What's New In Tile - Day 1

I had such a great day looking at tile with my brother! (I do miss my husband and baby though, love you guys). We just arrived in Atlanta, GA last night for the annual Tile & Stone industry trade show. Today was Day 1 walking through 2 huge halls with hundreds of tile vendors. I just wanted to share some brief snippets of some trends that we saw throughout the show. If you're interested in any of the products below please contact me at christina@architecturalceramics.com and I can get you details. Stay tuned for Day 2 through 4...more to come. Let me know what you guys think of these new trends so far! 1) Graffiti - I have never seen this before at tile shows, so this is a completely new thing to me. I saw this style at several booths today. Its really neat looking, unique, and original. This particular line is from Italy. The Italians always start the tile trends, they are innovators. 2) Tree Bark - This porcelain tile is really cool looking too. We've seen wood look porcelains become more and more popular over the last few years...but this takes it to a completely new level. This looks more like the outside of the tree. This particular one is by far the nicest replica of it that we've seen so far. This one is an an Italian innovation as well. 3) Sabine Hill - This line is cement tile believe it or not! Its made in the Dominican Republic. It is a green product. The neat thing about it is that the cement coloring is actually 1/4" down the tile...they use a mold to pour the cement colors on top of a base piece of cement to get the patterns and colors shown below. The nice thing about this technology is that if for some reason there is a slight chip in the cement (although unlikely) there will still be residual color underneath the chip. Much better technology than painted on cement. This is much more rugged and will stand up to commercial traffic even! I really love this line and I'm so excited to introduce it into our showrooms. We will have boards shortly :) P.S. My picture does not do this line justice. 4) Slim Slab - You have seen this one on our website, but just seeing these slabs on display is incredible! This is a 5 ft x 10 ft x 6mm thick porcelain slab designed to look exactly like Calacatta Gold. They do an amazing job of matching the look of the real stone. These slabs are designed for floor or wall spaces. I'm excited to announce that we will be stocking 2 sizes in this material, so if you're interested in it...let me know.