Choosing tiles is never easy. Our advise is don’t judge a tile by looks alone! You need to select a tile that is durable enough for the use that you will be subjecting the tile. Therefore you can use many different types of tiles for walls. Countertops require tile with greater strength and stronger glazes to withstand food stains and acids. Floors require more strength and stronger glazes to withstand grit on the bottom of shoes women in high heel shoes (a 125# woman in high heels exerts 500#/square inch pressure on a floor, much more than a refrigerator!). Interior bathroom floors can use smaller wall tiles as your carpets will clean your shoes of outside grit before they get to the tile. However smaller tile will make small rooms look small and result in much more grout to maintain.

From experience larger floor tiles(16x16 up to 20x20) are well suited for not only floors but countertops, shower walls and ceilings! The larger sizes allow you to obtain drastically more tile at greater strength with dramatically lesser number of grout lines. Less grout lines means a less busy pattern which will make the floor, countertop and/or wall look bigger and also will give you less grout to maintain!

Ensure you buy from a retailer that you trust!

Tile is a "blind" item - just like diamonds, you can’t tell quality by looking at it! Work with a retailer who knows tile, shows it well it his store, has many samples to select from and represents different brands so you can mix and match and therefore get more value for your money.

You must take samples home or to the job site. The retail store is not the place to make your selection. You need to have a number of different sizes, colors and textures to select from in order to make a good decision. Just as you wouldn’t want your eyes to be tested with only one lens, you need to see a variety of tiles in the setting where they will be installed to determine your best choice. Often the first choice in our shop is the third choice when you get it home! We recommend two trips. In the first visit 5-6 tiles should be check out that are truly different from each other so that a valid"better-worse" situation is created at the job site. On the second trip another 4-5 samples should be selected based on the tiles that looked the best in the first visit. Much like eating an elephant, a slow methodical approach is best!

Watch out for "do-it-yourself" stores where their only goal is to sell as much tile as quickly as possible or where the only person to help you is the plumbing department guy who was the paint guy yesterday! Cheap price can mean cheap quality. There truly is "no free lunch"! A poorly designed layout with the wrong quality and size of tile can quickly result in paying too much and getting less than you would if you were dealing with a retailer who knows tile and its application.