Below are some examples of color and surface treatment that we were looking at. They are pretty amazing.
There are some drawbacks to this tile too. Although the colors are beautiful they are achieved in a pretty organic proces. There is a lot of variety within each color and the actual product may differ quite a bit from what you expect.
Also because the mosaic is handmade in Poznań the wait may end up time-prohibitive in case of many projects. Both of these problems happened to us. Instead of expected 4-6 weeks we waited 14 weeks which messed up our schedule tremendously. Also one of 2 alternate colors we picked for the guest bathroom ended up dramatically different than what we expected from the samples. Fortunately (although with a lot of effort and time) we were able to matte the surface of the color with fine sand paper to get rid of the shiny gold that was supposed to be rusty textured brown.
We hired a new contractor to do the tiling which ended up quite an arduous task. Each element of the mosaic slightly differs in shape and size so even though they come glued on a 30cmx30cm mesh sheets you have to cut out nearly all perimeter pieces of each sheet and reposition them to avoid big gaps and uneven grout width. It required nearly constant supervision as the tiler had a very hard time with this job especially in the beginning.
The diamond shape mosaic for the guest bathroom came out excellent. This patterns has more chic charachter and a very nice unusual snake skin-like texture.
It has 2 alternate colors. One grey metallic with a slight iridescence and a patina rusty copper. Before ordering the tile we have tested several pattern options with available 2 and 3 alternate colors that you can choose at no additional charge.
But after trying about a 100 most complex combinations we ended up with the most simple 2 color pattern.
The other pattern that we used in the master bathroom with a single greenish-grey color caused even more trouble. It has a nice unusual small rectangular shape but is also very irregular in terms of size and tile thickness. It is extremely tedious in application and requires a lot of care and coordination. After gluing the tile several pieces had to be taken out and repositioned again. It is not perfectly aligned but it is part of the character of this tile.
We have also underestimated the area an ran out of the mosaic. We had to reorder additional 2 square meters to cover the wall and top edges of the bathtub and wait for them for several more weeks. The color and the variety within the color was much stronger than the original batch but luckily the transition happens at the corner of two perpendicular wall surfaces and under the sink in the most inconspicuous place. We have laid and grouted that last part ourselves as we have learned the process while working with our original contractor.
We have used linear cove lighting in both bathrooms that emphasizes the 3-dimensional surface of the mosaic tile in both bathrooms. We have applied it from top to bottom and on all walls, which we were able to do it also because of the compact size of both bathrooms. In general we are very happy with the bathrooms. The mosaic gives them a very distinctive character and is among more interesting features in the apartment.
Since the concrete job in both showers and the raised floor in the master bathroom were screwed up we decided to tile the shower floors and replace the cheap drains installed by the first contractor. It required breaking the concrete around the drain. We have installed the new floor drains and completely sealed the showers floors with a special heavy duty rubber-like surface used for sealing balconies and roof terraces.
We have also recreated the threshold to the shower in the guest bathroom. The threshold was made out of cast concrete in a custom form made out of laminated particle board up-side-down. After curing we have placed the new threshold in the shower before sealing and tiling it.
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