The copper border tiles we ordered finally came in a few weeks ago. To accent the main tiles we decided to put a 3″ border of tiles around the shower. We looked around and picked out the Sonoma Tilemakers MoSuprema 1×1 tiles in Heritage Copper. We really liked the look of these tiles, the glaze is actually copper and it looks great next to the gloss of the main tiles. The tiles were extremely expensive though, about $60 a square foot. Fortunately we only needed three sheets, so it wasn’t to big a deal.
I was rather disappointed with the tiles when they arrived. It seems that these days, handmade is just an excuse for poor quality. On a handful of the tiles, the glaze looked poorly mixed and the tiles really looked quite bad. A few others looked like they had gotten big nicks in them before they were glazed, and then a significant number of them had ledges on the bottom, such that they wouldn’t lie flat. I was fortunate to notice the first two problems before installing them, and pick those out. The last one however made installation quite difficult, and has resulted in some unevenness that I’m not happy about. The back of the tiles were covered in two layers of paper mesh, which in some spots covered almost all of the back of the tile, and I was worried that they wouldn’t adhere well. Fortunately after tediously removing one layer, they seem to be ok. Despite all these problems they do look incredible and really add some character to the bathroom.