When it comes to a luxury floor, walls and worktop surfaces it is hard to look past marble.
Marble is a natural stone that takes its colouration and unique veined appearance from the minerals in the ground local to its origins. Well-known examples include black Nero Marquina marble – which is extracted from the Markina region of the Basque county in Northern Spain – and white-grey Carrara marble, quarried in Tuscany, Italy.
But working with real marble in a domestic setting can be difficult and expensive – and require a huge amount of looking after – which is where porcelain tile replication of the many variations of marble comes into play as a practical alternative to the original raw material. For residential and commercial settings, marble effect tiles offer the exact same look and feel of real stone but with added bonuses – not least the time and effort-saving cleaning regimes.
Benefits of Marble Effect Tiles
As well as recreating the nuances of marble, porcelain tile replication has also introduced a new expansive, vibrant colour palette among marble effects. Following years of minimalism, refined stone effects are emerging with new vibrancy and verve as interior designers seek bright colours and exciting effects. Marble-effect tiles are now available in green, blue, orange, silver and white – and the design opportunities are limitless with all colours offering either strong or mild veining, cloudy effects reminiscent of onyx or bold, striated surfaces.
An additional benefit of porcelain marble-effect tiles is the variety of finishes available. Marble styles are being reproduced with matt surfaces, honed surfaces, Lappatto semi-shiny finishes and the extremely sought-after highly polished finish to create a luxurious feel. Add this to the ability to invent bold, vibrant shade variations of marble and the tile industry has created a veritable mountain of ceramic choice that cannot be achieved with natural marble material.
Porcelain tiles are perfect for use in high-traffic areas due to being endlessly enduring – their hardness and density make them durable and hard-wearing, while their resistance to chips, stains and scratches means that they’ll continue looking good for years to come. Not only are they resilient, but they also make effective temperature regulators as they conduct heat efficiently so can be successfully paired with underfloor heating systems, offering a cool surface underfoot in the summer and warm, cosy floors in winter – something that is very useful in bathrooms, kitchens, living areas and conservatories.
The ease of installation also makes it much simpler to achieve statement design features with natural marble pattern effects such as Bookmatch – two tiles which are mirror images of each other – and endmatch – a pattern that runs across four tiles. These striking effects would be impossible to create without the technology to print two or more identical or symmetrical stone-effect tiles – thus taking natural stone to a new level of design.
The genuine beauty of natural stone cannot be denied, and capturing it is the top priority for designers and consumers looking to apply stone to their projects. But, with natural stone-effect porcelain now capturing the authenticity and spontaneity of stone found in nature, stone-effect tiles are the key to introducing character and impact at a fraction of the cost and difficulty.
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