Why the cut edge matters here
Travertine formed at a spring, where water deposited calcium carbonate and gas escaping through it left cavities running through the rock.
Sawing a slab into large floor pieces cuts through a handful of those. Sawing it into small chips cuts through a great many more, and every one of them opens onto an edge. That is why a travertine mosaic reads as a far more textural material than a travertine floor.
Filled, honed and the alternatives
Honed leads the finishes here, with honed and filled, tumbled and rock face pieces alongside it.
Filling closes the cavities with a cement or resin before the face is honed flat, and on a mosaic that means filling them at the edges too. Left unfilled the sheet keeps its open texture, which is a deliberate choice rather than a lesser product. Travertine tile sets out filling in full.
The sizes run to both extremes
This small range holds a 3/4 by 3/4 inch chip at one end and a 6x72 strip at the other, with sheets at 10 3/8x12 and 12 5/8x12 5/8 and pieces at 9 inches, 2x4 and under an inch.
Those are two different products under one heading. A tiny chip sheet is a texture; a six foot strip is a wall panel. There is nothing in the middle because travertine is not usually cut to middling mosaic sizes.
Thickness varies more than usual
The thickness figures on this page run from 3/8 of an inch to an inch and a quarter, which is a wider spread than almost any other mosaic material shows.
The thicker pieces are the textured and split ones, where the relief is part of the product, and the thin ones are flat sheets. It is the figure to check before a travertine mosaic goes anywhere near another material, because the difference at a joint is substantial.
Why travertine mosaic is nearly always warm
The color list here runs beige and brown with a single gray, which is a narrower spread than the field tile version of the same stone carries.
Small pieces concentrate the effect of iron. A cream travertine cut into a large tile reads as a pale neutral; the same stone in chips puts hundreds of warm edges into a square foot and the whole sheet pulls warmer than the slab it came from. The gray travertines go the other way for the same reason.
The named travertines here
Tuscany, Noce, Durango and a silver run through this small range, and those names describe tone rather than a single quarry.
Noce is the walnut brown end, Durango a Mexican cream, and the silvers are the grays that form where the spring water carried little iron. Gray travertine tile and beige travertine tile cover the two ends in field format.
Where travertine mosaic goes
A shower floor, a bathroom floor, a backsplash, a border inside a larger field and a wall panel in the longer strips.
It suits a room that wants warmth and texture rather than pattern, since travertine has banding and cavities but almost no veining to speak of. Stone mosaic tile opens the same sheets out to the other quarried stones.
