EYE ON DESIGN BY DAN GREGORY

All Fired Up

Decorative ceramic tile is way cool: there’s an almost infinite array of colors, textures, styles, and motifs. Using it is one of the simplest ways to inject a little personality into your new house. Consider it for a kitchen backsplash, a shower, or even as a permanent rug in your front hall floor, like this histtric example from the Adamson House in Malibu:

Here are more examples to get you thinking. Bet you can’t look at just one.

The latter two examples are from California Pottery and Tile Works, which continues a long tradition of ornnamental tile manufacture going back to the early 20th century in places like Malibu, California. In fact you can still see examples of the original tile made by Malibu Potteries, which was a precursor to California Pottery, at the Adamson House in Malibu. The handsome Spanish Colonial Revival style house was built for the daughter and son-in-law of Malibu Potteries’ owners, Frederick and May Rindge, in 1929 and is a veritable tile showcase. It’s now a state park so you can tour it. My favorite features in the house are the tile rug shown above and the dog-washing tub outside the kitchen, shown below.

Even without the tile this is a good idea for dogs — and humans too! — on hot summer days.

Or here’s an example of Arts and Crafts tile from Pewabic Pottery in Detroit, Michigan, which was founded in 1903 and also has a museum you can visit.

The tiles have a handcrafted look.

I use this spiral one — it’s three inches square — as a coaster on my desk. Maybe some day it’ll go into a backsplash.

If modern is more your taste, then consider Heath Ceramics, which was founded in the 1950s in Sausalito, California and has been beautifully revived and reinvigorated in the last few years. Heath’s elegant minimalist architectural shapes and subtly layered colors add depth and character to any space. I’ll have more to say about Heath in a future posting.