Thursday, October 05, 2006

Turkish Tile

Turkey is famous for its tiles and beautiful examples can be seen everywhere you look in Istanbul. An interesting use of tile in some of the more modern hotels and homes is to make a frame border the full height of the wall out of 2"x3" tiles applied directly to the wall in a series of tall rectangles or around a window or door in place of wood trim. This idea could be copied in any type of tile.

Turkish tile patterns are incredibly bright - a mix of blues, reds, and greens which might not fit into just any home - but should any take your fancy, there are many beautiful traditional mosaic patterns which can be purchased in Turkey or via the internet. The patterns remind me of some of the wallpaper prints which have become so popular in kitchen decor recently. I can easily imagine an all white kitchen with a backsplash of Turkish tile or a mosaic featured over the stove as the only splash of color.

I'm not able to upload my own photos until I get back home, so I had to swipe this from Google images. It is a copy of an authentic Turkish tile.

Random Thoughts

I got the Brocade Home catalog a few weeks ago and I was a little disappointed. I'm not sure if it was that the prices were a little higher than I had hoped or that there wasn't much more in the catalog than I hadn't already seen on their site, but it left me feeling ho-hum. I do love the idea of hanging a chandelier low over a coffee or end table, but the over-all Brocade style is a little too frilly for my tastes. I probably should have been tipped off by the word "brocade," but I was still hoping for something with less Victorian iunfluence.

Still in Turkey (hooray), but on a dial-up connection (boo).