about any bathroom, even the five-by-nine cracker boxes we have in our home. It would require some sizing, of c
ourse, to get it down, and a bit of innovation to come up with a design scheme that didn’t overwhelm the space. But, hey, if other people can design something like the bathroom we see before us here, I see no reason why others cannot reduce the size of the component parts and come up with something that makes your bathroom look both luxurious and as though it were always this way, and with a logic all its own. And that’s the sort of thing we most need to do if we are to make of our bathrooms the luxurious retreats they can be, if only we will approach these rooms with imagination.
More and more, when I think of tile, I think of the slow movements of Mozart’s piano concertos, and not just the icon, the 21st. It has long seemed to me that he wrote the first and third movements to blend in with the conventions of the time in which he lived, but the second movements were always his own, much like a jazz musician improvising on a theme. There is an innovation in these movements that is all the more astonishing because it is endless. Tile has much the same effect on me, both in what manufacturers are doing with it these days, and with what interior designers and homeowners can do with it.
To return to Gardenia and their Crystal Ker floral tile, it’s a collection that will bring an artistic edge to your walls, floors and backsplashes. As it with just about any tile you can imagine, really, these tiles can be used as an accent piece or a focal point. It is as limitless a medium as it is possible to envision. I have seen tile used on entire walls, as the equivalent of a chair rail, and all places in between. There are even those who eschew the traditional headboard for a bed and use a tile accent instead. There are probably as many ways of using tile as there are tile designs, which is what makes this medium as rewarding and as innovative as it is.
Another concept that is now making its way through the world of tile designers is the manufacture of tile that looks like something else. In the past I have featured tile that bore an astonishing resemblance to wallpaper, and today’s blog has a tile from Gardenia that looks very much like walnut. So now those who would really like wood in their bathrooms but are leery of it because of possible water damage have an option. In fact with tile you always have an option. You just have to exercise it.
Joseph
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