Everything listed under: stone

We're often asked about the relative merits of Stone vs. Porcelain in interior design projects. In one recent project in Chicago's South Loop, our customer had us design their town home in Mid-Century Modern. We created a fireplace built-in unit which optimally would have been finished in a stone slab, mitered at the edge to make it appear as one massive. However the budget would not allow this. The economical option is to use tile and the question is whether those tile should be porcelain or stone tile

Here were a few of the restrictions our client required:

1. Color Palate Gray
2. Minimum tile dimension 19 inches
3. Tile to tile variability minimal to create the look of one large slab
4. Smooth edge
5. Color uniformity

Here's how the choices of Tile vs. Porcelain filled the jobs requirements:

In general, porcelain is much harder than stone.  It’s harder to cut and harder to polish.  But being a man made product it can be produced with many more colors and textures and is always being updated.  There are only so many stone types that are quarried at a price that makes the viable.

Porcelain is very non-porous and for most types, you can leave red wine on it over night, clean it with almost anything and wipe it up.  A stone, no matter how well sealed, will absorb and discolor.  Cleaning with anything other than soap and water or a specific stone tile cleaner can result in damage.  Stone tile in my shower still show evidence of where I put my shampoo bottle upside down where it leaked a little, but over time, the stains fade or you get used to it and begin to feel your stone is becoming personalized.  “The patina of use.”  They can also be cleaned.  The reason they fade is that water passes through the stone and leaches them out.

For our current project, porcelain fit the bill much better than stone.  Our tile-layers at Stratagem are capable of laying the tile in ways that minimize exposure of the hard to polish edges.  We can also darken them with certain finishes to give them a polished look.  The goal of laying this fireplace was to achieve a slab-like look while saving the customer about 30% on the over all cost.  This required a stone that was consistent in color.  After the porcelain was laid, we mixed up as specific combination of off the shelf mortars to create a color similar to the porcelain itself.  We’ll post a picture in a few days when our Mid-century modern fireplace bookshelf built-in is complete.

Stone has its strengths, too. Variability is sometimes desirable and adds warmth.  (Porcelain can seem sterile in some circumstances.)  Stone has been around forever and will be around forever.  The John Hancock has a lobby from 1968 and it could have been put in last week.  Porcelain has more colors, more possibilities, and thus, it can go out of style, where stone – if it does go out of style – will always come back.  Carrera marble is a good example – it’s back!    In addition, people less familiar with porcelain may not understand it or value as much as stone.  They may see it as something artificial – all things to contend with when building in certain neighborhoods or parts of the country.

Check out some of our tile designs in portfolio -- bathrooms, kitchens, and fireplaces and see if you can tell what is what.  Feel free to send us an e-mail and we'll let you know.

One of our design challanges on a recent project was trying to match the tile laying of White Thassos tile to the counter top for the custom bathroom vanity.  There were three choices: a White Thassos Marble countertop that is extremely expensive (possibly $8K for the materials alone), a Carrera like Marble countertop (much more reasonably priced but would not match the shade of white), or a Quartz product such as a Caesar Stone Countertop, Silestone or similar product. Unfortunately, none of these options had the right color of white; all were too pigmented. However, there is a glass product available from China that exactly matches White Thassos. The raw material costs about a 10th as much, so the final product is reasonably priced.   The material comes in 2 and 3 cm thicknesses and is locally available from the importer though you have to buy a whole slab in order to cut your vanity top which means you have enough left over for two more tops when you're done.