Building With Style: The Right Tile for the Job

I can't recall a job in which the tilework has not caused trouble. One reason is obvious: you create a skin of rigid material, with thousands of tiny joints, over a wood structure which swells, deflects, twists, and warps; and then you subject it to concentrated streams of very hot water and steam (in a shower) or spill various forms of grease and abrasive materials on it (in a kitchen), which you then grind in with your feet. The other reason is that homeowners are extremely irrational about tile. They like what they like, and only a few skeptics among them can be made to understand that, just because a tile is available or appears in a magazine photo,