TILE TUESDAYS - NADEAU COLLECTION

Recently I came across a new source for custom mosaics in Phoenix, Arizona.  The animal print tiles are my favorite find in a long time.  What a great way to accent a bathroom or dressing room and carry the print into fabrics or floor coverings.

The options of using a mosaic like this are endless, you could do one entire wall and the other walls with white or black subway, square or long modern tiles and insert liners of the matching zebra.  The surrounding floor or countertops can be black absolute or white thassos depending on the architectural choices that you made in the rest of your house. 

Another choice of the animal prints is the cheetah, this is a softer look and can be mixed with gold or noce travertine or black Brazillian slate tiles or slabs.  You can keep finishes honed or mix it up a little with polished black granite or polished Jerusalem Gold. 

Any pattern can be made in any stone you may choose and the lead time is less than the shipping time from any foreign port.  Visit http://thenadeaucollection.com/ for more information.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY OF LAS VEGAS STONE

Recently I visited Las Vegas and found some beautiful uses of stone and some that were less than appealing.  The Red Rock Casino won my personal award for the best use of stone.  The designers and installers have every resource at their fingertips and usually a decent budget so I hope to see some great work.  The use of onyx in the back bar is beautiful and backlighting really shows off the stone.

To incorporate this into your own home bar, you can use tube lighting under the bar top.  I have also seen kitchen islands done in onyx that were lit from underneath, what a beautiful way to have shimmering light at night.  Just remember that onyx is very soft and scratches easily, I would never reccomend using it on the floor unless it was tumbled material. 

This quartzite table makes an interesting architectural statement.  The top is polished and the underlighting picks up the mica flecks in the stone.  This piece is incredibly heavy so the choice for leg supports is really important.  I think that this kind of design poolside for a bar or island for your outdoor kitchen would be a unique look as no stone would be the same.  For pool landscaping, quartizite is avalable in tiles, random flagstone and pool coping, the good news is that quartzite does not retain heat like some other stones which makes it perfect for the outdoors. 

More later on the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Las Vegas Stone.