What are tiles and what types are they?

Tiles are a popular traditional decoration and are often used in modern types of interiors. Bright ceramic elements look especially appropriate when decorating fireplaces, kitchens or bathrooms, but you can find other uses for tiles.

Often, painted tiles are quite catchy - they will stand out noticeably in the interior setting, so the design of a room with such a decor should be carefully thought out.

Tiles are antique painted clay tiles with traditional patterns, simple images of landscapes, people or animals. In different countries, different ornaments were characteristic for such ornaments.

Russian tiles were usually decorated with flowers and plant elements, oriental tiles with small patterns and images of animals, and Dutch tiles were used to depict everyday scenes from the life of peasants.

In the old days, for the manufacture of decorative tiles, molds were made from a separate material, into which clay was then laid out, after which the tiles were fired. Modern craftsmen who create handmade tiles make such forms from plaster. Also, in modern stores, you can now find many typical tiles made in factories - they are in no way inferior in quality to traditional options, but they will cost you much less.

If you like to work with your hands, you you can try to make tiles yourself... First, one tile is fashioned, then it is placed in liquid gypsum, and when the gypsum hardens, using the resulting shape, you can make as many tiles as you need. At the same time, remember that the usual modern oven has insufficient heating temperature for firing clay.

In the old days, the tiles were painted by hand. Unique tiles with unique handmade patterns you and now you can order from private masters or try to paint yourself... Usually tiles are coated with ceramic glaze, or acrylic paints are used in combination with acrylic varnish. In this case, manual work will be expensive or require your own time and effort. In hypermarkets for home goods or in online stores, you can buy affordable factory-made tiles - they will not be unique, but they will cost significantly less.

If you are looking to purchase tiles from a repair shop, give preference to European, Belarusian manufacturers, as well as factories from Russia... Models from India and China may have a more attractive price, but such products will not always be of high quality - you can especially often encounter poor-quality painting, which is unevenly applied or quickly erased. Tiles are often sold in whole sets of several.

Interior decoration with tiles has been used since ancient times. Painted clay tiles with embossed images have been an important part of arts and crafts in many countries in Europe and the Middle East. Now decorating a home in this way has become fashionable again.

Decorative tiles in the interior have the following characteristic design features:

• Most often, modern tiles are decorated with traditional ornaments. At the same time, in different countries, the elements of patterns, relief and colors varied significantly, so you can find a very diverse tile that will fit into almost any interior. Most often, tiles are used to decorate fireplaces, window sills, kitchens and bathrooms in country-style houses, in classic and neoclassical interiors, in Provencal and Art Nouveau furnishings. Even in combination with modern furniture elements and fashionable unusual finishes, tiles with traditional ornaments look good - this solution is suitable if you value eclecticism in the interior.

• Tiles are now also made with modern abstract patterns - there are much fewer of them, but similar options can be found. Very often, modern tiles do not have a painting and are painted in one color - at the same time, an interesting relief pattern is made on them. Such models are perfect for fashionable interiors with a laconic design. Unlike painted items, they will not be overly variegated in a minimalist interior, but they will allow you to add zest to the usual decor.
• In traditional interiors, tiles could lay out the entire fireplace portal or the entire wall along the kitchen. In most modern rooms, such a solution can look overly extravagant. Tiles are often combined with ordinary ceramic tiles - glossy or matte with a single color. In this case, the tiles will become only a bright accent in the room setting and will allow you to refresh the interior.

Decorating a room with tiles has a number of advantages. In particular, this is a fairly simple and effective way to add variety to the familiar environment if you are bored with the previous design of the room. To make the interior interesting, it is by no means necessary to undertake a major overhaul - such bright accents as tiles will allow a familiar room to sparkle with new colors.

Another advantage of tiles is, of course, the variety of products with a wide variety of decor. You can find bright or discreet options, patterns with relief or smooth painted tiles. It will be possible to choose a suitable ornament for tiles for almost any interior.... Finally, the big advantage of decorative ceramic tiles over many other decor options is their practicality. High-quality ceramic tiles with the correct relief without sharp corners can be difficult to break if they are already laid on the wall.

Tiles can be extremely diverse. Some of them may have a natural terracotta color as the main one, and laconic painting will be made on it. At the same time, there are glazed decorative tiles - these are glazed products, which are first covered with a single color, and then painted on top with the help of other colored glazes.

In addition, you can come across the most diverse patterns on the tiles - for example, zoomorphic or floral designs are especially popular... Among other things, painted tiles can have different patterns and sizes. When choosing the right products for you, you should consider all of these characteristics together.

First of all, the tiles are distinguished by their design. In different cultures, such decorative clay tiles were designed in a special way, therefore there is a huge variety of types of tiles with one or another design style. If you are going to decorate a room using colored tiles, it will be useful for you to familiarize yourself with various traditional motives.

Consider the following types of traditional ceramic tile murals:

• Yaroslavl painting on the tiles includes a large light flower in the center with a square frame. The most commonly used glazes for these tiles are white, red and green. The relief on such items is not very pronounced, but it repeats the painting - the image elements are usually quite large and contrasting in relation to each other. These bright and catchy designs are great for traditional interiors that lack accents.

• Gzhel Is a special painting that combines only two colors - white and deep blue. Flowers and leaves are usually depicted, but they are quite minimalistic and decorative. White and blue simple painting is perfect for decorating a fireplace or kitchen - such tiles will look restrained, elegant and stylish. You can create an interesting design if you combine tiles and dishes with such a painting - you can find teapots, cups and vases that will create a successful set.

• Kaluga tiles stand out from the rest - since they have not a square, but a slightly elongated rectangular shape, the painting also gravitates towards the vertical. At the same time, the images on such tiles are quite laconic: they usually have a bright frame, a large white space inside and a miniature drawing in the center. Most often, it is a stylized floral ornaments - the forms are as simple as possible and painted over with one color. At the same time, sometimes you can come across the image of houses, people and landscapes on tiles made in a similar technique.

• Antic tiles are tiles covered with rich green paint - more often it has grassy shades, however, there are also emerald options. The painting of such tiles is extremely minimalistic - the image is transmitted to a greater extent due to the pronounced relief with carefully worked out details. With the help of painting, this relief is distinguished along the contour, using slightly darker and lighter shades of green.

• Decorative ceramic tiles with oriental painting covered with small light ornamentation applied over a layer of deep dark glaze - often blue, brown or green tiles. Floral ornaments are characterized by beige and golden colors. They also depict animals, horse riders or branches with fruits - all the ornaments have many small details, and the painting is done with a thin brush. Usually, no more than two or three colors are used, which allows such tiles to look very stylish.

• Dutch tiles - these are smooth tiles without relief, but they have a complex painting. White background and blue color of the picture predominate, occasionally you can find separate details of yellow and terracotta colors. Such tiles usually depict scenes from the everyday life of peasants. The painting is worked out to the smallest detail, so the tiles resemble small paintings - such decor will adorn an exquisite and restrained interior.

• Italian tiles in the majolica technique, they are distinguished by bright and cheerful colors. Yellow, orange, terracotta and light green shades prevail, and the ornaments are quite simple, but elegant - usually these are large floral patterns. It is customary to avoid contrasting shades in Italian painting, therefore, despite its brightness, it does not look too catchy.

Rump is a convex frame along the contour of the tile on its reverse side. It gives strength to the tile. In addition, the rump was especially important for decorating stoves - it allows you to better keep warm.

Mostly the presence of a rump was typical for traditional tiles, but some modern models also have it. Rumpa can be of any shape. Sometimes it is a round frame, and sometimes a kind of grid with grooves is made.

The shape of traditional tiles was not very diverse. Usually these are small square tiles - four tiles can be folded into a surface equivalent to a standard square tile in measurements. Thereby tiles, in the absence of a rump, can very easily be combined with ordinary ceramic tiles.

However, you can also encounter tiles of non-standard sizes. Most often these are rectangular products - they can be oriented both horizontally and vertically. Such products are easiest to insert into brick or masonry, and they are also suitable in case you decide to decorate the entire stove or kitchen wall with tiles.

Tiles are any painted tiles. Most often they are embossed, but this is not at all a prerequisite.... You can find individual products that convey the image through the form, as well as products on which there is exclusively painting.

Smooth tiles, first of all, are characteristic of the Dutch tradition, and you can also find similar modern designs - most often these are options with complex painting, which is difficult to emphasize in relief. If the image is massive and simple, it is emphasized by smooth streamlined protrusions.

By no means always on decorative tiles there is a pattern highlighted in color. You can come across options that imply solely relief - this is more common in samples with modern designs than in traditional products.

If we consider the tiles that were used in the old days, the relief there is usually accompanied by color changes. These can be shades of the same enamel color, which will be barely noticeable. In addition, very often only two colors are used: the main background color and the second color for the picture - for example, this is typical for Gzhel.

The possible ornaments on the tiles are extremely varied.

Consider the following popular options:

• Floral and vegetable ornaments are most common in all cultures. At the same time, sometimes the images are made almost naturalistically, and sometimes the patterns are so decorative that one can distinguish in them only hints of flowers and leaves.
• Abstract ornaments are typical for both traditional and modern tiles. Rhombuses, triangles and squares create interesting compositions or complement other designs.
• Animal images can look very interesting on tiles. Ornaments with real animals are characteristic of the Russian and European traditions, and mythical creatures can be seen on the eastern tiles.
• Scenes from everyday life, images of peasants at work or horse riders can often be found on European tiles.
• Landscapes are less common on decorative tiles. However, you can find options with the image of the sea, mills, houses or trees.

Traditionally, miniature tiles were made in the size of 15x15 cm, and the larger ones - 22x22 cm.Nevertheless, now you can encounter other sizes - in particular, small tiles are made in the size of 10x10 cm so that they can be combined with ordinary ceramic tiles.

If you are looking for unusual solutions, you can find elongated products measuring 10x15 cm.

The production of tiles that you see in stores is established in factories - glaze is applied to standard forms by machine in the form of a print. Such modern products can be called imitation tiles, since the tiles were originally made by hand. Now you can also buy handmade models, but they will cost more.

The technology for the production of tiles is relatively simple, although it is a laborious process:

• First, you need to sculpt the product with the desired relief. For this, ordinary sculptural plasticine may be suitable - if you wanted to make the tiles yourself, this material is the most affordable.
• The plasticine mold should be placed in a larger container or box. The front side of the tile should face outward.
• Gypsum must be carefully poured into the container and allowed to harden.

• After that, the gypsum blank is turned over, and the plasticine is removed - it is no longer required.
• Clay is laid out in the workpiece and fired. At home, the required temperature for firing cannot be achieved, however, some workshops offer the service of using their furnaces.
• After firing, the tile is covered with glaze, you can draw any patterns on it.
• Then, together with the glaze, the tiles are fired again, and the product is ready. Many typical tiles can be made with one plaster mold.

Decorative ceramic tiles can be widely used in modern interiors. Consider the following interesting room decoration options:

If you have a private house, you can decorate the facade of the house with tiles. Previously, tiles were actively used in architecture.

You can successfully decorate a fireplace, barbecue or stove with decorative ceramic tiles. The portal can be fully tiled or combined with ordinary tiles or masonry.

Tiles can be interestingly used to decorate a modern kitchen. Most often, the wall along the countertop and the slab is tiled for easy cleaning. Painted items can also be quite successfully diversified with such a finish.

Decorative ceramic inserts can very well fit into the bathroom - they are usually inserted into the gaps between the laying of ordinary tiles, or vertical and horizontal strips of tiles are laid out.

You will learn more about tiles in the following video.