When my good friend was renovating her place, she showed me some tiles samples to get a second opinion and feedback. It took quite some discussion before making up her mind.

While sitting there looking at her staring between the tile samples, I thought I would definitely have been able to make decision much faster if I were her.

I also read on a blog which remarked that the sales people refuse to let the husband to confirm the tiles without their wives, claiming that she was sick and tired of order changes. At the time when I read that, I laughed at that.

sigh…  

little do I know, I turned out to be the worst monster when it comes to tiles. Hahahaa.. I could laugh about it now since the tile choosing process is out of the way, paid for and waiting to be delivered. Pheew… one down and a gazillion more items to go. (le sigh)

The whole process took almost 4 months before arriving at my decision. Shocking? Hehehe… anyway, I thought I share with you my tile choosing process.

Manufacture / brand

There are many good brands available in Malaysia. Choose the one which you feel most comfortable with in terms of price range and tile varieties.

For us, hub and I decided that we will stick with the tile manufacturer our developer use since we need to get additional tiles to replace those which was destroyed during the renovation. So, Feruni it is.

Colour scheme

Luckily, hub’s only requirement for colours are, please choose happy and light colours (oh well – so, no dark hues for us).

Since I have always been a big fan of earthly tones, I started showing hub some ID pictures of earthly tone toilets. Good thing that he was ok with it. Yay !

You should also bear in mind what types of lighting you are planning to use. Warm light or white light gives off quite a big difference. Feruni provide this little mirror box for their customer to play around with the tiles. The only drawback is there’s no option for lighting here. So, I tried to simulate the light with flashlight and natural lighting.

Can you see the difference??? It’s the same tiles but under different lighting condition.

Range / Functionality

Once we decided on the colour, I moved on to check out the range Feruni has. Remember to always check with the tile specialist on the suitability of the chosen tiles.

e.g. Porcelain vs. Ceramic tiles, Floor tiles vs. wall tile. Outdoor vs. Indoor, wet vs. dry, and etc.

we head to Feruni’s showroom along Jalan 213 in Petaling Jaya. It was really great experience choosing tiles there. The sales person in charge of us was friendly, efficient, timely and reliable (not to mention, very patient with me – i think we went back there for like 4 times and change our tiles and room layout for like a dozen time). The best parts are the little square samples which they allow you to take as much as you want.

Being an engineer, I am quite anal about measurable results. Hehehe… So, armed with all the different range and colour of tiles, I set home for my experiment.

The tiles were grouped depending on the functionality. (e.g. Bathroom floor, Bathroom Wall, Kitchen Wall and etc.)

• Experiment one – Water Dispersion

a) Wall Tiles  

Setup                           : Placed selected tiles standing straight (Mimic actual wall tiles)

Test procedure             : Spray water onto tiles and observe.

Measurements             : Time took for water to trickle down.

 

b) Floor Tiles

Setup                           : Placed selected tiles on flat surface

Test procedure              : Spray water onto tiles and observe.

Measurements              : Surface tension of water.

Higher tension gives me the impression that residue is less likely to get trapped on surface of tiles over time. No ?

 

• Experiment two – Friction

a) Wall Tiles  

Setup                           : Placed selected tiles on flat surface

Test procedure             : Rub elbow against tiles 5 times. (DRY tiles)

                                    (Change elbow / rest before next tile. Stop when hurts)

Measurements             : the abrasive feeling (depends on how thick your skin ;p)

*** Force hubby participate by rubbing the tiles on his arm while he’s playing computer. He thinks I’m crazy. MUaHAHAHHAaaa… but it’s very important for wall tiles so that if you accidently rub against the wall, you will not get cut / hurt.

 

b) Floor Tiles

Setup                           : Placed selected tiles on flat surface

Test procedure             : Spray water onto tiles and Rub your thumb along the surface.

Measurements             : Friction available during wet condition (depends on senses)

*** Unable to obtain hubby’s data as he refuse to let go of his mouse. Was seriously considering to rub the tiles on his face but decided that it will be a bad idea to piss off the biggest shareholder. I try to find a tile which gives enough grip during wet condition.

 

 

• Experiment three – Staining

Setup                           : Placed selected tiles on flat surface

Test procedure             : Leave dark tea water marks all over tiles for 24 hours.

Measurements             : Notice-ability of stain

*** Hub was really impressed with this test as some tiles really LOVES stain. Imagine the horror if you had that particular tile install in area where spillage / staining is likely to occur.

 

Price / budget

From the experiment, some of the tiles were clearly winners but there’s always the budget constraint. Sigh…

The experiment stage had to be repeat several occasion due to budget reason. So, after conducting like several dozens of experiment, the results versus cost was analyse and the following were the decision we made.

Bathroom wall  : Natural matt series & Modern matt series

Bathroom floor : Modern rough series

Kitchen Wall    : Natural polish series

I think the most important thing at the end of the day is that you enjoy the process and not get too stressed out by it. I definitely had fun with my experiments. 🙂