Where the warm color comes from
Travertine forms where mineral-rich water reaches the surface at a spring and deposits calcium carbonate as it cools and loses carbon dioxide. Whatever else was dissolved in that water comes out of solution with it, and iron compounds are what produce the warm tones the stone is known for.
More iron gives a deeper walnut, less gives a pale cream, and almost none gives the silver grays. Beige is the middle of that range and the commonest outcome, which is why most travertine anybody has seen is beige. Gray travertine tile is the version with the iron absent.
Shade variation runs the whole scale here
The pieces in this small range that publish a variation figure sit at low, medium and high, all within the same color name.
That spread is the honest measure of what beige covers. A tightly sorted cream travertine can be near uniform; a banded walnut one varies piece to piece enough to read as several stones. The figure on the individual listing tells you far more than the color does, and pieces for one surface should come from one lot either way.
Honed and filled carries the range
Honed leads the finishes, with honed and filled, tumbled and a beveled piece behind it.
Filling is the step that decides what a travertine is. The stone has open cavities through it, and filling closes them with a cement or resin before the face is honed flat. An unfilled travertine keeps the holes open, which is a texture rather than a fault. Travertine tile sets out filling in full.
The beveled edge
A beveled travertine has the top edge of each piece eased or chiseled back rather than left square, which is a treatment that shows up in stone far more than in fired tile.
What it does is draw a shadow line around every tile. A floor of square-edged pieces reads as one plane with joints in it; a beveled floor reads as a set of individual stones, which is the older and more rustic effect and it suits a tumbled or unfilled surface.
The formats and the half inch
18x18, 12x24 and 12x12 lead the sizes, with 24x24, 16x16, a 5 1/2 inch square and a 3x6 brick, at 3/8 and 1/2 inch thicknesses.
Half an inch is thicker than most tile and it is common in stone at the larger sizes. It matters where this floor meets another one, since a half inch travertine stands proud of a 3/8 inch tile in the next room and the difference is taken up in the bed rather than at the threshold.
Where beige travertine goes
A floor, a hall, a bathroom, a shower wall, a fireplace surround and a terrace in the thicker pieces. It is the stone that has paved warm climates for two thousand years, and the color did as much of that as the durability.
Travertine tile is the full range, travertine pavers the outdoor pieces, and beige tile and mosaic everything else in the same warm range.
