Can a Ceramic Floor Look Like Real Stone?

Ceramic floor tiles with a natural stone finish
For those looking for a cheaper alternative to stone, choosing a ceramic floor is certainly an option…

Visit high street stores, browse the internet or look on auction sites to see what bargains you can pick up.

By shopping carefully you could find a floor that looks as good as the real thing. Colours come in all sorts of shades, from rich reds to rusty browns and from warm sandstone shades through to slate blues.

Ceramic Tiles also come in varying shapes and sizes – whether you are looking for large oblong slabs for your new kitchen breakfast room or small squares for your bathroom, the benefits of going down the ceramic route are numerous, and include both flexibility and durability.

A slate-look floor

The beauty of Real Slate cannot be under-estimated – from its deep colours through to its wonderful textures.

Real slate comes in blacks, dark blues and rusty browns. It can be roughly textured, riven or even honed. When you buy a batch of slate you never quite know what you will get in terms of patterning and colouring.

How close you can come to the appearance of natural slate with a porcelain tile really depends on the look you are going for.

If you are wishing to achieve a highly textured, roughly hewn style then ceramic is likely to look just too finished to be close to the real thing. If, however, you are going for a much sleeker slate look – a uniform dark colour and a smoother finish, then your ceramic tile is likely to pass muster.

Don’t forget one of the great benefits of opting for an artificial slate is that it will be much more impervious to water spillage and therefore damage.

Natural stone

A faux-stone floor does have a number of benefits over a real one. To begin with, it requires much less maintenance. Sealing and having to carry out a regular programme of maintenance will not be an issue.

Scratching and chipping is also much less likely. If you are looking for a ceramic style that creates a limestone look then you will find examples that do their best to replicate uneven surfaces and slight variations in lightness.

These engineered tiles, which often have a very matt finish, can come in large pieces and even when close up can be almost impossible to separate from the real thing.

Faux travertine

If you are looking for something that emulates a travertine floor, however, and brings that cool European feel to your room, then look for a light Italian-style porcelain tile.

Once again, the light veining through these man-made products can really help to create the illusion of the real thing. Team the large oblong or square tiles up with a border made from the same material to create a Romanesque look that appears completely genuine.

By using a porcelain or ceramic version of the stone you can achieve the same timeless look of cool elegance as with the real thing and you can create a floor that really makes a statement.

See Also
Stone floor tiles
Stone Flooring
Monochrome mosaic floor tiles
Period Flooring Ideas