When you design your home with travertine flooring, you will appreciate its durability and rustic good looks. To get the best design, you will need to understand the properties of the stone.
You've probably heard of travertine tiles, or seen lovely pictures in design magazines, or perhaps a family member or friend is planning to install it. You may be surprised to see a wide variety of finishes and colors in travertine tiles. The styles and looks you can achieve with travertine tiles can be numerous. Learning about the colors and properties of travertine can be helpful in choosing the look that is right for you.
Travertine is similar to limestone in its composition, and is a sedimentary rock. The distinctive look that it shows off is formed by water and minerals evaporating over time, and by the processes of geothermal springs. It is usually tan in color, although the colors can range from light creams to deep and golden browns. You can even find this type of tile in striated silver and Persian red colors.
Many travertine tiles can be purchased in several different finishes. They can be cross-cut, polished, honed, cobbled or tumbled. Tiles that are cobbled or tumbled will generally be left unfilled, meaning that the holes and pores are left alone, which adds to the stone's rustic appearance. If your travertine flooring tiles have larger holes that go all the way through the stone, you should fill them with grout when you install them.
Polished and honed travertine tiles are usually filled when they are finished, at the factory. They may be called polished and filled, or honed and filled. Most manufacturers will attempt to match the stone's color to the color of epoxy fill, but you may find some tiles where the filler is lighter than the stone. Sometimes the filler may be an entirely different color. Ask for samples from the currently available lots, to make sure you don't have these sometimes undesirable colors in your tiles.
X-cut or cross cut travertine tiles are cut against the stone's natural grain. This helps to produce a very distinctive pattern, sometimes called “Fiorito”, which is Italian for “flowers”.
One common travertine is called Travertine Chiaro, which is a light stone ranging in color from deep sandy to light tan. Sometimes these ivory or light travertine tiles work as well on kitchen backsplashes as they do on flooring projects.
Another commonly seen travertine tile is Travertine Noce, which is a golden brown. It can take on a gray and dusky tone when it's tumbled, or lighten into a mocha tone when it is polished or honed. Sometimes this is referred to as dark travertine or walnut travertine. This makes a very workable flooring material, and its varied, dark tones will help hide wear and tear and dirt very well.
Silver travertine is a very distinctive stone, and it has thick veins with colored layers that move across the stone. Laying it horizontally in a narrow area will widen the look of the space, and this is only one of the ways that using travertine flooring will add to the beauty of your home.
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