Ever since Riad Tile unveiled our marble tile in late 2018, we’ve been amazed by the stunning applications created by our customers. From bright, lively bathrooms to stunning kitchens that positively exude luminescence, our carefully-selected, hand-polished marble tiles have been used to add the signature look of marble to spaces of all shapes, sizes, and styles. This creativity and tasteful design has inspired us to seek out new hues of marble as well as explore new, innovative tile shapes, such as diamond and pickett mosaic. These new introductions are a continuation of our goal to broaden our offerings and offer our customers exactly what they need to create their dream space, because no matter what style of tile you are interested in, we enjoy nothing more than providing you with something that fits your tastes, space, and budget. Our marble floor tile is absolutely no exception.
Marble tile is a real best-of-both-worlds decor item, boasting the gorgeous glimmer only present in real marble and the convenience of tile, and whether you are interested in the elegant simplicity of subway tile or the delicate interaction of mosaic tile, we offer the size and shape variety needed to help you find exactly what you are looking for.
What Marble Tile Does for a Space
Real, naturally-occurring marble has a number of incredibly unique properties that simply cannot be imitated by any other material, and it is perfectly suited for crafting both mosaic and subway tile. But what spaces are best for marble tile? Where does it stand out? To answer these questions, we need to explore marble just a little bit.
Marble, when honed and polished to perfection, has a top layer that is just slightly opaque, letting a small amount of light through before the light is halted by subsequent layers. This seemingly minute detail makes all the difference when seeing marble in person. By allowing just a small amount of light through, the top layer of marble is illuminated ever-so-slightly, making the marble seem to shimmer and glow in the right light. This is one of the most sought-after qualities of marble, as it simply can’t be replicated.
Because of its natural luminescence, marble floor tile tends to look its best in spaces with plenty of natural light. When the sun hits the tiles just right, your space will gently shine and glimmer, creating vibrance that encompasses and accentuates every inch of your space. This luminescent property reveals the most important aspect of creating a new marble tile application: placement.
In order to get the best out of your marble tile, you must ensure that it is placed properly. As we mentioned above, areas with plenty of natural light are an outstanding way to exhibit the best qualities of your marble tile. Spaces with skylights or large windows will allow your marble tiles to utterly exude ambiance. Entryways are similarly excellent locations for marble tile. Just think, every time you open to the door to meet your friends and family, they will be greeted by the light from your open front door dancing across exquisite marble floor tile.
Another way you can use marble tile is to accentuate features of your home. For example, a small backsplash added to your kitchen can be the perfect accent piece to provide your space with just a dash of delicate texture. Or if you’d prefer to go larger with your accent piece, you might be interested in creating something like this fireplace.
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This fireplace makes fabulous use of our Herringbone Mosaic marble tile in stunning Casablanca Carrara. This exquisite mosaic tile is individually simplistic, but comes together to create zig-zagging lines that seem to playfully dart through any application. In this particular application, our Herringbone Mosaic Casablanca Carrara is used to create a sense of motion, adding the variety that would be missed by brick or even subway tile. This fireplace makes excellent use of placement on 2 fronts: it has a healthy proximity to natural light via the window on the left, and it receives light from the warm glow of a fire, ensuring that day or night, this application of marble tile is going to glimmer and shine.
While natural light is always welcome to natural marble tile, it’s not the only way to go when creating a new application. Though extraordinarily dim spaces, such as interior half baths with low light, may not benefit much from marble, areas that are less well lit can certainly be augmented by marble tile. A bit of marble can serve to enhance slightly dimmer spaces, lending their crisp visual style to brighten certain areas. This method of application encourages creativity, as strategic use of marble becomes more important. For example, if you have a master bath with only the natural light of a small window, you might do well with a small backsplash, placed where it can be illuminated by lighting fixtures.
Alternately, if you can shape your application around a focal point of natural light, such as a small window, the naturally reflective marble surface will expand the light from this sole source. This makes even the smallest quantity of natural light go a long way!
Take for example, this shower one of our customers created.
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It’s absolutely amazing how much you can do with marble tile and just a tiny bit of natural light! This shower makes use of 2 types of marble tile, with the walls exhibiting our Marble Subway Tile in 6”x12” and the floors featuring our Diamond Mosaic, both of which are made of stunning Casablanca Carrara marble. Though you may only be able to see a bit of the Diamond Mosaic, you can still get an idea of how its contrasting textures work well when set against the steadfast subway tile. These soft white tiles serve to amplify the small source of light adjacent to them, illuminating the marble as well as the tasteful shower fixtures.
Norwegian Rose: Rich, Vibrant Color
At Riad Tile, we are constantly looking for new ways to help our customers explore the possibilities of interior design with our offerings. We like to keep a keen eye out for both shifts in design trends as well as new designs that can be added into existing popular styles. With this goal in mind, we are proud to now offer our latest color of marble tile, Norwegian Rose.
A wholly unique set of colors and striations, Norwegian Rose is a gorgeous variety of marble quarried in Norway. It has a vibrant-but-rich pinkish hue and is accented by white and grey streaks scattered throughout, and it offers the same glimmering property for which marble is well-known. This utterly amazing new color is perfect for mosaic tile, and it will soon be offered in several unique varieties.
Herringbone Mosaic
5” Hexagon Mosaic
Diamond Mosaic
Pickett Mosaic
Because of their rosy color, our Norwegian Rose marble tiles are extraordinarily well-suited for mosaic tile application. Such applications can be used to strategically add doses of natural colors as well as make bold statements as large applications. The choice is yours!
Our marble tiles are quarried from the same slabs, ensuring that there are no outliers that don’t match quite right. We are incredibly excited to offer Norwegian Rose Mosaic Tile, and we look forward to seeing how our customers put them into use!
Finding the Perfect Marble Floor Tile
Now comes the challenging part: which marble tile is right for your home? There are many different angles from which you might approach this question, as we offer many different shapes in several colors of marble tile. To help guide you through the selection process, we have a few simple questions that you can think over, helping you explore your own taste and how it relates to your new application or space.
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1. How much natural light does your space have?
This is something we’ve already given a great deal of attention to, but we can’t stress it enough. How the tile is lit can make or break a marble application, and we want nothing more than to help you create your own gorgeous dream space. Remember, natural light is your friend, but it isn’t mandatory. A space can easily be bright enough for marble with well-placed lighting fixtures.
2. What size will your application be?
Are you planning a counter-to-ceiling backsplash, or a small backsplash hovering just above the sink? Are you redoing your full shower or just the shower floor? If you’re redoing your floor, what is its square footage? These questions might determine whether you use a mosaic tile, which has delicate designs perfect for small- to mid-size applications, or subway tile, which offer bold repetition perfect for large-scale applications. Again, this question is only to help you visualize your own application. We’ve seen some gorgeous examples of large mosaic tile applications and small applications of 6”x12” subway tile alike. It just depends on your own personal taste!
3. Which color and style do you plan to work with?
What do you think would look best in your space? The soft white Casablanca Carrara and its gentle grey streaks, the always classic Carrara Bianco with its light grey speckles, or perhaps our latest addition, Norwegian Rose? Are you drawn to the nearly-hypnotic effect created by mosaic marble tile or do you prefer the traditional style of subway tile?
After you’ve given these questions some thought, take some time to give second look to our selections. You may find new inspiration or slightly different perspective than in your first look.
Taking Care of Your Marble
While its distinctive visual presence is a perfect addition to many different rooms, marble, when used in its slab form, has several key drawbacks that it is important for you to consider. Namely, if damaged, there is no way to actually repair the damage; you have to replace it entirely. This means that a single small chip in your countertop either becomes a permanent part of your counter or you’ll need to order a new countertop. But if you place with marble tile instead of a slab, chipping or any other type of damage becomes nothing more than a minor inconvenience. Simply order a replacement tile, remove the old tile, and place the new.
A quick replacement for a damaged tile is obviously much quicker, easier, and less expensive than replacing an entire floor, but additionally, you don’t have to worry so much about something accidentally falling off a counter or being dropped. Marble floor tile gives you both the freedom to actually enjoy and use your space and the fabulous appearance of real marble.
Marble tile can be particularly difficult to install, so we recommend that you find an installer who is well versed in natural stone installation. When you receive your order, make sure that you mix tiles from different boxes to ensure proper blending during installation. To read our full care and maintenance guide, click here.
Riad Tile’s Hand-Polished Marble Tile
At Riad Tile, we work hard to provide the highest quality products at some of the best prices in the U.S. Through strategic partnerships, we are able to accomplish just that, because we believe that when you are creating your dream space, you shouldn’t have to settle for lesser materials. Our marble tile is polished to perfection and carefully inspected for quality and consistency before we send it away, because we take a great deal of pride in our offerings and the customers who use them.
If you are interested in seeing more of our Casablanca Carrara, Carrara Bianco, or Norwegian Rose marble floor tile in person, please feel free to order a sample anytime. Because we are constantly adding to our product line, some tiles may not be available yet, but we offer wait lists for all of our new samples.
