2522 Green Bay Rd Evanston Illinois 60201
What Tile to Buy
The Final Word
​
Our selection of handcrafted tiles reflects a preference for authenticity and artistic flair in decorative tiles. Handcrafted tiles have been made in parts of Europe, Central and South America for hundreds of years. There is a sense of timeless beauty and simplicity in them versus what I call Gold Coast, bleak looking, German looking decorative tiles, the equivalent of a Mercedes-Benz Maybach in tile design like the ones made by a few US manufacturers, some subsidaiaries of commercial brick companies. Since the 1990s though, some of the most beautiful artisanal tiles are made here in the US while Italian manufacturers are mostly exporting mass produced tiles. We stay away from companies that are not tile makers in reality but repackage tiles from different sources and sell them into over done and over priced collections and concepts.
Glass Tiles, Glass Mosaics
Glass mosaics and tiles are used today to do entire bathrooms, walls and floors, recommended for steam showers, kitchen backsplash and inside and outside murals. Oceanside glass tiles are entirely handmade, hand poured in molds, colored through and not color painted on the back of the tiles like Chinese made tiles. They are rated for floors as well as for walls (and swimming pools) unlike most glass tiles made in China. Irregular or straight cut, matte, frosted or irridescent Oceanside glass tiles come in many shapes and exciting colors.
​
Limestone, marble and travertine tiles are the overwhelming choice throughout the house today as granite in the Us is reserved for kitchen counter tops in slabs and for commercial applications in tiles. In Europe they prefer marble and quartzite as granite is judged too dark and commercial looking for the house.
Sometimes the most beautiful material in stone with a lot of variations and movements (most desirable, unlike with certain man made, mass produced tiles although today a pattern is computer generated and as a result each tile produced can have slightly different markings) is generally only available in slabs, not always in tiles, as it is best appreciated on a big canvas, not on a small tile. In the old country you will find bathrooms done entirely with slabs. Watch the movie "Io Sono l'Amore": in the right setting llike in a town house in Neuilly or Milan -not a prairie house- it is the best.
Like with decorative ceramic wall tiles we believe that a slab or a tile in stone should ultimately be a customer's pick and reflect their sense of colors and design. In the residential market the time when people were using 12x12 shinny tiles is over. Today people use anything from 24x48, 18x36, 12x24, 24x24, 3x9, 6x12 shapes to 4 pieces or more French pattern tiles with chiseled edges in honed, antiqued (patine, pillowed) finishes.
Artisanal, Handcrafted Tiles
Natural Stone
​
This Web Site is meant to be useful. The pictures represent a selection of tiles that are for sale. It is not a fancy slide show of small stock pictures of completed bathrooms and kitchen tiles made in Madagascar. We are not a tile gallery. Out tiles are good value although all of them are high end and represent a selection of the best tiles available in each category.
SURFACE STUDIOcarries only current line of tiles, a majority of which are imported and warehoused in the US or hand made by the Studios here.
Today people spend more money on their kitchen and their bathroom that at any time in history. The kitchen and the bathroom have become the status symbol that the dining room and the living room were in the old days and as a result the tile business has become a lot more interesting.
At SURFACE STUDIO we believe that buying tiles is not like buying building material or remodeling someone else kitchen and bathroom. Selecting tiles, picking out decorative tiles is something personnal.