It won't be any worse than the ceramic you wanted to use in the first place.

Good point, Bill. Most of the ceramics I am looking at are textured, but not all. I've had plain ceramic bath tile before and it hasn't seemed unreasonably slick.

>>It won't be any worse than the ceramic you wanted to use in the first place.but it will be more of a maintenance issue (staining)and those filled holes are likely to need refilled someday. I'd be hesitant to buy honed and filled travertine from my local big box store. I wouldn't trust the quality, plus, you might have to buy quite a bit more to get good looking tiles. Don't accept tiles with a large amt of filler. Have you considered a travertine-look porcelain? There are some very nice ones and porcelain will be practically bullet proof (minimum care). My travertine-look porcelain is lightly textured. The honed travertine in my entry is a little more slippery then the porcelain in our bathroom.
Monica

Thanks, Monica. I'm not terribly worried about upkeep. I use very few personal chemicals (no perfumes, hair dyes etc.) and I'm in the habit of steam cleaning anyway. I *like* the holes personally, I just don't think I'd want to be cleaning crud out of them.

I haven't decided yet if I will get the travertine, but if I don't I won't be getting an imitation tile. In my eyes, the travertine-look tiles don't look anything at all like travertine.

I suppose part of my sudden fascination with travertine floor tiles is because I really want a kitchen counter that looks like travertine but that's definitely a no-no for me! This is an unfortunate side-effect of wandering around stone warehouses for two days.

I'd be hesitant to buy honed and filled travertine from my local big box store.

That's a very good point. One of the ways they're able to bring down the cost of the tile is by the quality of filler used to fill the holes in the stone. The cheaper the travertine, the more holes there'll be to fill, and the cheaper the fill will be, meaning that within no time, especially using a steamer to clean, that fill will be coming out pretty quickly.

As for the countertop, try looking into 24x24 rectified porcelain that's made to look like travertine. It won't be cheap to get a good one, but if that's the look you like, it'll be well worth it.

Well I returned to the store for another look and possible buy at lunch today, and someone had beaten me to the punch. There was enough left over for one bathroom, but it was the bottom of the barrel left -- tons of filler and all the odd and ugly tiles.

So that ends that idea.

I am just not liking the ceramic/porcelain tile I've been seeing. Everything around here is imitation travertine or imitation slate and looks like neither, but it's the "hot" look. I may have to take a drive to the tile outlets Dalton, GA to get a bigger selection.

If you really like it, alabamanicole, I'm sure they could have some transferred in from another store for you.

We recently had honed/filled travertine 18x18s installed as part of our remodel. I purchased the stone at Home Depot for $2.99 per square foot. It is the blended walnut coloring.

It's been in this section of the house for several months now and I am very happy with it. No huge upkeep issues and we don't baby it at all. We are in the process of doing our master bath in the same material.

Just for your reference, I have included a picture of it. This is one of the vanity areas in my girls' jack-n-jill bath:

Sandy

We purchased special order honed ivory travertine from Home Depot. The first and largest batch was beautiful, and lighter colored. The second smaller batch, deeper, and not as pretty. Our tiler worked them in together nicely. The quality is noticeably better than the stock walnut stuff to my eyes, but I'm not sure everyone would notice that. We got it for around 5.80-ish per square foot. We did floor to ceiling in a smaller room, so we had to have ivory. Otherwise, I might have considered the stock walnut. I suggest buying lots/extra, and returning what you don't use. That way, you can hand pick the prettiest tiles.

I personally would go shop real stone tile yards and see what they have. You'd be suprised, they can often come very close to the big box store, especially for smaller amounts (they can clear out a lot of smaller stuff at great prices). I had to buy fill in for our bathrooms and laundry rooms and got great deals on very high quality travertine. About a buck per sq ft more than the big box store (and to be fair...I'd never have purchased from the big box but DH priced them).

As to the slippery issue...I have slightly polished travertine in two bathrooms with tubs/showers and they're not slippery, even when floating in quite a bit of water (we have a splashy 3 year old). No more so than the wood floors when they're wet. I also have travertine as my shower floor base, which is obviously wet, and it's not at all slippery, though of course we did do smaller tiles than the main floor to get the slope.

I don't know what your budget is for the kitchen, but if you really love the look of travertine (you'll hit me for this) you might want to try finding Lavastone. Lavastone looks like travertine but has the work horse properties of the hardest granite or stone. It never needs to be sealed, and it's beyond beyond gorgeous. The last person I told that to bought Lavastone and her husband sent me a personal email to tell me how much they love it, but also to ask me to quit telling his wife stuff :oP (It's not inexpensive LOL)

Anyhoo...just peak at it :) It's beyond beautiful!

I am sure I could find a shop to special order Lavastone for me, but $200+ per square foot is WAY out of my price range!

Although I'm avoiding the big boxes as much as possible, I'm afraid we don't have much in the way of real stone tile yards here. Exactly zero, I believe, although I have a lead on a brick place that carries tile that I haven't checked out yet.

Both bathrooms are fairly small in actual floor space to be covered, so a remnant of a nice material is exactly what I'm on the prowl for!

I could have predicted and bet on this. Yes, there are exceptions. But I've heard more horror stories about the fill coming out of the holes, time after time after time with cheap travertine, here, in the Kitchens forum, as well as personally seeing it happen.

Bill, that is good to know. Fill coming out is not something that crossed my mind, and I'm glad we went with the better stuff.

To the OP: Check out HD's custom/special order travertine. If you are just doing a floor, it may be worth it. Downside: you can't return the extra, but it may be worth it to get the look you want.

alabamanicole- not sure where in AL you are, but since you mentioned making a run to Dalton, you might consider a run to ATL instead. There are lots of tile showrooms for the higher-end stuff (intown, Norcross, and the Daltile showroom in Alpharetta come to mind) and Floor & Decor is right off I-85 intown for the less-expensive stuff. And there are plenty of other diversions for a good meal or the like while you're here.

Our honed travertine (master bath) came from F&D for something like $1.99/sq ft and has held up well for ~3.5 years. You have to catch it when they have a good bit on hand, but we were able to pick through and get exactly the pieces we wanted.

I defer to Bill V for expertise, but I found here that the prices varied widely but the travertine fill was always grout. I'm sure the quality of that even varies, and I suspect that the dimensional consistency varies too.

You're definitely going to need a good installer to handle the variations.

Thanks, thull, I will keep that shop name. I am probably getting my granite in Atlanta anyway, so a shopping trip is already on the plans for the future.

I am starting to wonder what else has a better selection and prices that I should save for an Atlanta trip.

I had to look really hard at our travertine tiles to see if there was any fill. I found a couple hairline places on a few tiles, but other than that, I don't see it. And no holes at all on the back of the tiles either. But, we paid around $7 sf for them from the The Tile Shop.

My hubby and I also tried REAL hard to find a porcelain look-alike through MANY stores, and we kept gravitating back to the real stuff. I would have given anything to find a porcelain we liked for easier maintenance.......but, it just didn't even come close to the real thing.

Good Luck with your search.

There are lots of showrooms to look at in Buckhead. Miami Circle has tile, fixtures, and Eclipse di Luna as a good place to get lunch. Unfortunately, the best place to look was the HD Expo, which didn't survive. But there is still the HD Supply Kitchen/Bath place on E Paces Ferry. And there were a couple of showrooms at E Paces Ferry and Peachtree Rd (not sure if they're still there). All within a mile of Miami Cir. F&D is probably another 4-5 miles up the road.

Cowan Supply, next to the Atlantic Station development near GA Tech used to have good prices on Toto fixtures. Not sure how they compare these days. Their showroom is very basic.

At least for me (champagne taste, microbrewed beer budget), most of the showrooms had ludicrous prices when we remodeled. Hopefully, the current economic reality has sobered them up a bit.

Where are you looking for granite? Tile or slabs?

I have most of my major stuff picked out, I think, except windows and doors. I still have two windows that I don't have final measurements on. Surprisingly, we do have a couple of very good plumbing supply places and I found a fantastic lighting supply place. I had to really look for them, though -- they aren't retail oriented. I will be sending out RFQs when I have firmer timelines on when I will need delivery.

I'd like to keep my money local, but there are limits. My experience so far is that the businesses in places more affected by the economy are ready to fight for my business. Yay for me. The out of town guys will be getting RFQs, too. I won't necessarily go with the low bidders, but something about asking people to price out a whole package keeps them honest.

Granite slab. I don't really care for granite tile, especially if the tile setter isn't fantastic. I've been to all the wholesale yards up here and the selection is pretty much black, black and black (OHM in Nashville was better). The fabricators here want $20 more a square foot for the same stone as the ones coming out of B'Ham and Atlanta. Given the relatively low cost of granite here and that I'll need only one slab (and not all of that), the alternatives to granite don't seem like bargains.

After pricing cabinets, granite seems cheap!

LOL Ok well I couldn't do the lava stone either but it was worth sharing :oP Now you can dream just like me :)

I went about two hours out of town to get most of my granite and marble...it was worth the drive, even with a sick infant in tow. I got some real deals on the travertine :) I just searched their boxes for what they had just a little of and was able to get a bargain price by taking it all (not much, small rooms) so consider making a drive :)