Marble Hexagon Tile

What the geometry does to a floor

The interior angle of a hexagon is a hundred and twenty degrees, and three of those fill a circle exactly. Every junction in the field is a Y rather than a cross, and a Y does not line up with anything.

The consequence is that a hexagon floor has no direction. A square tile gives a room two strong axes running with the walls; a hexagon gives three that cancel each other out, so the surface reads as an even texture rather than as a layout.

Sheets and single pieces are different products

Two things sit on this page. Most of it is mesh sheets of small hexagons, supplied at sizes like 10 3/8x12, and the rest is individual marble hexagons around five inches across, laid one at a time.

They behave nothing alike. A sheet lands a whole patch of pattern in one movement and suits a small floor, a shower pan or a niche. A single five inch piece is field tile: each one shows its own veining, and the stone rather than the pattern is what the eye goes to.

Why the sheets are an odd size

A hexagon sheet cannot be a clean rectangle, because the outline of a hexagon field is toothed by nature. The maker trims it to something close to square and the dimensions land on awkward fractions.

It also means sheets interlock rather than butt together, so the teeth of one have to meet the gaps of the next. Getting that wrong shows immediately, which is the one thing a hexagon sheet is less forgiving about than a square one.

Where a hexagon field has to stop

A hexagon cannot end on a straight line without cutting every second piece in half, so the edge of the field is the problem the shape sets.

The traditional answer is a border: a plain band run around the field, which gives the toothed edge something square to finish against and absorbs all the half pieces into one line. It is why so many period hexagon floors are framed, and it is a decision to make before the quantity is settled.

The marbles in this range

White comes first, then gray, beige and a spread of browns, blues, blacks and multicolors, on polished and honed faces with one textured piece and a pair of waterjet cut examples.

Vein weight matters more on a hexagon than on a square, because the shape already gives the eye a strong figure to follow. A finely veined white marble lets the hexagons read; a heavily veined one puts a second pattern across the first and the two compete.

Where marble hexagon goes

A bathroom floor, a powder room, a shower pan, a niche, a backsplash and a panel inside a plain field. The small sheets suit anything with a curve or a change of plane in it, since a hexagon absorbs an awkward line better than a square does.

The rest of the stone sheets are on marble mosaics, the color on white marble tile, and every material on mosaic tile.