Tileophilia

I love tile.

This is not something I would have guessed about myself prior to The Project. The tile in my existing bathrooms is a nondescript 12”x12” beige that came with the house. I never thought twice about it.

As part of the design process with our architect, we pulled together a Pinterest board of interior spaces that appealed to our aesthetic. It was here that I fell hard.

My first love was Mercury Mosaics, an artisan ceramic tile company in Minnesota that coincidentally advertises pretty hardcore on Pinterest. I saw this Caribbean Blue tile and I was done for:

This is what I want, I told the Husband. I wanna feel like a goddamn BVI-based mermaid every time I take a shower. Like I’m a movie star lounging in a saltwater pool in Palm Springs. Unfortunately, this vibe does not come cheap. I’m pretty sure the image above uses their Medium Moroccan Fish Scales, which are priced at $94 per sq. ft. Shipping from Minnesota also adds a pretty hefty surcharge. That said, there is no minimum order for tile, which makes it an option for accents like shower niches.

More Mercury Mosaics goodness here:

Reluctantly, I turned to more local options. Fireclay Tile, based in Aromas, CA, offers lots of beautiful color options at multiple price points. They’ll send you five free samples at a time, and I think over the last year I might have collected 75% of them. Here’s a few of my favorites from their inspiration gallery:

Finally, there’s the OG Northern California Tile: Heath Ceramics. They are priced pretty similarly to Fireclay’s higher-end options.

Last weekend, Heath had a sale at its Sausalito location. I waited in the baking sun for 3 hours, but I ended up leaving with $2,400 worth of tile (3”x3” squares of River) for $700.