Porcelain Base Trim

The quantity is the perimeter, not the edges

This is the most common way a base order goes wrong. The perimeter of a room is a much bigger number than people expect, and it goes up faster in a room broken by alcoves, chimney breasts and door reveals.

A rectangular bedroom of ordinary size can take forty feet of base, and a hall with four doorways off it can take more than a room twice its area. Every reveal adds two returns.

Why tile a base at all

In most rooms the job goes to a painted wood baseboard, so the floor stops at the wall and a different material takes over from there.

A tiled base does not hand over. The floor turns up the wall four or six inches in the same face, and the room reads as one continuous surface. In a wet room it also means there is no wood at floor level, which is the practical half of the argument.

6x12 is the format this range is built on

Six by twelve takes the largest share, then 4x24, 3x24, 2 3/4x24 and 3 1/2x24.

Six inches is a generous base height and twelve inches is a manageable piece. The 24 inch lengths at lower heights are the alternative approach: fewer joints around the room, a shallower line up the wall, and a length that lines up with the joints of the larger floor formats sold elsewhere in the catalog.

Matte, following the floor

The face is matte on nearly all of it, with small polished, natural, honed and glazed groups.

A base has to match the floor it belongs to, and interior floor porcelain is predominantly matte, so the trim follows. A base in a different finish from its field tile announces itself along the entire perimeter of the room, which is the longest possible line for a mismatch to sit on.

The effects tell you which floors these belong to

Stone look leads the effects here, then slate, fabric, marble, concrete, resin, limestone and wood looks.

Fabric look sitting that high is worth noticing. A fabric look wall interrupted at floor level by a painted baseboard gives the illusion away immediately, so those ranges make a base as a matter of course. Fabric look tile is the effect it belongs to.

Thickness, and sitting proud of the wall

9 mm carries the range with a large group at 25/64 inch and a few thinner.

That is the depth the base will stand off the wall, which matters where a door casing, a cabinet or a radiator meets it. A casing is usually thicker than the base and the base stops against it, but a flush detail needs the figure known in advance.

Where a porcelain base goes

A bathroom, a wet room, a kitchen, a laundry, a commercial interior and any room where the floor is meant to read as continuous with the wall.

Moldings has the trim in every profile and material, and porcelain moldings the rest of the porcelain range.