Design by Liz Williams Interiors

Woo hoo!  Off to “window shop”… ;)

More shots of Martha Stewart’s Bedford kitchen with its tiled floor.

The nice thing about waiting 2 or 3+ years to build your dream house is that you have lots and lots of time to consider just how you would like it.  You can also try out living in other places and learn from the good, the bad, and the ugly.

This pleases my husband, because it’s taken this long for me to finally concede.  You see, I always knew tile or lino in the kitchen is much smarter than hardwood, but I just wouldn’t give in.  I looove the look of hardwood, and dislike a lot of floor tile looks (especially in many kitchen applications).  Furthermore, I just can’t handle the transition from one kind of flooring to another in an area that is not a doorway.

But now I have a baby throwing his bottle around and tossing food on the floor.  I want a floor that’ll clean up better (and look better when a little dirty) than hardwood or laminate flooring in the kitchen.  *sigh*  So I give in.

The thing is… I’m still not 100% sure how I want a tile floor to look (dark, light, big, small…)  I can definitely tell you what I don’t like (tiles in diamond pattern, or distinct grout lines, to name a couple).  But what I like has yet to be discovered.

Needless to say I was interested to see tile that I liked in two of my September magazines:

This month’s Martha Stewart Living features an article on Martha’s Bedford kitchen.  The tiles on the floor caught my eye - long slabs that look like wide-plank wood flooring.  The article says they were actually 4”-thick marble slabs from an outdoor path that were cut down to 1” and installed indoors.  I like the rugged look, and love the long-slab look.

(I’ll post some more pictures of her Bedford kitchen later.)

And one of my favourite articles from September’s Canadian House & Home features a vacation home with tile flooring throughout:

While I could never put stone tile throughout my home, the article explains that it works well for summer vacation living since it’s cool underfoot.  Makes sense.  It would also be great for lakeside living when kiddies come in all wet and drippy.

Again these tiles are large, and rugged looking, which appeals to me.

And recently Kim over at Desire to Inspire blogged about tile flooring.  While her inspiration pictures focused mostly on living rooms, there were still a few floors that I think would look good in my kitchen too:

So now I’m on the hunt for some good tile floor inspiration pictures…