Choosing Pool Tile

This weekend I'm going to look long and hard for my camera cord, but until then I'll leave you with some of the tile options we considered for our pool. These are all from National Pool Tile and Stone, where California Pools gets most of their tile.

This is the tile California Pools took the liberty of installing after knocking out our existing tile:

Not gonna work for us. We loved our beautiful, ornate tile, and these plain blue tiles just don't cut it. So we were back to the drawing board.

The first option we considered was 1x1 glass tiles. I love the look of these. Sort of a retro modern combination. The first three are OceanScapes. These are by far my favorite. But then we inquired about the price. $50+ per square foot! Our glass tile dreams ended there. So we looked at a similar alternative, Mini Koyn tiles (the last two above.) When we saw the actual sample, they looked like cheap plastic. No thanks!

Next we looked at stacked stone. I really like the texture these create. This Ledger Stone was absolutely beautiful! Unfortunately we were restricted to tile that is 5/16" thick or less, otherwise it would stick out further than our cap tile (the beige tile that lines the very top of the pool). The stacked stone was out.

So we were back to ceramic tiles. We knew we wanted something with a pattern, similar to our existing tile. We considered the Casablanca and Luciana tiles. But we decided the varying colors and overly ornate patterns could quickly look dated.

In the end we decided on Moonbeam in Cobalt Blue. It is reminiscent of our existing tile that we love so much. And since it's a 6"x6" tile, instead of a 2"x2", it looks a little less blocky when applied all the way around the pool. Can't wait to share photos with you!