We seem to be getting more and more instances where customers are contacting us months after they order seeking small amounts of additional tile to finish off their projects.

Based on what we can tell contractors are not giving their customers good guidance on ordering the proper amount of tile to complete a tile job. When there are lots of cuts involved to a project, when there are small nooks to an area, bay windows, or shower niches in a bathroom project all of these areas require more tile than simply a flat wall.

A good rule to follow is to order 10% – 15% more tile than the square feet which you calculate when measuring your project area. This should allow for errors, miscalculations, and unforeseen circumstances that could hinder a project.

And the most important reason to order sufficient tile for a project is due to what is called in our industry – Dye-Lots. When we receive a shipment of tile from our factory it is made under a certain production run and our company tracks the shade of each and every production run. Every new production run has a new shade number which allows us to track the shade of tile that a customer receives. This procedure is true for every tile company since manufacturing processes for making tile are the same within our industry. The color of a tile will not change between dye-lots but the shade between production runs might mean there are slight differences in color shading from one production run to another.

You should be happy to work with a tile company that tracks Dye-Lots which ensures that if you need additional tile to complete a project, tracking what shades are shipped to a customer ensures that you will always receive the same shade as was shipped with your original order.

A research team at UCLA has developed a website to assist folks whose project goal is to design an energy efficient home. The website is called Home Energy Efficient Design (HEED) and was developed by a UCLA research team headed by Murray Milne who is a research professor in the school’s department of architecture and urban design. Users of the free website will find it useful to design their sustainable home and at the same time calculate how much money and energy they will save with each design change.

The site generally is easy to use and a user only needs to enter the square footage of a home, number of stories, type (apartment or townhouse, etc.) and location to prompt the HEED site to create two homes with one serving as your base design and one to use as a comparison home and to test any changes to a design. The base design will meet California’s energy code which is one of the toughest codes in the US but users can also change the code to their state when using the site.

The HEED tool is quite powerful and using the floor planner allows one to explore door, window, heating, cooling, appliance, shading, and ventilation options. All of this in one relatively easy to use free tool. There is no technical support or customer service helpline but if you send an email to the HEED team they are committed to providing users with a response in a timely manner.

We took a mini vacation this past week to Boston and were fortunate to stay in a hotel located in Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. We were busy with seeing parts of the city during the day which allowed for ample time to stroll around beautiful Beacon Hill by night. Not knowing much about Beacon Hill beforehand we were pleasantly surprised by the sheer beauty of the neighborhood once we walked around a little bit.

Beacon Hill is a small 19th century residential area of Boston housing slightly more than 10,000 people. The Beacon Hill area is situated directly north of the Boston Common and Boston’s large Public Garden. Charles Street and Cambridge Street are the city’s main commercial streets and we were fortunate to take a stroll on both.

The residential areas of Beacon Hill are known for their beautiful brick architecture on the many row houses and brownstones commonly found in the area. The building styles range from Federal, to Greek revival and Victorian and feature some stunning touches such as beautiful doors and door surrounds, brass door knockers and brick sidewalks, as well as the ever present gas lanterns along the residential streets. Beacon Hill is one of only a handful of communities in America still using functioning gas lanterns as the main source of residential street lighting.

Above are some photos of this beautiful community. Do take a walk through the Beacon Hill neighborhood if you are ever in the Boston area.

We are hearing from our industry contacts around the country that on a community by community basis, the Home Buyer Tax credit has in fact stimulated sales in many communities. Communities of moderately and lower priced homes are seeing the biggest boost from the first time home buyer market. Those who have been on the sidelines waiting to buy figure this is the last time that the government will offer the credit so it is now or never for those wishing to cash in on the governments generous offer.

The credit goes away on June 30th so buyers are in the final stretch of getting paperwork in, completing appraisals, and meeting any last minute underwriter requests. Watch the flurry of closings in the next 2 weeks in the Real Estate market in your community. We hope agents, banks, and title companies can actually uphold all of the commitments they made to borrowers who bought with the expectation of closing by June 30th.

Let’s see what happens!

We have been doing quite a bit of grouting lately and we wanted to pass on a little tip that is helpful to us and will also help you in removing any grout haze from tiles during the grouting process on your tile projects. Once you’ve cleaned the grout and you have removed as much of the grout residue from the face of the tiles as you can wipe the tiles and grout clean with a dry (and clean) towel or cloth to both dry the grout and remove any initial haze that may appear.

Wait about an hour or so for the grout to set up and harden somewhat then once this occurs go back over your tiles and wipe them gently with cheesecloth or a clean, dry towel to remove the grout haze that may have settled on the tile surface. Doing so after the grout has begun to “set up” but has not completely cured allows you to remove any haze on the tiles without wiping any grout away from the grout joints.

At various points in the next several weeks we will be introducing several new product lines which we have been busy working on this Spring. We will have new ceramic tile products, new glass tile products, and a new line of bamboo tiles to compliment our Bamboo Subway Tiles. We have been so busy we haven’t had the time to add some of the better content we like to write for our Blog but we should be able to get back to our normal schedule once the calendar moves in to July.

In the meantime stay with us and as the products become available we will be sure to place them on our website as soon as we can.

As always, we appreciate your support!

Grouting tile is relatively simple and straight forward but one should remember to be careful during the grout clean up process in order not to ruin the nice job that you are about to complete. When wiping away the excess grout from your tile be careful to wring out your sponge very well so as not to introduce too much water in to the grout thus weakening the grout because of too much moisture.

Also, take care when wiping the excess grout so you don’t wipe the surface area too hard causing some of the grout to be removed and leaving you with little gaps and pockets in the grout joints where the grout was washed away.

Just a little tip which could make the difference between a perfect grout job and one that looks like it was done by an amateur.

We are probably biased but we believe our Elements decorative ceramic tiles offer one of the most beautiful opportunities to add unique design and color to any area of the home. Our patterns such as the Tubac and Clifton tiles when placed together show a beautiful continuous pattern that immediately will bring attention and a focus to any area where the tiles are installed.

The Elements decorative ceramic tiles work well as wainscoting in a kitchen or bathroom area. And one of the more popular uses of these tiles has been as an accent wall in a home or commercial location. Our customers tell us that they are delighted with how well the Elements tiles transform an area and how eye-catching the designs are when installed over a large area.

For those considering any of our Elements tiles please contact us before ordering. We would love to have more photos of any completed Elements projects and we would be willing to discount any larger Elements tile orders in exchange for nice photos of the completed project.

Our Bamboo Subway tiles in a 3” x 6” subway tile size also come with the option to add some beautiful trim and edge pieces to any installation. Available Bamboo trim and edge pieces include the Tapered Bullnose Edge Cap pictured above in Chestnut and the Chicklet Edge pieces pictured in Natural.

The Tapered Bullnose Edge cap is meant to be used as a decorative cap piece at the top of a Kitchen backsplash for example while the Chicklet Edge piece is meant for the right or left edge of a backsplash where a quarter round trim piece would normally be used. These pieces are made of 100% (real) Bamboo and they are made locally by our company at our Arizona facility.

Bamboo is considered as a sustainable resource by the US Green Building Council and it is a wonderful material to work with. So for those wanting to use green materials in their home renovation and upgrade projects, please consider our Bamboo Subway Tiles for your project.

We wanted to share a photo of a recent tile installation from one of our customers who used our Solana Glass Mosaic tiles in 1 inch by 1 inch for their kitchen project. We thought the kitchen came out wonderful and the colors of the Meadow blend really do coordinate well with the customer’s kitchen environment.

We thought that the colors in the Meadow glass mosaic tile blend really bring out the colors in the kitchen. You say, what are you talking about since the counters are charcoal/black and the cabinets are white. Precisely our point. If one tries to coordinate colors exactly either with the cabinets or the counters you will never be able to have a good color match simply because each component in the area comes from a different manufacturer and every manufacturer has their own color charts.

Choosing a different but a complimentary color to ones cabinets and counters can often bring out the colors in a kitchen or bath because all of the different components coordinate and work well together. Keep these points in mind when choosing colors in your kitchen or bath and you will be happy that you did.