To wood or not to wood?

We love wood floors.  They are so warm and inviting.  We love the look, the feel, and the class they add to a space.  Another thing that we also love is having our two boys.  These things may be mutually exclusive.  We love encouraging their innate boy traits, such as their full body playing, running, climbing, and exploring. They are often accompanied on their many adventures by toy trucks and other manly objects.  For our home remodel, we love wood floors and were dying to see them in our space, but we love for our boys' to feel free to be adventurous and free at the same time.  I didn't think I would feel ok seeing metal Tonka trucks flying around my house on a brand new wood floor.  Once I found out that wood floors are also a bad combination with pools, the idea was completely off the table (my Littles are part fish, especially Little One).  We began looking at tiles but we were having a very hard time coming across something that had the feel we were searching for.  Then, like a knight on a white horse, wood look tile walked into my life.  Don't get me wrong, not all wood look tiles are created equal, and some are downright horrible, but if you keep looking, you can come across some beauties.  They are becoming increasingly popular in Europe and you can find some beautiful products if you put in the time while searching.

Here are some of my tips for finding the best wood look tiles: 

1.  Look for longer planks.  Standard planks are 24" long.  If you have a large space, they can look a little busy and fake.  I searched for 36" planks to look more like real wood.

2.  Look for color body porcelain.  This is porcelain that is colored all the way through rather than just the surface.  If a color body tile chips, it will be hard to notice, if a regular tile chips, it will look white.

3.  You want rectified.  A rectified tile can usually be set with a smaller grout line 1/8 or 1/16 and I have even seen 1/32.  The smaller the grout line, the more natural the look.

4.  Grout color matters!  Pick a grout color that matches your tile as closely as possible.  Lay out a board ahead of time with some grouted tiles to make sure you have and right and are happy with your choice.  Once it is down, there is no going back.

And now, I want to share some of my favs.

Emil Ceramica's line called Golden Wood comes in a variety if colors and it is rectified for smaller grout lines.  These planks are available in 6x24 or 6x36 I believe.

Ergon WoodTalk looks unbelievably natural.  It has a hand scraped look and it come in several sizes that when put together make a beautiful, unique floor.  Several colors available.

Albero makes these 5x32 planks that look nice in this gombe color.

Gorgeous perfection should be the name of this beauty, but Tabula Bianco is what she goes by.  Beautifully, perfectly colored 6x36 planks would look great in so many spaces.  We were looking for a darker "wood" but this was so beautiful that we almost changed our whole design to accommodate this.

Finally, we decided to go with this 6x36 Marazzi American Hertiage tile.  The longer planks and hand scraped look give it a more realistic look and it has a deeper color that worked with the look we were trying to achieve in our home.  This photo doesn't do it justice, but I wanted to show you a photo that captured the texture of the tile.  This tile is rectified so we are going to try to have it placed with a 1/16" grout line with a dark brown color.

Here's hoping we get the wood look that we love, but the durability that the Littles need.

*Side note for anyone doing a remodel, this was BY FAR our most difficult choice.  We spent months (yes, months!) agonizing about this.  There were some ugly moments in our marriage and frustrations were high.  Once we got past what for us was the hardest decision, the rest started finally falling into place.  Oh yeah, and we remembered how to talk to each other again.  Remodels and renovations are hard!