Clearance Mosaic Tiles

Why a stone lot is final

A marble mosaic is sawn from a block, and pieces from one block share their color and veining because they were inches apart inside the mountain.

When the block is worked through, the next one comes from a different position and looks like it. A stone mosaic on clearance is therefore the last of something in a way a glazed sheet on clearance is not, and the two need thinking about differently.

A mosaic is the easiest thing to buy from a finite lot

Mosaic is used in small quantities by nature: a shower pan, a niche, a border, a band behind a basin, the floor of a powder room.

None of those needs much. A lot that would leave a floor half finished covers a pan and a niche with material to spare, which is why a clearance mosaic list is a far more usable thing than a clearance floor tile list. Everything else on clearance is in clearance tile.

What is actually in this range

Sheet sizes run from 12x12, which is most of it, through 10 3/8x12, 11 1/2x11 1/2, 12 5/8x12 5/8, 12 1/8x13 3/8, 11x17 and a spread of other dimensions.

That untidiness is normal for mosaic, since the pattern decides the sheet rather than the other way round. The series names are the usual stone names, Carrara, Alpina, Thassos, Paris and the silvers, alongside colored glass and blends.

Polished leads, as it does on any mosaic

Polished is the largest finish group, then glossy and honed, with a mixed gloss and matte group, rock face and textured pieces behind them.

A square foot of mosaic holds a great deal of cut edge and a polished sheet returns light from every one of those edges, which is the effect people buy a stone mosaic for. It is the reason polished outnumbers honed here and the ratio reverses on a field tile page.

Thickness is the thing to check

Most of this range is 3/8 inch, with groups at 25/64, 11/16, 1/4 and 3/4 inch and one listed as random.

Mosaic is almost always going next to something else, so the difference between a 3/8 inch sheet and an 11/16 inch one matters. It is the figure to settle before a clearance sheet is ordered, because unlike the quantity, it cannot be worked around later.

The colors clearance lists end up carrying

The colors start with white, then gray, multicolor and beige, with blues, browns, blacks and greens behind them.

A clearance list of field tile records a fashion: the colors that were over-ordered a few seasons back. A mosaic list does something slightly different, because a mosaic is bought as an accent and accents get chosen one at a time. What accumulates here is the odd sheet left from a hundred small jobs rather than the remainder of one big production run.

Where a clearance mosaic goes

A shower pan, a niche, a border inside a plain field, a backsplash, a powder room floor and a panel behind a basin.

Marble mosaics and glass mosaics carry the current ranges, and clearance backsplash tile the other clearance list built around a small surface.