I have been sourcing tiles for the large female servants' sitting room in the basement of the castle. The tiles are for a small kitchen area and a small bathroom area as would have been found there originally. Most modern tiles would look totally out of place in a Victorian setting, and indeed most modern tiles are vile, so one's choice is surprisingly limited.
When I expressed my deep frustrations to Gavin and Gregor i.e. that the only nice tiles are on eBay and "collection only" in the deep South of England, they said "Why don't you just pick-up tiles from Topps Tiles in Dundee?".
I do listen to advice, and sat down and worked my way systematically through the Topps Tiles website. Oh dear! Things appear to have got worse rather than better. Topps Tiles used to feature natural stone (which I favour): now there are instead a lot of porcelain fake stone tiles which enforce clinical precision on a look that used to be supplied via a natural product. Nothing in the Topps Tiles catalogue inspired, despite the fact they are a local pick-up. Obviously, not everything was horrible but the price of what could have been acceptable was extortionate.
The tile market has a very strange pricing structure. Basic white tiles, etc, are OK in price, but move away to anything remotely desirable in the design department and the price sky-rockets. I am pretty certain this does not represent the underlying manufacturing costs. I suspect pricing in tile-rich cultures like Spain and Turkey is much more democratic, but we are in rip-off Britain.
Occasionally, I am tempted to indulge in Islamic tiles (think of the Arab Hall in Leighton House in Kensington) but import costs would overwhelm, and my rational mind has decided that tiles at Balintore are functional and not a design feature in themselves. And of course even with basic tiles, tiling patterns if desired, add no additional cost.
Anyhow, it suddenly dawned on me: "Why don't I just buy those eBay tiles in the South of England, and use a pallet company?". I had used pallet companies before. It is not cheap - perhaps £100 to move a pallet around the country, but it is much less expensive than a courier or driving down in person. Of course, you have to buy enough tiles to make it worthwhile - so that £100 becomes just a fraction of the overall cost.
I had been considering at one stage plain coloured mini-metro tiles which are good value for the basic colours: white, cobalt, emerald and cobalt. These come in at £15/m2. I decided that a sexy peacock mini-metro would give an Islamic feel, but these come in at £60/m2. When my mini metro tile samples arrived, I did like the peacock but not enough to justify the much higher cost.
For the basement area, Gavin would not accept a white tile and wanted a warmer "ivory" colour, and indeed a warmer colour altogether for the kitchen area. He has expensive tastes. :-)
Anyhow, I located and ordered a couple of "remaindered lots" from the South of England: one a bone-coloured crackle-glazed mini metro (for the bathroom) and the other a glaced terracotta tile with natural colour variations (for the kitchen).
Thankfully both sellers could supply their own pallet and the pick-ups and drop-offs went like a dream. The terracotta arrived today, and the bone arrived yesterday. Thankfully, my builders approve - though they tutted at the brighter orange teracotta tiles. :-)
The choice of colours was really constrained by the mini kitchen. We have used second hand oak doors and oak drawer fronts and broken third-hand granite worktops. With two natural textures already, the tiles simply could not be patterened, and could only be plain coloured or another very subtle natural texture. The warmth of the colour of these variagated terracotta tiles jumped out at me from the eBay listing, and I decided to just go for it. And of course, a natural terracotta product is very much what could have been used in a Victorian servant area.
I manage to find out the manufacturer of the teracotta tile (Equipe in Finueroles, Spain) and the bone tile (Adex in Onda, Spain not far away). I got some more samples of the Equipe tiles in different colours as I thought the darker teracotta, might need a lighter colour on top. Gregor and Gavin loved the Artisan Gold which is even darker, and this is after complaining they they did want too dark a tile! :-) Indeed, the Artisan Gold toned surprisingly well with the oak, but is probably too dark overall. The Atisan and Country labels turned out to be a textural variation not a colour variation - the Artisan tile is much more roughly shaped and textured.
However, while holding the teracotta tiles in place today, we all concluded they didn't need a border, or to be topped off by other tiles as they were sufficiently "stand alone". Sometimes, simplicity is the result of complex thinking. :-)
The bone tiles were left over from a client with high end tastes - these retail at over £100/m2 ! It's always good to know that a bargain is even better than one thought.
I am struck by how apparently random the design decisions at Balintore are, and yet on the other hand, with the materials available things could only really have gone one way. Everything has been second hand and budget. It's particularly nice to work with Gavin and Gregor as they are putting in the hard work, so they have a vested interest in not doing anything unspeakably horrible. :-)
The terracotta tiles will go on the wall behind the bespoke kitchen units built by Gregor. So you can see the design constraints are the oak doors (eBay) and the granite countertop (Facebook Marketplace).
