How a pebble sheet is made
A pebble sheet starts as a graded pile. Stones are graded by size first, so the ones on a sheet fall within a narrow band, then by color, which is what produces a named blend instead of a random scatter. The sorted stones are then set onto a flexible mesh backing so a sheet can be handled as one piece.
Nothing is shaped after that. The dome on the top of each stone, the way one sits against the next and the irregular gaps between them are all left as the river made them, which is why no two sheets of the same blend are alike.
Whole pebble and sliced flat
Two forms run through this range. A whole pebble keeps its dome, so the surface rises and falls under a foot. A sliced pebble has been cut through, so the face is flat and the cut reveals the inside of the stone, which is frequently a different color from its weathered outside.
The choice between them decides the surface more than the color does. Whole pebble is textural and reads as a riverbed; sliced pebble reads as a stone floor with irregular pieces, and it gives a level surface that furniture will stand on.
Why pebble suits a shower floor
A shower pan is not flat. It falls toward a drain from every direction at once, which is a compound curve, and a rigid tile has to be cut into small pieces to follow one.
A pebble sheet solves that by being made of small pieces already, each sitting on a flexible mesh that can take up the fall in two directions without a single cut. Shower floor tile gathers what else works on a pan.
The joint is most of the surface
This is the property that separates pebble from every other mosaic. Round stones touch each other at points, so the gaps between them are wide, deep and irregular, and the joint ends up occupying far more of the finished surface than it does on a square mosaic.
That has two consequences worth knowing before choosing one. The joint material becomes a visible part of the color of the floor, and the finished surface is as much joint as it is stone, so the color chosen for it changes the look of the whole sheet.
Pebble blends and their names
Multicolor and white lead the color list, then black, green, beige, gray and brown. The blend names run to rivers and places, and to plain descriptions of what is in the mix.
A multicolor blend is the one that looks most like a riverbed, because that is what a riverbed is. A single color blend is a deliberate sort, and the tighter the sort the more the sheet reads as a designed surface.
Sheet size and coverage
Almost all of this range is 12x12, which means one sheet covers one square foot, and almost all of it is 3/8 inch thick, with a larger 17 3/4 inch square and a taller standing pebble in small numbers.
The 3/8 inch figure is the height of the stones above the mesh, and it is worth comparing against whatever the pebble meets. Where a pebble shower floor runs up to a tiled wall or a curb, the two thicknesses have to be reconciled at that line.
Where pebble goes
A shower floor first, then a steam room, the floor of a wet room, a spa surround and a band set into a plain tiled floor. It also works as a wall panel behind a basin, where the texture is seen rather than walked on.
For mosaic across every material and shape, mosaic tile is the full range, and marble mosaics covers the cut stone sheets.
