What’s It All About, Shluter?

As a frequently experimental designer, I often want things to look a bit differently than the manufacturer intended, especially when it comes to bath layouts, materials, tile. And then just this week, two of my tile reps both, in one day, said, “Well, then, what about Schluter?” Don’t think for one moment that you’re not as interested as I am in a better way to prevent mold disintegration of caulking grout in bathrooms! I know you are, because it is the BIGGEST question I get when working with a client on Tile Selection Installation.

People HATE grout lines! More more, the clean cut lines of porcelain tile are being used with 1/2th + 1/16th grout widths, instead of the old Kitchen Countertop 4×4 white tile with grout lines of 3/4″. Selecting grout for a tile project is a fine art, unless you go with the every popular “Classic Bone” from Mapei, which works with almost everything. But danger awaits the inexperienced grout selector – what should look like beautiful lines can wind up looking like mud if the grout color isn’t right. One experience HB Building + Design had was with setting stone tile on the shower floor – the color was greenish pebbles. The tile setter used a dark green grout, yes, the floor looked exactly like mud on the ocean floor. But, removing the tile using Classic Bone made the stones pop, we got Beachy, not Nitsche – a beautiful shower floor.

Shluter is a company that not only loves tile, but wants to help you keep your tile intact for as long as possible with special, invisible caps that watertight the edges between the tile a bathtub or shower floor. That’s just for starters. I found them because I needed a stainless steel finish piece for a back splash. They have that, more. One other item I found that will help improve our finished product is an edge b that can be used with countertops made from tile. I often use large format tile (24×24) for bathroom countertops. You usually only need a couple of pieces, your tilesetter can fabricate it, instead of having to outsource to a countertop vendor/installer.

http://www.schluter.com/  is the link. Schluter countertop/backsplash transitions use a ®-KERDI-BAND waterproofing strip is to seal seams  countertop/backsplash transitions. They also provide the edge bing for countertops.

Enjoy perusing, it is a site chock full of ideas products. And now you I both know, what Schluter’s all about.